1. 12 mile bike ride. Let me expound upon this a bit more. I have not done any major athletic activity since January. Which was 6 months ago. I got this brilliant idea that it would be so much fun to go to Itasca State Park, which is only about 30 miles away from Bemidji, to walk through the Mississippi. Because the headwaters of the Mississippi are there. And I thought it would be fun. Then I thought it would be even more fun to ride bikes there. They have a 5.8 mile bike path. One way, of course. Which means the total is 11.6 miles. Little did I know that it would involve some hills. Or that my bike would decide to fall apart on me. Literally. The screws holding the handle bar were loose. And then somehow the bike didn't want to change gears. Or somehow the brakes would randomly lock so that I couldn't go forward. Not fun. No fun atall. But I survived. And I managed to wade in the Mississippi. And survived the physical exertion.
2. Internship. Granted, I'm loving a lot of what I do. I love people. I love worship. I love Jesus. But it's been hard. Particularly having to fight against expectations that can be a bit unrealistic. But I've been intentionally having fun. Doing things that interest me (like working on the library and leading a Bible study on Proverbs). Visiting people. Not dwelling on the bad (very important).
3. Family life. I think that a lot of churchgoers can forget that pastors have families that are seldom (if ever) seen. My family in particular is my lifeline. I'm not married or have a child or anything like that to have my own little nuclear family. I'm solo, which means that my parents and sisters are my family. And when one of them is hurting, I'm distracted.
The last couple days have been a major challenge for my family.
Last Friday, my sister KrissaMarie broke her neck while playing rugby. Nothing stops your own heart quite the same way as hearing that your sister broke her neck. The fears are instant: is she dead? is she paralyzed?
Then to top it all of, she's halfway across the country. I'm in Northern Minnesota, she was injured in Santa Barbara, California. So it's not like I can jump in a car and be there within a few hours.
Fortunately, she's alive and well. Not paralyzed or anything. Yes, extremely weak. Yes, she had surgery to fuse vertebrae. Yes, she'll be in rehab for the next year. But she can eat (feed herself no less). She can talk on phones. She can walk.
Thanks be to God for her miraculous ability to heal quickly!
But that is the least of the story, because so much more stress comes with other days. Like ordering plane tickets for our parents to get to Santa Barbara. I ordered them on the phone thinking that such an order would be the best and easiest to deal with. Alas that it was not the case. The gentleman helping me on the phone turned out to not have the best hearing. Like when I start the conversation by saying that I will be ordering TWO tickets. And after providing all the information for passenger #1, I find out that he was only booking the one. So we have to go through the whole rigamarole again to order another ticket on the exact same flight. Only to find out the next morning when Dad gets to the airport to pick up his ticket, it is not for June 12 like it was supposed to be. It was instead for July 12. The idiot on the phone messed up. And my dad suffered for it. He didn't get on the same flight as Mom. He went and bought a ticket with a different airline because he wanted to be there ASAP. Then proceeded to have delays and missed flights. And of course, I'm stressing out because of all this. In addition to the worry about Krissa. Not a good combination. But Mom and Dad both got there. Which is the important part.
Then the next stress factor arrives in the question, "Kara, I don't know how to email the Wiechmann family email. Will you send out the message?" And I respond, "Of course I can."
So now I'm the official go-between.
I get information from my parents and siblings about Krissa's progress. And about what steps will be taken soon for rehab or fundraisers. Then I relay it to the family members and friends whose emails I have.
Since Krissa was supposed to be working at camp all summer, I also had to contact the camp to let them know she wasn't going to be back this summer. Then give the contact info to Kendra so she could get the stuff at camp since she lives only about an hour away.
It's a lot to be doing when also trying to focus on internship. Being the contact person and travel agent is time-consuming. But I love it! I love planning and organizing. I love the tangible results of being able to build up contacts and strengthen relationships through such events.
Other stress factor comes in the form of the unknown future. Because Krissa will be in rehab for so long and because people can only take so many weeks off from work, I (along with Kayla) have been volunteered for and have volunteered ourselves (not sure which came first...) to be caretakers who can move wherever in the country to help out. Because I can end internship early if necessary (I'm down to less than two months left). And because I can take online classes (major perk of being almost done with seminary and only having a few classes left). And Kayla's entire degree is online. And because we want to help out in any way we can.
But such a future means that I don't know where the rehab location will be about 5 weeks from now (when Mom's leave of absence expires). I don't know if Krissa will be going back to college and if she needs to have her sisters along for the ride or if her college will be able to take care of everything. Which means that during the school year I may be in Rochester, MN with her at Mayo. Or I may end up in Poughkeepsie, NY near Vassar College.
It means that I have no idea where I will be living two months from now. And I don't like not knowing...
But there is nothing that can be done for now. It's all about survival. Hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month.
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