I thought some of you might like to see Afeefa "in action." Each day, part of her therapy involves encouraging her to reach for what she is seeing. When she first started, she would sometimes not reach at all, and when she did, she was way off and would miss the ball by several inches. You can see that she is progressing well! In fact, yesterday she had a final visit with Dr. Trese who did her surgery. He was very pleased with her progress, with her healing, as well as her ability to focus and track with a light. He believes that medically, she is ready to return home. No date has been set yet, but we do know that she is well enough to return to her family, and for that we praise God! I want to thank all of you who have been praying for Afeefa, her family, and ours during these months. Please, continue to pray for Afeefa as she will need to continue with her therapy for the next years; pray that her family will be able to learn all that they need to do to care for her, that they will find a good opthamologist in Guyana, and that they will have peace during the remainder of Afeefa's time here. Pray for strength for our family, too, and that I'll be able to do the therapy she needs each day.
Last Saturday, 5-6 months of work culminated in the Grand Rapids Ride for Refuge. We had a beautiful day---a little cold and windy, but no rain! An estimated 600 riders and 150-200 volunteers came together to make this year's ride a huge success. I have heard so many wonderful words of encouragement from many of you, and want you to know how much we appreciate it. We have truly been running on "fumes"---very few hours of sleep and countless details to work out; your kind words, and especially your participation, either by being there, or by sponsoring riders, has made our months of work worth it. Someone asked if we get paid to organize and direct the Ride for Refuge, so I'll answer here---no, we don't get paid---at least not in cash. Our payment was what we saw on Saturday---a community pulling together with one focus and aim, to glorify God and to share Christ's compassion with hurting people all around the world. No amount of money could give us what we have received in joy doing this. So, thanks to you all who were a part of the Ride in one way or another. To God be the glory!
Many of you are aware also of the seemingly insane undertaking oftraining for the Grand Rapids Marathon since May. In actuality, for all of you who think we are crazy, you need to know, that my running time has been my only alone time since the kids were born, and if I didn't do it, I would be insane. It gives me time to pray, to think, to enjoy the world around me, and to take care of my sometimes frail body. Anyway, I have a little paper I wrote in 4th grade about my dream to run the Boston Marathon (of course, at the time, I didn't know you had to qualify with a rediculously fast marathon time!), and for years I have wanted to try. After completing the Riverbank 25k in May, I decided this was the year to try. All of my training has gone well, and I have even felt that qualifying for Boston isn't a totally unrealistic goal----until I recently was injured because of switching into the wrong shoes and ended up not doing my last long run and taking 2 full weeks off of running. I have been very discouraged about it because it has been a huge time committment for me (many 4:30AM Saturdays and lonely, long miles!), my family, and the friends who have helped me to do this. Many of you have been praying that I'll still be able to do the marathon, and as of this morning, I think I'm still going to try (my new goal is just to finish). I was able to complete an 8-mile run with little pain on Sunday (thanks, Jamie, for running with me!), and early this morning, I was able to run 12 miles with no pain! I can only give God the praise for the healing I've experienced, and I think it's appropriate that I am not at my best right now training-wise, because if I am able to complete the marathon on October 17, there will be no doubt that it was by God's hand and grace and I won't be able to take any of the credit. I'll keep you posted as to how it goes.
I think this blog entry has gotten lengthy enough, and some of you probably won't even read the whole thing, so I'll end it here.
