Friday evening I went over to hang out with my next door neighbors and watch some mindless internet-tainment. We also ended up talking about how much we care about our students learning about who Jesus really is. That was an important part of my week because there are stresses involved in living in this community, but the genuine friendships I have with people like Josh and Morgan are super important to me as I serve my students. I also had students who have finished my class come over Wednesday and Thursday to make cookies and talk about theology. I also had some soul refreshing skype sessions that reminded me why I left the PNW to be a missionary.
It was an emotionally full week for me, but I couldn’t let that get in the way of my physical recovery. As I take a holistic approach to my healing, I can’t help but notice the connection to stress in my life with the physical advances (or lack thereof) I make. I wish I could report more developments, but slow and steady is a positive message too. I don’t need to report all the emotions, but perhaps just signaling that it was a full week juxtaposed to my lack of gigantic advancements is enough. I started a new semester, and this term’s schedule gives me three days a week to walk with Cindy during seventh period. After several weeks of exercising on my own, I was nervous about how my balance would be. We were both pleasantly surprised that I managed to walk quite well just holding one of Cindy’s arms if she kept me distracted with conversations about my students.
I’m really hopeful for this coming term to see a lot of development in my strength and stamina. Looking ahead, I’m praying about how to best use my summer to maintain and advance my abilities. I could really use global prayer support on that decision. I could also really use global prayer support on a few other requests. In fact, each year since my accident, I’ve created a Facebook event for prayer for me on my birthday which is coming up this next Saturday. You can join the public event by clicking here (hopefully) or by searching on Facebook for “Super Birthday Prayer.” I love celebrating my birthday by knowing hundreds of people are praying for me and praising the God who has given me so much healing.
The closeness of my accident date to my birthday wasn’t something I had much time to process the first year, but it’s something I’ve come to enjoy as I can ask the world to celebrate with me all the good the Lord has done in my life so far with no shame in asking for even more good gifts from a good, good Father.
