A short and sweet update on things:

Our team van was due for a checkup last Saturday.  I dropped the van off, and to pass the time waiting for the van to get fixed I bought some grill food and headed to a nearby waterfall with some other leaders.  We swam for a bit and were jumping off rocks into the pool at the base of the waterfall.  I botched my second jump - landed hard on the water with my lower back.*  The story gets a little long and dramatic after that point, but to make it short, after some medical attention it was concluded that I had compressed and fractured my spine.  It became obvious that this injury was going to take some time to overcome, and surgery was becoming a strong suggestion.  Surgery and physical therapy in Africa didn't sound good to me, which leads us to where I am now.

Monday I got on a plane and headed home for some good old fashioned American medicine and spinal care.  I got off the plane and headed straight for the local ER.  I spent most of the week in Fair Oaks Hospital.  The Tuberculosis earned me a spot in isolation and a few lung x-rays to make sure I wasn't a threat.  The doctors kept me hooked up to some steady painkillers, took CT-Scans and MRI's of my back, confirmed that the vertebrae was compressed to about 50% of its normal size and fractured into a lot of pieces.  Surgery was ruled out, I was fitted for a backbrace, went through some minor physical therapy, and the next month is going to be a blur of laying on my back a lot and living in a back brace.

Leaving my team was pretty tough.  Maybe one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  The 18 of us had developed into a pretty well-functioning family, and the honor of leading that group was the one of the best things God has ever dropped on my lap and trusted me with.  I've never had to learn to lean on so much on the Father, and I've never seen Him work so powerfully in my weaknesses as I He has lately.  I'm confident that my leaving is good news for the team, and I don't mean that in a cheap band-aid kind of way.  I think there are some incredible things headed the teams way.  For some reason God knew I needed to be out of the way for those things to come through, and he knew that breaking my back was probably one of the only reasons I would ever leave those folks.  So pray for my team, for my family, my flock back in Swaziland.  They are doing incredible things.  I could not be more proud of them.  I could not have learned more from a group of people than I have learned from living with them and trying to pastor and serve them over the last few months.

I think there are some pretty incredible things headed my way as well, and I think God knew that the only way I would really listen to him was if let me jump off a rock and virtually, completely immobilize myself.  So pray that my ears would be unstopped and thirsty as I lay in bed over the next few weeks.  And pray that my heart wouldn't get hard or be to swayed by the priorities of the world.  I really want to choose my next path based on where God wants me, and out of the faith that He will take care of me - not based on who gives me the best insurance plan and who will give me enough money to eek out an existence in spite of recessions and anything else.  That would be a miserable rejection of everything God has taught me in the last two years, and a speedy step towards bending over and becoming a slave to the world all over again.  I am not prepared to take steps down those paths.

Thank you for all your prayers, during this phase and over the last few years.  I know some of you are probably shocked by this news, and have a lot of questions.  I should have pretty adequate and constant access to email in the next few days- I should also be relatively bored and immobile, so feel free to shoot an email my way.

peace and grace,

matt

As a brief, but important, footnote...  I understand there is risk involved in jumping off of rocks into water - I also understand that by injuring myself during one of these jumps I am inviting many headshakes and statements along the lines of "This is why you shouldn't jump off of rocks into water."  If you pass any of these headshakes or lines my way I will probably classify you as a ridiculous person and refuse to talk to you anymore.  I will also construct a list of statistics and reasons that you should never drive a car, ride on a plane, eat McDonald's, or use a conventional microwave ever again.  This footnote is partly a joke... but only partly.