Letters from Cyprus: Banks closed but hospitals open: Three x-rays in a week

Journalists camp outside the Cyprus parliament last week.
Nicosia was hit by a mini dust storm during the financial
crisis, which in many ways felt like a metaphor to the
broader events in Cyprus, and also in our own lives this
past week.

Life can surprise you sometimes. Just when things seem to all be in place and going well, out of nowhere you can be hit by a series of events that you could never have predicted, but that all have the potential to knock you off-centre. For us, the past week has been a bit like this. Just as Cyprus has just weathered a financial storm, it feels like we've had a storm ourselves in which we've had to 'hook in and hold on'. It all started last weekend, when Sarah and I went out for an early morning ride together. The weather was quite cold, and Sarah, who was already feeling a little unwell, got some serious cold into her bones and promptly went down with fever and a racking cough. A day or two passed with no improvement, and at two points throughout the week, the doctor thought it could have been pneumonia. Thankfully the chest x-rays were clear, and so the most likely diagnosis was then a bad case of bronchitis. Sarah was put onto an antibiotic, but after a few days the side effects were far worse than any illness the drugs were trying to cure, so she stopped taking it and resigned herself to resting and recovering naturally. Needless to say, it threw her for six.

Ouch! Sam's x-rays tell the story

Then to cap things off yesterday, while Sarah was home resting yesterday I was out with the kids at an Easter lunch in a village near Nicosia. Whilst at the lunch poor Sam took a bad fall whilst on an easter egg hunt and broke his arm in two places. A rapid drive to the hospital ensued. Whilst travelling to the hospital a somewhat distressed and shocked Sam stoically said to me "Daddy, it's good that I didn't break both my arms, isn't it?" Thankfully he was able to be seen promptly at the hospital by an excellent orthopaedic doctor who was able to fix the arm under a local anaesthetic, thereby saving a more detailed operation and a possible night in the hospital. Sam was remarkably brave throughout, and there was a profound simplicity in how he processed the whole event. Since getting home yesterday he's has been receiving lots of love and care, and one of his main concerns is how he is going to write at school on Tuesday, as well as how he'll be able to dance in some of his upcoming performances!

Below is a clip of Sam telling us about his injury only hours afterward.

This confluence of events has reminded us of our frailty and need for God's grace. There's a clarity in this thinking that can be both humbling and freeing when we realise we need to let go of any presumption that we are somehow in control.

A couple of other milestones also passed recently: we had a first swim in the ocean for the year, Angus took his first communion in church on Sunday, and Anna finally ate some fruit!