The Asher Update

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September 23, 2005

Pink Robot Film Festival, September 23, 10 AM

Asher has now had 2 trips outside the hospital. his very first trip out was to target. this was a pretty amazing event and also somewhat ironic when you think about it, that the first chance he would get to leave the hospital, since first being injured at the end of May, was a shopping trip. probably only in america. anyway, asher did seem to enjoy and take full advantage of it. he picked out several items of clothes to wear, including a pinstriped corderoy sports jacket with non-matching pinstriped dress pants. somehow he seems to be able to pull it off, though, when he wears it.

his second trip out was to Willy's restaurant, by piedmont park. willy's is a burrito place where you choose from a large selection of items what you want on it. for those of you in chattanooga reading this it is a lot like mojo burrito in st elmo (and now downtown i understand), which i, personally, have missed quite alot since being in atlanta. so, that fact alone, only added to the treat.

yesterday afternoon, at 4, asher had his own mini film festival at shepherd called the "pink robot film festival," where he got to show 4 of his videos that he had made over the last year preceding his accident. the clothes he bought at target on his first outing were mainly purchased for this event. there was a really good turn out of both patients and staff, which i think was a wonderful encouragement to asher.

tomorrow asher gets to leave the hospital again for another outing. this time it will be to the imax movie theater here. i'm not sure which movie they will be watching. i do know, though, that they don't show movies in 3D like the imax in chattanooga.

asher's exit date from shepherd, right now, is still october 4th. we still don't have a date yet for entering their day program. while he is in this program he will be at shepherd for 7 hours a day and then come back to the place where they will provide us housing and be with us the rest of the time.

one decision that we are going to have to make fairly soon is the type of van that we are going to need to get. this will be based on the kind of wheel chair he leaves here with. in preliminary conversations that we have had with some of shepherd's technical support staff the discussions have been pointing us towards the need to have a full-sized modified van. this is basically all determined by seating height. based on the chair they are considering sending asher home with, in order to have the required 2 inches above his head, we would be required to get a full size van.

another decision that we need prayer for is housing after asher finishes the day program. it is very obvious to us at this point that our house will not be ready for us to move back into when we are ready to leave atlanta. we are going to need either a furnished apartment or house that we can rent with handicap accessability in the interim. not a small order, i know, but God has daily provided for us, in often miraculous ways, all we have needed when we needed it, including courage and strength to continue on. we know that this is all due to the many prayers that are continuing to be prayed for us all around the world.

i know that this has been a long process, and that it will continue to be so. the care that we will need to give asher when we return home will be significant, and it will be without the support that we are presently getting from all the wonderful staff at shepherd. we have been told repeatedly that the closer you get to your release date the more overwhelming the reality of this becomes. i try and keep trying to remind myself not to worry about tomorrow, because today has enough worries. as i have said before this is, obviously, easier said than done.

please continue to pray for asher's complete recovery. based on the magnitude of asher's injuries i know this seems impossible, especially when you consider that there are 4 types of injuries that medical science considers to be catastrophic and asher has had 2 of them. as critical as asher's spinal injuries have been, they are often overshadowed, at times, by the effects of his brain injuries. this, sometimes, makes for periods of what i can only describe as being on an emotional roller coaster (for all of us ). in fact, we are presently on the exhausted end of one of those rides right now.

again, i want to express our thanks to you all for graciously continuing in your prayers and support for us. i continue to give thanks to God for all of you in this. all of you continue to remind me of God's love, grace and mercy that he demonstrates to us every moment of every day. even though we would like to believe that we somehow deserve His love, we don't, and that is what makes the fact that he loves us even more incredible.

praying for the peace of jerusalem,
andy mendonsa

P.S.

4:30 PM
later this afternoon asher had some new local friends stop by. 2 of them had been by to see and meet him several weeks ago and he has really been looking forward to their coming back ever since. it really seemed to brighten up what has been a somewhat discouraging day for him.

thanks guys. you will never know how much your visit has meant.

| By Andy Mendonsa | 10:00 AM

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