5k Every Day in the Month of May (Day 14)

This morning I ran in the Aruna 5k in Dalton, OH. It was a nice little run. Several members of the Area 51 Youth Group also ran in the 5k, so that made it extra awesome.

Two of the guys who ran this morning are freshman in our Youth Group. I told them I would run with them as long as they didn’t walk.

“If you start walking, I’m out!”

That was the deal, and they rocked it! Neither of them stopped or walked once. Neither of them have been training for a 5k, so I would say that was pretty impressive. They did a great job and we got across the finish line in 26:22. That is an average pace of 8:30 per mile.

Mark Rowe was not far behind us and he came in under 30 minutes, which was great. The ladies in our group also did very well. They walked quite a bit, but they were walking like champions and I think they were having a good time while they were at it. After we crossed the finish line, we went back to walk it in with them.

It was a fun day and a good break from my solo runs.

It was also for a great cause! The Aruna Project is a non-profit project that exists to help free women in South Asia from the sex slavery industry. Check out their webpage for more information, but the basic idea is that they use the money from these 5k events to free women from slavery, then empower them to learn a skill or trade and to start to earn their own income through using that skill or trade.

As a part of the run, you can grab a piece of duct tape that has the name of a woman stuck in the sex slavery industry written on it. By doing so, you are symbolically running for that person’s freedom (and of course having an excellent opportunity to pray for that person by name).

The name of the lady that I ran for this morning was Ranjana. Please pray for her.

Last year three of our kids ran in the Aruna 5k. They kept their piece of duct tape and have prayed for those ladies faithfully for the entire year. They were excited to hear that I didn’t see those names available this year. We are believing that those ladies have been set free. Praise God!