*Thwack*
The pieces flew apart in a Captain America-esque fashion.
We were feeling good. Our ministry for the day started off with the three guys on the team chopping up some firewood for a lady in the church. It was great. We had two axes so two went at it while the other one rested. Each hit was immensely satisfying and it wasn’t long before we were drenched in sweat and feeling like manly men.
I swung the axe and it sheared through the piece of wood continuing down into the stump we were using to sit the logs on, getting wedged in deep. I sighed, knowing this would be difficult to get out.
I put one foot on the stump and proceeded to try and wriggle the axe head out. Just as I got it, the stump shifted off balance causing me to trip and fall forward. Next thing I know I’m on the ground looking at a large gash in my leg where I had landed on the ax. It was about an inch and a half above my knee, three and a half inches long, and a least a half inch deep, allowing me to see more of the inside of my leg than I would have preferred. I immediately covered up the wound with my shorts and applied pressure to stop the bleeding, letting my team know I would need a ride to the hospital real quick for some stitches. My team did great. The called people and got me a temporary bandage set up and to the hospital in about 15 minutes.
After arriving at the hospital, I was ushered into a small room where a doctor and two nurses were waiting. The doctor asked my ministry host a few questions in Serbian that I wasn’t able to understand and then directed him out to the waiting room while they attended to me. I was a little nervous. I was lying on a bed in the hospital of a foreign country with my leg hanging wide open and no idea if my doctor would even be able to communicate with me.
He walked back into the room and with a big smile on his face asked me in almost perfect English, “So, where are you from?” He was fluent in English! Not only that, he has played basketball his whole life and knew everything there is to know about the NBA. He could tell talking about that calmed me down, so throughout the entire procedure we just talked about different players we were fans of, agreeing on Steve Nash, Michael Jordan, and Dirk Nowitzki, and laughing as we discovered neither of us like LeBron James very much. In only about 30-45 minutes he had me completely sown up and out the door.
Overall, my experience in the Serbian hospital was a good one and I am extremely blessed to have a fantastic team that surrounded me in prayer and have been so great. My doctor, Dr. Alexander, was an absolute blessing and I am praising the Lord for him.
I am out of commission physically here in Serbia for a couple of days until they are able to take out the stitches, but I still plan on being well involved in the ministry here through prayer, waging war against the spiritual opposition Sombor, Serbia is currently facing. I am in recovery and will be back to 100% in only a few days hopefully.
*Side note: when one of the Serbian locals saw the wound and saw it after it was stitched up he chuckled and said, “Wow, they breed them tough in Texas.”
Ciao!
