I recently had to de-board the plane and leave my team while we were in JFK Airport. And luckily so for I was a mess, just ask Nate Evans who got to sit by me…
I ended up in the hospital far from home and feeling my team get farther away by the minute as the other 26 flew on to the United Arab Emirates and then Africa without me. I felt incredibly alone. As I sat crying outside my gate Laura Jacobs from AIM comforted me over the phone. Through her voice, though, I heard sensitivity to my pain that came out through her rushed calls to all of AIM’s contacts in the New York area.
“We are taking care of you.” She continually reassured me.
And take care of me they did. Within a few short hours Ben Messner was at the airport and helped me get all my stuff into his car. After we picked up another girl who was flying in for the weekend he transported me to Nyack College in Jersey and then to a hospital. And not just any hospital. The one where Rosemary Stahl works.
Rosemary Stahl is Lindsay Stahl’s mother. Lindsay is coming on the World Race in July of this year and you can read about this amazing girl and donate to her fundraising at www.lindsaystahl.theworldrace.org.
SO, within hours, a family whom I had never met was sitting in my hospital room chatting with me, after I had been drugged up from the pain, about the race and family and New York style pizza.
The Stahl’s took me home that night and fixed up a room for me. Over the next few days they treated me to wonderful home cooking (chicken and pasta, barbequed burgers, and salmon my favie!) Not to mention hot showers, a refrigerator full of orange juice, the softest sheets and bed I had experienced in nearly four months, movies galore, and invitations to everything they were doing from prayer meetings to line dancing (which I still wish I had felt well enough to do.)!
PLUS they rearranged their schedules, even employing friends, to drive me to an ear specialist who blessed me by not charging the usual $200 to visit him, PLUS HE gave me free antibiotics and the Stahl’s paid for my second prescription! Lindsay made me feel like a good friend who was visiting and Rosemary and Steve made me feel like one of their kids.
“Who ARE these people?!” You may find yourself asking.
It turns out, they are my mother, brother, and sister.
Please read Part 2: Mothers, Brothers, Sisters…
