Hundreds of African pastors now have reliable transportation thanks to money raised from a memorial motorcycle ride in Chaska each September.
This year’s 21st annual fundraiser, called the Jon “Just Get ‘Er Done” Memorial Motorcycle Ride, is set to depart at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 14, from McKnight Park (110400 Pioneer Trail, Chaska). Registration kicks off at noon and a dinner will be served at the conclusion of the ride at 4 p.m.
The ride is sponsored by the Spoke-N-Word Chapter of the Christian Motorcyclist Association and the family of the late Jon Just, including his parents Cindy and David Just of Chaska.
Tragedy Strikes
In early 2004, Jon Just was excited about his future. He’d recently graduated from the University of St. Thomas, married Melissa, the love of his life, and started working full time at United Properties in Bloomington.
But on Sept. 29, 2004, Jon was riding his motorcycle along I-494 on his way to church to meet up with his wife and help with a youth group gathering when he was involved in a serious accident. He was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.
“Melissa was waiting at church for him to come, and he was late,” Cindy recalls. “It got later and later, and she kept trying to call his cell phone.”
Eventually a nurse answered the phone, urging Melissa to come to the hospital. Melissa called David and Cindy, asking them to meet her at the emergency room.
“With me being a nurse and David having his full-time firefighter and EMT background, we both knew that Hennepin County is the major trauma center,” Cindy says. “We were concerned that it was pretty serious. We just drove and prayed and drove and prayed like crazy.”
As he drove, David says he played various rehabilitation scenarios through his head. Perhaps Jon would need a wheelchair, crutches and extensive physical therapy to recover. David says he knew the family was ready to tackle any challenge that lay ahead.
But unfortunately, Jon had already passed away by the time the family arrived at the hospital.
Cindy says her nursing background kicked in and she immediately went into caregiving mode, supporting her daughter-in-law and David as they dealt with the shocking news.
“I just stuffed my emotions at that point, because I was so busy trying to help,” she remembers.
Community Support
The Just’s oldest son and his new bride soon arrived at the hospital, and details for getting the Just’s youngest son home from Grand Forks, North Dakota, were slowly coming together. Miraculously, a private pilot at Jon Just’s church had recently filed a flight plan to Grand Forks and was available to immediately fly north to pick Nate up.
“It was God’s hand at work,” David reports. “We wanted the family to be together.”
In the following hours, dozens of friends, family members and fellow church members gathered at the hospital to support the Just family.
“We were surrounded by love and prayers,” Cindy recalls. “The hospital even allowed us to have a short prayer service in the room where Jon was.”
As funeral plans started coming together, the Just family was blessed by the outpouring of love from the community. So many people visited the family home in the coming days that the many cars parked along the road were an impediment to emergency vehicles, so an emergency vehicle was positioned in the neighborhood just in case there was a call for help.
Westwood Church offered its sanctuary for Jon’s funeral, knowing that the family’s home church — Valley Evangelical Free Church — was not large enough to accommodate the expected crowd. About 1,500 people eventually attended the service.
At the time of the accident, David’s marine business was in the midst of its busy season, readying boats for winter storage. His employees rallied around the Justs to get the job done as the family buried their loved one.
“One of our prayers from the beginning was that, even in the midst of this hard time, we could see God’s hand working and see evidence of his love and grace for us,” Cindy says. “We saw that every day. We were well loved.”
As the Justs returned to their daily routines, Cindy says grief appeared in unexpected waves, but the couple resolved that the tragedy wouldn’t ruin their marriage or dampen their faith.
“I know that there are a lot of families and couples that don’t make it through the death of a child. Everyone grieves differently, so we committed early on to give each other a lot of grace in the way we grieved,” she says. “But I don’t know that either of us ever went through a cycle where we were angry with God. I don’t know that I ever said, ‘Why me? Why us?’ Because my thought was ‘why not us?’ It happens to a lot of people.”
She recalls, however, struggling to understand why their prayers for a miracle weren’t answered.
“I went in circles for a while, but finally had to accept it,” Cindy says. “God is sovereign. But the hole left in our hearts and lives by Jon’s death is huge and will always be there. We’re grateful that the edges of that hole aren’t as raw as they used to be, and we’ve learned to live in spite of that huge hole.”
Remembering Jon
The following May, as what would have been Jon’s 24th birthday approached, several of his friends asked Cindy and Dave about planning an event to celebrate Jon’s life. Together, they decided to host a memorial ride in September.
“But I told them that we had to have a purpose,” Cindy remembers. “We can’t just ride and cry.”
The family had recently learned about a pastor in Ghana whose motorcycle had broken down and the loosely organized group decided to raise funds to replace it. While they had difficulty tracking down that specific pastor, the ride instead gathered enough donations to purchase three motorcycles for pastors in Nigeria.
“And thus it began,” Cindy says. “People told us the fundraiser would probably only last three or five years at the most, and then it’ll just kind of be done. That’s just the way these things go.”
Now, 21 years later, the effort has netted more than $800,000 in donations and more than 611 motorcycles have been donated to indigenous African pastors. The cost for each motorcycle ranges between $1,500 and $3,000.
“God had much bigger plans for this than we did in our little minds,” Cindy admits. “We’re so grateful that God is allowing us to be part of this.”
Delivering the Blessing
The Justs traveled to Kenya in March 2025 to present 35 motorcycles to new pastors who’d recently graduated from Africa Theological Seminary and 20 motorcycles to pastors with the Christian Mission Aid organization. Two additional motorcycles were presented to pastors in Tanzania later in the year.
In addition to the motorcycles, the pastors received helmets, reflective vests, reflective jackets, a tank of gas, a lock cable and insurance for a year.
The gift allows the pastors to travel efficiently throughout their countries to preach and care for their church members. Most indigenous pastors working in jungles, mountain villages and distant towns are limited to walking on primitive paths or poorly maintained roads.
“We got a thank you note from a daughter of a pastor who had received a motorcycle,” Cindy says. “She explained that he was spending so much time walking to his various places of ministry that he was hardly ever at home. She said she now has her dad back.”
The motorcycles also are used to quickly transport villagers to hospitals and clinics for baby deliveries and other medical emergencies.
“The motorcycles are not only blessing the ministry of these pastors, but they’re blessing their communities also,” Cindy reports.
Cindy says the family hopes to surpass $900,000 in total donations after this year’s memorial ride and help deliver more than 50 motorcycles to indigenous pastors next spring.
“One of our three prayers has been that we would be able to see God even in the midst of all this heartache and sorrow,” Cindy says. “The second prayer was that Jon’s life would still continue to impact others for eternity. And the third was that we could see it happen. God is doing all that.
For more information about this Sunday’s ride or to donate to the cause, visit www.jonjust.com. The public is invited to participate in the ride or join the family for the post-ride dinner at McKnight Park.
