Joey's Right Shoulder

Hello Friends and Family
I am writing you in regards to my right shoulder. I am pretty sure that most of you heard that I dislocated my right shoulder this past week in Austria at the Missions Conference. Let me give you a brief story to let you know how it happened.
It was during the free time on Thursday afternoon and I was down at the dock along with many other people. I decided to jump into the lake one more time before I headed up to the castle. Right as I began to jump into the air a wasp was flying right in front of me. So as I went to swat it away with my right arm (going from left to right), in the middle of the air, my right shoulder dislocated out of socket. I then landed in the water and had to swim up with just my left arm. Once I came up I cried out for help and many began to help me up out of the water. Once I was placed on the dock and even before, I immediately began to pray and ask the Lord to put it back into place.
You see, this has happened many times in my life. But this was the first time that it was not immediately going back into place. No one on the dock really knew what to do, and yet I knew what they needed to do. But I wasn’t going to just let anyone try to pull my arm back in. So as they began to call up to the castle for help, there was a lady named Jacque, who is also a missionary in Germany, who is a sports medicine doctor. She began to tell me that she knew what was going on and had done this procedure many times with football players. She gave me the option of letting her do it or to wait for the ambulance and let the doctors do it. It was at that moment that Brian Broderson said, “Hey Joey, let’s pray and then let Jacque do it.” So we prayed once more and then Jacque proceeded to try to pull my arm back into place two times. Well, she tried to pull it back into place, but it didn’t work. You see, I know that the longer that the arm is out of socket, the harder it is to put it into place.
So we just waited until the ambulance came. Once they finally got there (around 40 minutes later) and they found out what was going on, they discovered that they didn’t have all of the correct equipment to get the job done. So they then called back to the hospital to ask someone else to come and bring the rest of the equipment that they needed. So it was about one hour that my shoulder was out of socket. They then put the IV into my arm and gave me some drugs that relaxed my muscles around my shoulder and then they were able to put it back into place. Of course I didn’t feel it at that point. They then put me on the stretcher and into the ambulance to go to the hospital. Once at the hospital they took three X-rays of my shoulder and I waited for the results. They told me that everything was back in place, but that I would need to have surgery on it. So now that I am back in Germany, I went to my doctor today and let him know what is going on. He then set up an appointment for me tomorrow at the hospital in Wetzlar. There I will be getting a MRI on my shoulder and then it will be decided what will need to be done.
So there is the story of what happened and the current situation with my shoulder. Please do continue to be praying for all of the details. I will try my best to keep you updated on all of this.
Some things that you can also pray about in regards to this situation are the following:

• Pray for Rebecca because I really need to be careful with picking up the kids. I obviously can use my left arm, but with my arthritis, it is really hard. So pray for her to continue to have the strength when I am not able to help out physically with the kids.

• pray for the worship ministry here in the church. Obviously I will not be able to lead worship for a while now. Please pray for those involved to really step up during this time and for wisdom in leading them through this time.

• Pray for wisdom for me as I go through this process to make sure to ask the right questions or to do the right things.

• Pray also for the financial side of all of this. We do have insurance, but I am not sure as to what will take place with it all.