Saturday, June 13, 2009

Today completed my second week here at the Montego Bay School. It has been a great time so far!! The first week I had a group of 7 come from Georgia and was treated like a king! They went out for ice cream twice and paid for mine both times:) Their last night they went to the Windham Resort for dinner and paid for me also... It was a totally different world eating at a resort buffet for dinner. I think I bordered on gluttony :)
This past week was just Awesome!!! Signs of Grace Ministry was here from Cleveland Ohio for the week with 19 people. They have a large church that has a Deaf Ministry and it was awesome to have 2 deaf men on the team as well as 3 Interpreters and several that are in interpreter training! I have never seen a team connect more with the kids and deaf staff!!! They are already talking about coming for 2 weeks next year!
On thursday we took them to Dunns River Falls in Ocho Rios for a fun day. We were climbing as a group and got to a part that was pretty straight up and very slippery and I decided to try it first. I made it part way and then slid back. The second attempt was successful and then several other tried to follow. One of the ladies got pretty much all the way to the top and then slipped. I reached out and grabbed her arm to hold her. At this point she started to panic(not good). She started sliding down the roughly 8 foot rock and I reached out my other hand and grabber her leg thinking I could hold her in place while she helped get her footing. At this point I am laying down facing down the rock slope and it seemed that she gave up altogether. My feet were hooked on a rock that was just too slippery to hold on so I started sliding head first straight down the rock. Thankfully, since it took me 2 attempts to get up I knew that there was a huge rock just under the water at the bottom so about 1/2 way down I let go of her and stretched my arms out to brace for impact. As I hit the rock my arms buckled into my chest and I absorbed the entire shock of the fall with my ribs. Everyone including me could not believe that I didn't hit head first... my hands hit the rock just perfectly to get my head out of the way. I am very thankful to be alive and have all of my teeth! The nurse checked me out and says I for sure have several bruised if not cracked ribs. Yesterday was a rough day, but today it is quite a bit better as long as I keep from laughing :). Pray for a quick recovery and that I can be willing to accept help and admit that I can't do some work for the next week or so.