Long Weekend

This Friday Germany celebrated unification day, so there were no classes for any of our students. All of my juniors had packed up Thursday night for a long field trip to Normandy ending Sunday night in Paris. The school graciously allows them Monday to recover from the sleep deprivation which meant I had a long weekend with time for adventure as well as prep before the students' return tomorrow.

Four days without classes gave me enough down time to rest as well as adventure a little. I spent Friday in France with Carol getting some suitable teaching clothes and a pair of heavy winter boots that my braces can fit into. Saturday Carol let me tag along with her family to a suburb of Freiburg to get some delicious Mexican food from a taco cart. Good Mexican food is much harder to come by in Germany than in America. Having the extra days off also gave me the energy storage needed to make it back to my church in Basel for the first time since before my accident. It's almost a four hour outing including all the drive time, and I am carefully guarding my time on the weekends to rest and reenergize for the week. However, I've missed the opportunity to gather with these brothers and sisters, and I was so thankful to make it back this week in particular. After the service, I met a woman who told me she had a similar experience to mine, and she encouraged me to keep persevering through this difficult recovery. 

I was so encouraged to meet another English speaker who understands my struggle experientially. I'm so grateful for the kind words from everyone I meet, but there is something very special about the few who can speak truth into my life with an empathy the majority of the world will never have. It is a precious gift. I have received so many precious gifts in the last several months, and I'll never stop being grateful for them. I'm grateful I can still teach; I'm grateful I can live independently; I'm grateful for the community of loving people who are helping and supporting me both here and across the globe.

However, I still have a lot of gifts to come, and I'm asking the Lord for everything else that I haven't yet received. I would like to move my feet independently again; I would like to have complete healing of function in my body; I would like to be able to walk without support from sticks or crutches.