I am finally back at things mostly full force today after an interesting past 4-5 days. Thursday night, I took a direct hit in the face with a softball, breaking my nose and a couple small bones in my cheek. As I was running from 2nd base to 3rd base, the shortstop picked up a ground ball and side-armed it towards first base, not seeing me coming down the baseline. From about 5 feet away his throw caught me in the right cheek/nose and the corner of my eye. I'll spare you all the details, but let's just say there was quite a bit of blood and shooting pain...

I was one of 7 softball injuries that night in the ER. The one visiting ER doc said something like, "Don't you Minnesotans have anything else to do than play softball?" After cleaning me up, a couple CT scans and some pain meds, 4 hours later, I got to go home. I was thinking that I was going to need surgery, but thankfully found out yesterday that they just need to reset my nose.

This whole ordeal has been a good thing overall. It's helped me to take a break (sorry for the pun), slowing down a bit, and also reinforced the ways that our church is growing and developing outside of me. Since we were out of town the weekend before and then I missed church with my injury on Sunday... it was two weeks in a row that I wasn't there. And everything went off without a hitch. It's a great comfort to see our people leading in substantial ways, and to see Jesus building His church.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers, concern and expressions of generosity. They are much appreciated!