Coming Apart and Resting a While

This will probably be one of the shortest updates I've ever written. Unfortunately, I don't have much to report. It's been another "interesting" month in our deputation journey, but it wasn't the vehicles giving us trouble this time. It was our bodies.

We began the month in West Virginia. I don't know if there are any theme parks in West Virginia, but after spending a few days navigating their roads, I don't think they need any. Hills, curves, and potholes. That sums it up. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful time there. We enjoyed a quiet place to stay and various wildlife that joined us each morning. (Sorry, I didn't get any pictures of the deer. I couldn't get my phone ready in time before they ran off.). We had a great meeting and enjoyed some delightful fellowship. We even had some downtime to take a lovely hike at a nearby trail. It was a pleasant way to start the month.

That weekend, we had meetings in Virginia and North Carolina. It was a wonderful time meeting new people and finding kindred spirits. We may have even found a couple more supporting churches. We're still waiting to hear, but things seem promising.

After that, we made our way home, and that's when things took a turn for the worse. On Monday, as we were traveling, I spent the majority of the day in bed. My head was pounding, and my stomach felt very uneasy. By the middle of the drive home, Jason's stomach began hurting. He powered through and got us home (our church parking lot), but he was doubled over in pain and miserable by the time we arrived.

By the next day, I was feeling a little better, but Jason was worse. After a couple of days of improvement and then a few more days of being worse again, I took him to Urgent Care. Over the next couple of days, there was only a slight improvement, so we made an appointment with a gastroenterologist for Monday (our wedding anniversary). Thankfully, over the weekend, he began to improve. His stomach issues cleared up, and he started regaining his strength.

In the meantime, while trying to care for him and take care of all the other housework and ministry work, I aggravated an old back injury and found myself barely able to walk. It was loads of fun! (Not really.)

Though we didn't miss any scheduled meetings, we did miss Macedonia's first Youth Rally, which we were looking forward to. And while we were home for Father's Day and our anniversary, neither of us felt like doing much, so we didn't. Jason felt well enough to cancel his gastro appointment, feeling confident that whatever was giving him grief had passed. Let's pray that is the case.

We are now on the mend (I think) and trying to ease our way back into the swing of things. Despite our poor physical state, we have been able to book a few more meetings and send out over a hundred letters to help raise the last of our needed support.

Today (6/23/21) marks the 24th year the Downeys have been in Wales. They have labored alone most of that time, but hopefully, that won't be the case much longer. We've been chatting with them regularly and making plans for our arrival. We're even looking at housing and vehicle options and availability. It's getting very real and incredibly exciting!

We want to thank all of you who have helped us along the way. Thank you to those who have prayed. Thank you to those who have given money. Thank you to those who have donated materials, books, and other things we'll need for the ministry. Thank you to those of you who write to us and encourage us along the way. We're so blessed to have each of you in our lives!