What started as a normal PE class on the morning of September 20, ended as a significant event in the life of our second son Joel. Every few weeks the class learns about and plays a different sport. This was their second day learning about the sport called rugby. Joel caught the ball, saw an opening and sprinted toward the goal line. Snap!

Out of the blue, he felt someone had thrown a 2×4 log of wood at his left calf. He fell into the endzone and scored, looking back for who had tackled him or thrown the wood. No one was there. He got up only to realize he could not put weight on his left leg. He was laid out on a picnic table and the school nurse couldn’t find any injury. They found him some crutches. The tallest they go was 5’11” and Joel is at least 6’4″, so that was less than ideal. After 2 days on crutches, he tried walking again. Within hours his foot turned a swollen blue and toes went numb. We had a prayer partner in the US write on Sept 24 with a burden to pray for our spiritual protection, and within 48 hours we were told to prepare for evacuation. The next week was spent sitting in hospital waiting rooms to see an orthopedic specialist, run tests, etc. By Oct 1 we were told he would need to evacuate ASAP for surgery for a torn Achilles.

(You can see obviously that his crutches were too short here. And sadly with the humidity here, the silicone stoppers at the bottom busted open within a few days. He ended up getting tennis ball donations to keep walking on them, which worked, but not so well in mud/rocks – like our driveway…Crackle…)

So, as the Mom, I began a crash course in medical evacuation insurance! We have always paid for it, but thankfully never needed it. Until now. The surgery that was initially recommended was not available in this country. A therapy walking boot or physical therapy was also unavailable. We began extensive paperwork to quickly leave the country. One complication was that we already HAD tickets to leave Oct 12 to Seattle for Kim’s brother John’s wedding… If they evacuated us to the nearest facility (likely Paris, Nairobi or Johannesburg), then we would surely miss the wedding. It was God-ordained that Turkish Airlines would cancel our flight!

When we talked to our mission travel agent, we learned that Turkish Airlines had canceled our flights, so we got a FREE change of itinerary up to 1 week difference. Thank you Jesus! We moved our flights up 4 days to allow Joel time to see specialists in Seattle where family was already waiting for us and where friends had already found XL crutches! 🙂 Our evacuation insurance paid for Joel and Kent to travel First Class all the way over with wheelchair services!

Traveling internationally with wheelchair services was a learning experience. On the first leg, Joel still couldn’t extend his leg all the way and by the time we landed in Europe, his foot was purple/blue again… Twice I tried to bring him extra aspirin in First Class, but they didn’t want Coach passengers invading First Class space… We were at the mercy of the wheelchair services team. In Istanbul they were 30 minutes late and the crew of the airplane had left before the wheelchair team arrived, and they weren’t willing to take him by a restaurant, so he was left sitting alone at the gate for 90 minutes while we tried to get him some food.

We made it to Seattle! We saw the foot/ankle orthopedic surgeon and got an MRI same day. The ultimate diagnosis was a torn calf muscle underneath the Achilles that did NOT require surgery! They just happened to have an XL sized therapeutic boot and Joel was back on his feet in no time! The black color even matched his suit for the wedding! God was so good to us. We were given a few extra days to help Kim’s parents get moved into their new house before the wedding festivities began.

The end result of our Snap-Crackle-Boot experiences were a greater compassion for anyone with mobility issues and a greater faith in the power of prayer. Joel was very humbled to constantly need help. He is usually the Helper, and now had to ask for help everyday with basic movement. It was a good discipleship experience! Lastly, we ended up with our first (and last) time in First Class and had 4 extra days with family to serve the Sages and get to know our new sister-in-law, niece and nephew! We can thank God for all our muscles and how they work and how they heal!