OUCH!

Today was a long day and tomorrow will be, too...right now I am sitting in a hotel lobby in Offenburg, Germany catching up on email.  It's pretty late, but I just wanted to tell you a little about my day.

It started off great...breakfast, packing, emailing, working a little, lunch...then a sunny, but exhausting walk to the train station with all of my crazy heavy stuff.  While waiting for the train I changed my shirt right on the train platform...put one over the other and then somehow wiggled out of the original one. Skills, oh yeah. Everyone has to be good at something.

(Caution:Don't read the following paragraph if you are easily grossed out) I boarded the train and then pulled my extremely heavy suitcase up into the train.  Suddenly I felt an excruciating pain!!! OUCH! My second toenail had caught on my suitcase somehow and when I jerked the suitcase up and into the train, it ripped my toenail halfway off and took the top few layers of skin off!! I started bleeding like crazy.  I focused, put my bags away got to the nearest empty seat and tried to hold back my tears.  Yea, that didn't work so well. The trip was made better, though, since the ticket taker brought my a bandaid and my seat neighbor across the way offered me some water. Lesson learned...don't wear flipflops while managing heavy baggage. The doctors at the Teenstreet festival where I played today took great care of me.

Finally once the tears stopped and I could try to relax my neighbor, Jerome from Sri Lanka, started talking with me.  Small talk didn't last long...this guy has an AMAZING story.  He is 23 now and he works in Germany with a Christian organization.  When he was 16 he stopped talking and went completely blank mentally.  He was violent, wandered off and got lost a lot, slept on the streets where his parents couldn't find him and had severe depression.  There were local people involved in witchcraft that the family suspected had been praying curses over their family.  His parents tried to get him help locally and eventually sent him to India for intensive treatments.  This still didn't help and his parents thought about hospitalizing him, but his mother wouldn't have it.

One night as he was in bed at 4am, he woke up and felt what seemed like electric currents running through his body.  He felt like something was leaving him.  He sat up, sobered, and went to the room where his mother was crying and, as he discovered, praying for him.  He asked, "Mom, why are you crying?" At the sound of her son saying "Mom", after he had been mute for a year, she started sobbing and was thanking God for answering her prayers. From that moment on Jerome, was restored completely!  He is now 23.  I started sobbing while he told me his story. It was beautiful to see the freedom and light in his eyes giving full representation of God' healing power.

Tonight I played the Teenstreet festival and met lots of new folks.  I played on a stage high up from the ground and above a drink bar for the festival.  I climbed up an actual ladder to get onto the stage...with my bandaged toe.  I got the teens to do the Hokey Pokey and to echo some bluegrass tunes with me.  Alexander from South Africa joined me on his blues harmonica!

Well, I hope that your toe doesn't hurt (like mine) and that you are able to get a good night sleep.

Much love to you and thanks for reading!

Tammy*