Filed under: Uncategorized
Watching from the lodge as the students enjoy a beautiful day at Villars. At least the hot chocolate was good. Really good.
What happens in the bomb shelter stays in the bomb shelter.
Unless of course it involves working a 24 hour ski race in the Alps, dance party included.
Last weekend, promptly after finishing our lectures on the father heart of God with Mike Oman, the DTS and I headed to Villars to volunteer at the annual race to benefit handicapped children. We stayed for one night and two ski days, bunking in a military bomb shelter used to house skiers.
Which shows you the need for bomb shelters in a country almost always associated with neutrality.
Besides being able to start serving and speaking locally, the trip was also a way to get to know each other outside of the classroom. It’s hard to ignore someone when every time you role over you’re breathing in their morning breath. Which in this case smelled like red bull and croissants.Yes, even at the bomb shelters in Switzerland they have croissants.
Take notes America.
But the first couple weeks haven’t been all baked goods and slopes. The first full lecture week came complete with small groups, one-on-ones – which is YWAM jargon for student-leader talks – and a whole lot of meetings. The idea is to give the students as many outlets as possible to receive the growth, healing and preparation they need for outreach, and eventually, life after DTS.
And I can confidently say that we have a lot of work to do. But if I’d signed up for a five month vacation I would’ve looked somewhere a little more bikini-friendly.
Not that chocolate and snow aren’t.
The students aren’t the only ones making progress. My back brace seems to be doing it’s job and I am in less and less pain as the days go by. But Jon has nicknamed me “broke-back” and is planning on writing and performing a song named after it at Cafe Night.
We’ll see how far he gets after I body slam him in my metal brace.
And at least I’ll have nice thighs from all the grandma squats I have to do to pick things up.
As we head into this week on the holy spirit, I am excited for what is to come, and how God wants to move in these young people’s lives in new ways. I am so happy to get to play a role in it, however small.
Even if I have to start answering to broke-back. Which I won’t. So don’t get ideas.
Filed under: By Maggie
Lying on my back, strapped-in tight to the orange paramedic sled (fondly referred to as the “burrito bag of shame”), pain searing through my back and legs, I found myself thinking only one thing as we tobogganed down the mountain to the paramedics waiting to rush me to the doctor:
“Dang the alps are beautiful from this angle.”
And they were. But that didn’t change the fact that my fall from the A frame box at Villars cracked a vertebrae, ending my snowboarding season before it had even begun.
But I wish it were that simple.
The break put me alone in the hospital for three days, unable to stand, sit-up or communicate with the French-speaking nurses, with nothing to do but wait for the brace that would become a part of my life for the next three months.
Nothing like learning humility through a bed pan.
While I was lying in the hospital, I missed the last day of preparation and arrival day of the students. And I thought I would never be able to make it up. Especially since now I couldn’t snowboard.
And what good am I without my athletic abilities?
But right there, in my moment of greatest weakness and vulnerability, God met me, and gave me an indescribable peace.
I know He didn’t break my back. But I know that He can take this bad situation and make it good. And I am worth so much more than my body. So take that Jane Fonda.
When I finally entered the chalet, on my feet for the first time in days, I was greeted by a house full of the hippest, most outgoing new students I have ever met. I was immediately welcomed and made right at home, and it was barely hours before the back brace jokes started and everyone was comfortable with asking me about my new square accessory.
Yes, I can make even a back brace fashionable. Don’t be surprised if H&M comes out with a new line for spring.
Although I am stuck at the chalet tomorrow while they all leave to the mountains for the first time, I have a peace with it. I truly believe that God is God and God is good and therefore capable of making something good out of this not-so-good situation. Which is great.
And my job for the next six months will be getting to know, disciple and lead a group of hungry youth from all over the world, and then taking them to places we’ve never been to serve the Lord, just in time for my brace to come off. So life is good.
Even from a sitting position.
