As Father Matt Ruhl, SJ, approached the Santa Monica Pier on the first day of October, he glimpsed a group of several dozen friends and family cheering his arrival.
As the setting sun glistened off his sunglasses — a key part of his cycling attire for the past 12 weeks — he couldn’t stop smiling.
Ruhl and three companions were completing “The Lighthouse Ride,” named after the Baron Bliss Lighthouse that dates back to the 19th century in Belize, to help raise money to repair crumbling schools in the country. The group reached Santa Monica after cycling on July 15 at a lighthouse in Portland, Maine, and heading west through 15 states.
When the cyclists finished the final leg along Route 66 — a 90-mile run from San Bernardino that dodged Southern California rush-hour traffic to reach the iconic Santa Monica sign at the foot of the pier — Ruhl waved the group to continue onto the sand, lift their bikes in the air, and step into the Pacific Ocean.
“How can you not cycle across this country, seeing the mountains we did at the start and then the Mojave desert near the end, and not ask, ‘OK, God, what do you have to say?” said Ruhl, who started each day of the ride leading a group prayer and ending it with a Mass. “And God was busy talking. It’s not like we were doing this looking out a car window. We were in it.”
Two years earlier, Ruhl had been looking for ways to revive a deteriorating Catholic school he oversees in the impoverished Caribbean country of Belize. He cycled through ideas on ways to achieve a pie-in-the-sky goal of raising $5 million through connections he had across the United States.
The 66-year-old Jesuit priest, a pastor for the last five years at St. Peter Claver Church in Punta Gorda, Belize, decided a 3,800-mile cross-country bike trek across America was as good a plan as any.
After all, back in 2010 when he was pastor at St. Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City, Missouri, Ruhl rallied his parish cycling team to commit to a 5,000-mile ride from the state of Washington to Key West, Florida, joining Catholic Charities USA’s Campaign to Reduce Poverty.
In Belize, Ruhl chairs a diocesan commission that oversees 30 Catholic schools, 250 teachers, and 4,400-plus students who use 110 buildings in the Toledo district of Belize, where he serves. He figured he’d need $1 million to address all the disrepair. But when he looked at the four regions north of him in Belize, Ruhl upped his game, committing himself to serve all 112 Catholic schools and 36,000 students in the country along with its 432 buildings. The $5 million fundraising goal began with donations at the project’s website, lighthouseridebelize.org.
Ruhl, a St. Louis native who has become a naturalized Belizean after having lived in the country for some 30 years, has been trying to catch up on school repairs after the country gained its independence in 1981 and the Jesuits gave up administrative duties to the government.
Belize’s government uses tax collections to pay teacher salaries, but the Catholic churches are on their own to fund school-building maintenance, buying supplies, and maintaining nutritional programs.
As a result, Ruhl said ongoing issues can be as basic as combating the fruit bats that inhabit the weather-beaten facilities and affect children with asthma. Termites are also a nuisance. Malnutrition is epidemic.
“Every academic year we scrape by,” Ruhl said. “It’s not just about our grade-school kids. If they aren’t making it through, there are fewer going to secondary schools and universities, so they will feel it. This has a much larger scope.”
Tom Makarewicz, a seminary classmate of Ruhl some 40 years ago and one of the three other cyclists, said of the priest: “He touches my heart with his love for the people of Belize, especially the children. This means so much to him. He has said he’ll go to his grave to fulfill this mission.”
Olive Woodye, a retired schoolteacher and former principal at St. Benedict’s RC Primary School, took an eight-hour flight from Belize with Claret Jacobs, the assistant local manager of Catholic schools in the Toledo district, to be part of a contingent of greeters at the Santa Monica Pier for the cyclists.
“We love Father Matt so much,” Woodye said. “I don’t know how he gets so many things done at our parish. He has been so passionate about the ride because he cares so much for everyone.”
Jacobs said that because of the daily issues they have at their schools, “we take nothing for granted. We know the importance of educating the children who may have parents that are not educated. This is a way to empower them, help their families and, by extension, help the world. We had to be here to see him finish.”
As of press time, the organizers said they had raised about one-third of their $5 million goal, but Jacobs said, “You know what, if we only raised $10, that’s $10 more than we had.”
Ruhl, who said he abides by a Nelson Mandela quote that “it always seems impossible until it’s done,” laughed when he heard what Jacobs said.
“I understand where she’s coming from, and she’s right,” he said. “But I give you my word, I will not rest until I have $5 million U.S. dollars in the bank. I am very focused on this. This bike ride may be over, but our mission continues. It is all about getting the primary Catholic schools in Belize rebuilt. With all the energy and enthusiasm here, and online, it’s a great, great beginning.”
