Donald Miller, best-selling author of Blue Like Jazz (Thomas Nelson Publishers), embarked this week on a cross-country bike tour to raise money and awareness for the need for clean water in Africa.

Miller was part of a 20-member team that left Santa Monica, Calif., June 9 to support Blood:Water Mission's "Ride:Well Bike Tour," which aims to drill 1,000 wells for Africans.

For a donation a month, Miller has offered a link to download the first chapter of his new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (Thomas Nelson Publishers), not due out until next year. "You'll be receiving this chapter more than a year before anybody else will be able to read it. One dollar provides clean water for one African for one year, so every small contribution helps," Miller wrote on his Web site.

Miller and other riders will be speaking at churches, schools and other community forums during the tour, which ends in Washington, D.C., July 26.

Blood:Water Mission is a nonprofit organization founded by the members of the multi-platinum, GRAMMY Award-winning band Jars of Clay to address the HIV/AIDS and water crisis in Africa.

For more information on the "Ride:Well Bike Tour," visit http://www.donaldmillerwords.com/ride/about-the-ride/.