I'm not really sure why but since I've been here my memory has improved. Not necessarily being able to remember things from day to day but remembering things that happened years ago. A few days ago I helped to carry some old furniture out of an office that's being refurbished. There were two heavy desks and a few book shelves that had to go down two flights of stairs. The next day we loaded a truck for Armenia and now I'm sore. It brought back memories of past injuries. There came sweet memories of home and bitter memories of pain.

I remember one fateful winter evening when I was four years old. Mom was in the barn milking and, in my excitement of a new discovery (I have forgotten what it was), I went running in to tell her all about it. As I ran, I slipped on one of the icy concrete steps and gashed my chin. I remember some time later as we drove into the parking lot of the doctor's office, my mom had to pull me from the car screaming. I don't know why I was scared of the doctor but my eagerness to hold onto the seat of the car probablly came from the fact that I had a good idea that a needle was headed my direction once inside the building. I got my first, and only, four stiches. I still have the scar and, to this day, it gives me fits if I try to shave. Thus, I have a beard.

I remember eight years later when I was in junior high. I was playing football at the time and one evening at practice we were running tackling drills. By some turn of fate, i got paired up with the biggest, strongest player on the team. The worst injury I can claim from the ordeal was a cut on my left arm, it didn't even bleed much at the time. The next week during the game, however, it made up for lost time. Shortly into the first quarter the ref yanked me out of the huddle and sent me to the sideline to clean my arm, there was blood from my elbow to wrist.

I remember some time later, after my first year at Hesston. I was at home for the summer and helping out on the farm. As I climbed out of one of our chicken pens I tripped and dove head first into the car that I had driven there. Blood came streaming from the cut across the bridge of my nose and, for a while, I couldn't remember much. Eventually I found some water and washed my face. I drove home and let dad finish feeding the chickens. I spent the rest of the day in the house with ice on my nose.

I remember last spring. I had just graduated from Hesston and was working at home until I left to come here. For two years I had been in school and physical labor had been far from my list of daily activities. Early on that summer I sprained my right shoulder and rendered that arm quite useless until it had time (and help) to heal. I remember trying to work and trying to simply live with your dominate arm injured. It is this injury that I remember most. Not only because it was most recent, but because it seems to have not fully healed. Or perhaps it's been, to some small degree, reinjured. My right arm is always the first to get weak and it stayes sore the longest. When this happens, the memories come. Lately, they've been comming a lot.

Rest and strength
David