Nutsness!

well, its been a little longer since my last blog than i had planned, but here it finally is, woohoo!

as you can see above, i've entitled this blog "nutsness". now, you're probably saying to yourself, "i wonder why steven entitled this blog "nutsness"", so i'll tell you why i entitled this blog nutsness. i entitled this blog "nutsness" because this past couple of weeks have been totally nuts!

the timing of the whole hand injury was interesting! interesting in that it came just before our busiest two weeks so far this year. is interesting the right word? basically, i tried to not let it hinder me or take away from my work in any way, but sleeping with a cast just doesn't go very well, so i'm always a little tired at the mo! and then as i found more and more out about having to get an op and everything, well, my head was just away with it a bit! (fiona just walked in and said she just had a shower but forgot her towels were all in the wash, so she had to dry herself with those little paper towels, lol) as far as the operation goes, i'm having it on thursday, and luckily i only nee the metal screw, not the hipbone, so thats cool! so yeah, please pray the op goes well, and thatzi'll be able to get home on saturday no problem!

as far as work goes, everythings gone pretty good. we had our ridiculously busy saturday, where we had wesley scouts for 5 hours, then immediately after another kids club thing for 4 hours! wesley scouts went really well, it was our christmas party, and everything ran really smoothly, and the kids all had a great time, and the leaders were all very happy. and then there weren't very many kids at the next thing, but it was fun, we just played with them, did a wee craft, baked some ookies, so twas grand! we were knackered by the end of the day, but everything went well, which was good!

then on the tuesday we had our nativity play for the christmas celebration for Bethanien, the Methodist Church owned hospital we live and work at. It was so much bigger than any of us had expected, it was in the Markuskirche, the big church that people go on tours of, and there was circular tables set out, for dinner which came later, and there was 50 tables with at least 10 seats at each, meaning we did the play in front of more than 500 people! I was getting really fed up leading up to it though, cos people just kept on criticizing the way i speak or something, and i was just like "i'm a foreigner, i'm allowed to sound like a foreigner!" so before we did the play, i wasn't in a great mood, but the play itself went really well, people said they understood everything, and a few people said i was a great Joseph, so all good in the end! and then afterwards, we had a huge meal, which we got for free cos we'd done the nativity play, and we chatted with lots of people, and i had a great night in the end! really enjoyed it!

then the rest of that week was spent organising things, when i wasn't doing something to do with my hand. fiona and i organised jungschar, which was on thursday and went very well. then we were all very busy organising "angels in the city", our outreach day in Chemnitz, which was on saturday the 13th. we had put a lot into organising it, we had 4 different projects: a free cafe, a group collecting rubbish, a group handing out stories and sweets to kids, and a string quartet going into two old-folks homes. i was also organising the services we had as send-out and as feedback with another youth-pastor. when it came to the actual day we were beginning to panic, because nobody had showed up by 12:30, when we were meant to start. but luckily they all came at about 13:00, and we had about 30 people, which in hindsight was the right number. it totally shows that we just have to trust God, He knows what He's doing. All the groups went well, the cafe people had some good chats wi people who were very happy to take a load off for a little while during the stressful christmas period, the group collecting rubbish were also spoken to by a few people who were very impressed to hear they were doing it voluntarily, the people the story and sweets group met were all very pleased having something totally random and friendly to brighten their day a little, and the people in the old folks homes were so happy that people came into play them music the sang along, some even cried! then that night we had an international party for the volunteers and also for the foreign people living in Chemnitz! we had people from Iran, Czech Republic and Italy. twas a great laugh, Fiona had organised it very well, and everyone was in good form!

so i wanna thank God for His blessings and what He has done over these past few weeks! He was in control the whole time and we need to remember not to lose sight of that!

this week, for me anyway, is now centred around the op. i was in the hospital yesterday for a grand total of 6 hours, just all preparation for thursday, and was in again for a half hour today. so yeah, i'm a little nervous, but i just need to keep reminding myself that God's in charge! still, your prayers are very much appreciated!

I hope you have a very merry Christmas, whoever you are, wherever you are! :o)

Luck

Life is like a box of chocolates,
You never know what you're gonna get.
Everyone gets something different,
On that you can bet.

Some people are called lucky,
They've wealth and looks and fame.
But if that's what luck is,
Then I'm playing a different game.

For me luck lies somewhere else,
In something which has ne end.
It lies in the people I know,
the people I can call "Friend".

I may be poor, ugly, a no-name,
I may be a thousand miles away,
But with these people in my life,
I can be happy every day.

So I can't buy a Ferrari,
People don't want my photo,
And as far as being pretty,
I may just be so-so.

But I know that life is good,
I know I've found greatness,
For it's in all my friends,
That I find life's true richness!

An original poem by Steven Boucher :o)

My Hand!

So, this whole story starts a few months back.

About a week and a half before I came to Germany my football team was having a 1sts vs 2nds match, and I was going away the manager said he was gonna have me on the bench, to try out a new defense without me! So, no problems there. But then our keeper wasn't able to make it, so since I was just gonna be on the bench I said I'll hop in nets, sure!

About 15 or 20 minutes into the second half one of our 2nds hit a shot down to my left, so I dropped down and saved it with my left hand. It hurt immediately, and having fractured my thumb when I was, like, 12, I thought it felt kinda like that again! So after the match I got my brother to strap it up with crepe bandage the way they had back then!

But the next morning it was still killing me, and it wasn't just the thumb, it was the wrist too! So I thought I'd best go and get it checked out! So I went and was seen very quickly, and they told me it was probably my scaphoid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphoid), and normal practice for that was a cast! But they needed to take an x-ray to see if it was fractured or broken or anything! Luckily it wasn't, so they put the cast on for 8 days! After which they took it off and checked again for breaks or fractures, of which there was again no sign!

So they sent me on my merry way, and I left for Germany, with the wrist in a normal support bandage! It hurt every now and again, but was getting better! I hadn't had any pain in it for quite a while, and thought it had fully healed! So when I went in nets on Monday night, I had no idea of what would happen!

Basically, one of the opposition hit a high looping shot which was dipping in just under the bar, so I, kinda leaning back, attempted to tip over! I'm pretty sure that if I tried that type of save 100 times, 95 times the ball wouldn't even touch my thumb! But, what happened this time? It landed right directly on the tip of my outstretched thumb, and it hurt immediately!

A minute or two later we had a drink break, and I looked at it and could see how it had swollen up huge very quickly! And I could feel how bad it hurt! So I asked Barry to have a look at it, and we both agreed I should go get it checked out asap!

So at the hospital I told them about what had happened before, and showed them the x-rays I'd brought with me from home, ya know, just in cases! So they had a look at them, twiddled with my thumb a little, then took a couple new x-rays. The Doctor then called me in a wee while later and simply said, "Well, you don't have to have studied medicine to see that there's a very clear fracture there!" In the scaphoid, meaning I went one better than last time! It mustn't have been fully healed at all, and I therefore had a weakness there! So they put it in a cast, and I got to choose the colour, so I went with red, cos it's Man United colour! The Doc then told me that there is a hand-specialist in Chemnitz and that I need to go to him, which I did today and set up an appointment for Thursday!

Why do I need to go to the specialist? Because the normal practice in this case is surgery! The surgery entails putting a metal pin or screw into the hand! But hopefully that won't be necessary and the cast will suffice! I'll write again on Thursday to let y'all know the verdict!

What's the most important thing to take from this though? Thnat I pulled off the save both times and didn't concede a goal! :P That said, I ain't ever doing nets again, it just doesn't seem to agree with me!

God bless you, whoever you are, wherever you are! :o)