new heights

Hey! I hope you're all doing well. It's about time I post again and include some more pictures, eh? Well, as I mentioned last time, I've moved into a new house. Still living with Lennin, a friend from Nicaragua. Click on the album below to get a tour with captions. The house, while perhaps equivalent square footage, offers a larger common room, but also brings some new spacial challenges forward. Overall, I'm hopeful that we'll enjoy this place more.



Thoughts of Sea to Sea have still not died. We've updated our website with some new things. We posted the final amount for fund raising. Our original goal (including the 4:1 matching and trip costs) was $110k. We are excited to announce that we've raised a total of almost $280k!

I encourage you to go the the website here (http://bikenica.wordpress.com) to see the following:

• a few more details of the funds raised (on the blog section)
  
• "fun facts and quick stats"--interesting and crazy statistics on anything from flat tires to fatal collisions with animals to most nutrition bars consumed in one day. this post also has some of the most interesting stories about the travails of the trip! (blog section)
• relections--many of the riders have posted some reflections on what they remember about the trip and how it impacted them. I am one of those that posted.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of my own pictures of the event. I've posted a few below, but you may have seen them on other sites already. If not, perfect! :) I encourage you too to go to Rachel's blog (a good friend and fellow support team member) for some more C2C pictures and another perspective on the accident. :) She's got some good pictures, including one of me at the hospital in Siuna. Of course, you can always go to my own photo gallery here.

The entire group of cyclists as they began in Puerto Cabezas, Carribean Ocean. Sadly, I wasn't there!

My very sympathetic support crew!

My next post I'm going to include a video that I helped film and edit. Releases have now been signed by those appearing in the film, so we can release it publicly. Stay tuned!

Prayer Items:

-I've been having discussions about my focus for this year. Pray that we have wisdom in what I should concentrate my energies this year.
-Still very busy--please pray for extra energy to accomplish what needs to be done.
-Healing continues in the shoulder. Strength is coming back faster than mobility, but I think that's okay. I still have a screw in there, and that limits mobility. Pray for the PTs and the doc, that they'll know exactly what needs to be done to get me back to normal fastest!