Highs and Lows

Life is certainly a roller coaster full of highs and lows.  Two weeks ago I went to my surgeon for my last follow-up.  I thought for sure he would tell me to have a great life and stay off the hiking trails:) Instead he came into my room and broke the news to me that I have another fracture-straight up my tibia. I was shocked and frankly cried so hard I could not get it together.  It was pretty obvious it is broken and that more surgery would be required.  Blessedly the surgeon agreed that if I would get out my scooter and put no weight on it at all, I could still go on the mission trip I have been planning for 8 months for our group of 57!!

So with doctor's permission, off our whole family went on a mission trip to Philly with lots of friends and youth from church.  We took in a phillies baseball game, saw the Liberty Bell, and ate lunch at the Reading Terminal before checking into our campus dorms for our mission to start.  It was a wonderful trip and I am so thankful I could still go.  The whole week was amazing-watching our  adults and youth get split up into different ministry sites and serve so well around Philadelphia.  We had three give their hearts to the Lord for the first time, and several that want to get baptized now.  It was magical-we had six families go with lots of other teenagers.  Our day was filled with worship, bible study, ministry site work, and some downtime for showers and rest. 

Blessedly I got to serve with Mike, Kyle, David and all these other wonderful people at the homeless shelter named CHOC.  The staff at CHOC modeled true ministry to me everyday they were there.  They treated the homeless folks with respect and dignity and they are truly saving lives at this shelter.  I was so thankful to learn that my stereotype of a homeless person is actually very different than the reality.  We were encouraged to sit down and visit with the clients and I learned so much about life and grit from theses brave souls who came to CHOC for help.  Our group did some painting of walls for them, minor maintenance, and we were asked to design a mural on a wall!  Their goal is for CHOC to feel less sterile and more friendly and welcoming. 


While I was with the boys serving at the homeless shelter, this little love went to West Philly and played with children in the housing projects.  One of the chaperones sent me this and it melted my heart.  This girl has a heart for children and Jesus.

We will all remember 7/4/18 because we were in Philly serving the Lord.  We had a few hours of group time and we chose to go to see fireworks.  It was awesome to have such a large group with so many families participating in this trip.  It blows me away each year that parents take off from work to go sweat, get up early, chaperone teenagers, and sleep on crunchy and flat dorm mattresses for a whole week to invest in our youth.  Even on a scooter with limited mobility I had an amazing time.  It never gets old when teenagers ask you to pray with them and you get a front row seat of what God is doing in their lives.

Here is the mural our group painted and we added paintings from many of the clients to go on the wall!  It was amazing!

This is Mr. Charles who helps run CHOC.  He has literally and figuratively saved so many lives at CHOC in the last decade or so.  It is obvious he loves the Lord, loves his clients, and I was so thankful that he took time to teach our youth how to do small jobs.  They truly modeled genuine ministry.  I think sometimes we feel like "true ministry" has to be this expensive and overdone book or program, but Mr. Charles reminded me that ministry for the Lord involves listening, accepting folks for who they are, and helping them get their feet underneath them while showing friendship and love.  I will never forget those clients we met and how willing they were to share their stories and hearts with us.  It was a humbling reminder to me to never judge a book by its over. 

We came home from the trip with 6,978 loads of laundry and wonderful memories of serving together as a family.  Not even 36 hours after we got home, Mike and I were headed down the interstate to Kingsport for my third surgery on this ankle.  The ankle saga of 2018 has taught me so many lessons but here I am one day post-op and it hurts.  Sigh. 

One of the reasons I was so devastated to have more surgery is because David was scheduled to have his first ever visit at the survivors clinic at UVA.  Mike had to take him solo because I cannot travel this soon after surgery.  We are still waiting to hear about his echo and his labs, but everything else looks very good!  He is 5'1 and weighs 125 pounds!  Ha!  Here is David with Nurse Pat who is a legend and one of the best nurses ever.  She will be retiring in one month and I am so thankful Dave got to see her one last time.  The UVA pediatric oncology team will always be special to us. 

So I am so thankful for the wonderful memories we have already made with David's good checkup so far, our amazing trip to Philly, and lots of family time.  I am not thrilled to be back at square one with this stupid ankle, but I know our God can take everything and make it good:) He is so faithful!