I wrecked a moto but my Birkenstocks stayed on my feet

My thoughts the last couple of days have been that of a bowl of spaghetti, not knowing where the end is but knowing there is an end but getting lost in all the sauce on the way there. The days turn into nights and the nights into days, weekdays into weekends, and only knowing the time of day by which pills I’m ingesting into my body at that moment. This might be one of the longest blogs I write while I am on the field, it’s been almost a week now of just kinda being trapped in my thoughts – not really expressing them well. Bear with me as I take you on the arguably beautiful journey of wrecking my moto last week.

After arriving into this awestruck country of Thailand we had some parents come out on the field. Their time here was spent doing ministry with us, catching up with their birthed and learning about some of the things we walk through on the field. Seth Barnes wrote a book called Kingdom Journeys that talks about this more in depth, and I am sure I would do a poor job of explaining the concept of these terms so if you desire to know more about this you can buy the book. Abandonment, brokenness, and dependency are three of the major task we walk through while on the field – some more often than others, and others not at all. As Jordan was explaining brokenness to the parents one night, I thought silently to myself ‘Brokenness is probably the concept I have experience the least, and thank you Lord because I am not sure I want to walk through that or what that even looks like. It would probably be really hard for me.’

Banks and I went to get gas in our motos one afternoon after ministry, on our way back the traffic light turned yellow and I used my front break too much, the back wheel spun around to my left, the bike slid down on my ankle, and I let go so I didn’t flip around with it. I did a few flips on the asphalt before turning my head and seeing my moto way in front of me. It all kind of felt like an out of body experience, I let my body go limp and didn’t try to break the fall or stop myself. My head hit the ground way too hard and I felt my face skid across the asphalt, while thinking to myself ‘wow my face is going to be MESSED up’. I stand up and my helmet is still on my head, my glasses are bent but they are on my eyes, my watch is still intact, and I look down and my Birkenstocks are on my feet. I didn’t think it was all that bad, I look up at Banks and said ‘my ankle is broken, I think I have a concussion, and I may pass out. Is my face okay?’ Banks looked just a little confused and in typical Banks fashion said ‘oh my gosh’ while putting his hand over his mouth and saying ‘yeah your face is fine, but are you sure you’re okay?’ Everything is so bright and I can barely see what is right in front of me. I walk across two lanes of traffic to the grass and lay down as Banks takes my bike to a nearby store. In that moment, I thought to myself ‘I might die, I don’t know what is happening but everything is so bright and I feel like my body is just going to stop.’ I laid there for what felt like forever but in reality was no more than 30 seconds, I hear Banks running back, I mumbled with all the energy left in my body ‘Lord, help me please heal my body.’ I stood up as Banks is putting his hands out like he’s going to catch me, but I wasn’t falling over. My concussion was gone, I could see perfectly fine. I get on the back of Banks’ bike and he drives me home.

While my concussion was gone, nothing else was. My ankle was still broken, I had road rash on what seemed like every inch of my body and the adrenaline was quickly wearing off. I tried to convince Lindsey with ‘if I am not better by tomorrow I will go to the hospital, but can you pray over my ankle?’ Looking back, I see exactly why I was in the ER half a hour later. I will spare you the terrible details of the hospital, but imagine having a paper cut and putting hand sanitizer on it. It was kinda like that, but a lot worse. I looked like a mummy at this point, white bandages stuck all over my body, black paint all over from ministry that morning, and a face that probably barely looked alive. In the middle of getting my wounds scrubbed and hand sanitizer poured on them, I asked Lindsey ‘is my face okay?’ Just like Banks, she looked at me a little confused and said ‘yeah, your face is fine.’ I am not the one to be particularly concerned with my face and the condition it is in, I just KNEW that my face skid across the ground like the rest of my ragged doll body did. Katherine comes in towards the end and I mention my face to her, and I remembered I had my nose ring in. I reach towards my nose ring with my hand and realize it’s undone and feels like sandpaper had been ran across it. *my nose ring is not the easiest to pop open and it’s never opened up by its own* I close my nose ring and explain to Lindsey and Katherine how the Lord must had healed my face immediately because it was open and felt like it had skid across the asphalt.

The next couple of days are filled with many tears, caused by many sources. Mostly physical pain, none of the pain medicine they gave me helped, every movement that I managed to muster up the energy to – hurt, but not near as bad as that hand sanitizer in the paper cut hurt. Reality started to set in, I only had 7ish weeks of the race left and here I am. 6 weeks is the soonest I would be out of a hard cast, then directly into a boot for 6 more weeks. None of this sounded good to me, I didn’t want to lay in bed all day, I didn’t want to miss out on ministry, I didn’t want to miss out on the last 7ish weeks of the race.

I found myself broken. To be quite honest – I was broken by myself at first, then I allowed myself to be broken before the Lord. I had deep deep regrets. I cried at the thought of this being it, ending the race with a broken ankle. I mourned not being able to go to ministry with the rest of my team. I grieved over not getting to spend Sabbath with my other squad mates. I thought about re entry with a boot on my foot, traveling to see friends with a broken ankle. I cried at thinking about starting CGA in the fall with a boot on my foot. This was not the way I wanted people to see me. I didn’t want to be seen as broken in front of people. I honestly didn’t want to be broken before the Lord.

7 days later and here I am, in the brokenness stage of Seth Barnes 3 stages to get to dependency on the Lord. To be quite frank and vulnerable – this is really hard for me. It is hard to sit with the Lord 24 hours out of the day because I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time. It is hard to ask for help to eat, or open my toothpaste, or take my medicine. It is hard to ask people for help and accept what they offer. I can’t say that I am more dependent on the Lord right now, but I know that I wouldn’t want to be broken before anyone else right now.

It has been a week since I wrecked and my ankle is still not in a cast, the swelling in my foot is too much right now. I continue to lay in bed with my foot above my heart with ice and compression every 3 hours. I go back in a few days and hopefully the swelling has subsided enough for a hard cast.

I am still support raising for the fall. I move to Gainesville in less than two months now and my deadline for that date is $2,000. If you missed the email about this here is a link to that newsletter! CGA Newsletter! I know and understand that the reality of this lifestyle is that I can not do it without supporters who believe in what I am doing, whether that be prayerfully or financially.

• You can financially support me here for it to be tax deductible or on venmo if you feel led to do so, you can share this with your friends or family who you think might be interested in supporting what the Lord is doing in my life.
• You can support my prayerfully by praying for the Lord to provide an increase in financial supporters, for the Lord to reveal Himself to me in new ways, and for the Lord to speak into what long term missions looks like for me.

Stay connected! You can reach out via email [email protected] or download WhatsApp and connect with me on there +14092000085 Instagram is where I stay most updated with weekly recaps @alyssanphllps13 there is also a podcast called Unscripted Reality on all streaming platforms – this is a platform to share and hear stories of how the Lord is working in and through P Squad!

Love well,

Alyssa