|
| This is an email I sent my family:
Today Blue Ridge Community Church hasn't exactly seen the best days.
When it sort of started off, at least since I had been there at 7:40,
things were great. The only things we had to worry about were getting
the pepperoni rolls out in time. But come eleven ten, people with
horrified faces started to file through the doors, some coming up to
the bakery to tell us what they saw. On 460, the main highway to get to
church, there was a terrible accident. An older couple on a motorcycle
going away from the church toward Lynchburg somehow jumped the median
into oncoming traffic, colliding head-on with a car containing a family
of about 4. The motorcycle blew up, causing the man on the motorcycle
to die on impact; the woman on the motorcycle had to be air-lifted to a
hospital because of her age and condition. I'm not sure how those in
the car are...as of this morning they were all still alive.
Knowing
that there are many at our church who drive motorcycles, people were
obviously asking around to see who had made it to church and who had
made it home after the first service. Turns out both parties who
collided went to our church, I'm pretty sure...at least the family in
the van did.
And also hearing this my heart breaks. Part of me
breaks because all of the jolts and lurches that take place in any kind
of collision are still with me...and part of me because of the death.
It's been a good day but also a sobering one.
Please pray for these families and for the church and for any other friends or community affected by this wreck.
-----
I don't know why it hit me so hard. I don't even know these people, but I can only imagine the kind of loss everyone who knew them is going through. It struck the kind of chord that gets struck when God teaches me more about compassion, about His heart, and about what He wants me to specifically do with my life and gifts and calling.
| | |
| Yesterday I was involved in an accident. Maybe I was the main feature.
A car hit me from the side and I flipped three times. My friend tony
was with me and he's actually okay - they thought he broke his femur
but it's just really badly bruised and...sprained? Can that happen to a
bone that's not a joint?
I just got a little glass in my head but it hurts. And it's still bleeding - I need to wash out my pillow case!
Everything is sore on my body. Almost everything - one knee is, one arm is...
After
talking to everyone and hearing them say "I'm so glad you wore your
seat belt" I'm thinking...I don't even want to imagine what would
happen if I didn't.
But yesterday was actaully pretty great, all
things considering. A lot of what happened was great to talk to God
about - I had at least five friends come out and see me, not including
the RAs and Holly my SLD. They could only let in two visitors at a time
so they were all shuffling back and forth. It was pretty great - and I
got elmo bandaids!
But my head is still bleeding, like I said, and that's a little creepy.
But
He reinforced a lot about community and about His being in control of
everything yesterday. Even though my head feels like crap...I'm
honestly content in Him and His plan and I have no problem letting Him
take it all. In fact He almost did...and He took a lot, seeing as how I
had a lot of stuff in my car. Man. I'm a hobo.
Here's some insight into my first few hours:
I was trying not to laugh as some random campus pastor took this picture with his phone. It was a great time. :)
The
main thing I realized was that I thought I was going to be so alone
this year, but when I wasn't, I was a little confused and okay with
because God has a plan. But then yesterday I realized...I'm not alone,
I'm surrounded by all of these people who love me, because He knew this
would happen. He knew I would get in a wreck and my parents would be in
Thailand and my brothers in Texas so...wow I should probably let my
grandparents know. Anyways, I'm okay. And I'm sore, but God is bigger
than all of this. Praise Him indeed!
| | |
| I'm reading Kerouac's On The Road. My parents are moving into their house here in Pattaya and there are bugs everywhere. Not really a jump from Malaysia...or even Texas (or that time in Oklahoma where the grasshopper plague revisited Duncan) but still. Some of the ants are really big.
Kerouac's language is super big as well. Not necessarily the vocabulary, but every sentence is a different adventure. It's like he loves the people and the organic/raw America just for the hell of it. For the hell of loving it. For the adventures and the living. He knows he puts responsibility on the back burner as he took tea with Dean zigzagging across the States.
"The firey fires glowed in the night; the same Negroes plied the shovel and sang. Old Big Slim Hazard had once worked on the Algiers ferry as a deckhand; this made me think of Mississippi Gene too; and as the river poured down from mid-America by starlight I knew, I knew like mad that everything I had ever known and would ever know was One. Strange to say."
 | | |
| Still alive, people of the world?
I'm not. I'm headed to bed. At 8 PM. BAHHHH
 | | |
| HARRRD DAYS NIGGHTTTT
I just read an interesting article about exercising and aerobics and how if you do those on a regular basis you can stay fit for when you're older. Fit, Not Frail is the kind of article that gives me hope about my exercising and that it is helpful and I'm not wasting my time.
And, in other news, please use listerine instead of deet. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/health/24real.html?nl=8hlth&emc=hlthb2
| | |
|
