the bald girl at the cancer event...

We love college ministry.  Not only do we get to love on students for a few crucial life-changing years, but it's beautiful to keep up with them long after they've graduated.


If you've kept up with our blog for years, you've met Alyssa before.
She was one of our gals in RUF at Texas Tech, but
I'd say now she feels more like family to us now.
I love this girl.
 
One of the hardest conversations I've had was the day we sat down across the table from her and broke the news that we were moving to Virginia to begin a RUF in Lynchburg.

I hated missing out on her junior and senior years at Tech, but thankfully she's been awesome to travel to see us almost every year since we left Lubbock.

She's now graduated and living in Nashville, so last weekend afforded her the opportunity to come and visit!


Of course, I had to rope her into playing cello at our church... :)

And as you can see, a certain little girl was pretty stoked to bow a few notes.


Funny story- we stopped by a special event at Liberty's Snowflex, a year-round ski slope. (because it was free to the public)  What we didn't know was that the event was a fundraiser for a little girl named Kaylin with a rare form of cancer.

Well, you bring a bald child to a cancer fundraiser? You can just guess where this is going...

Sure enough.

Most people just stared, gave me the usual empathetic looks, etc.


But it wasn't until we were up at the top of the mountain getting ready to whoosh down when a worker for the event (an LU student) says emphatically to Caroline, "Oh, are you Kaylin??" with so much excitement in her voice.  She didn't even skip a beat as she continued on talking away!

Caroline just stayed quiet the whole time while the girl assumed SHE was the reason for this entire event.  ha ha!!  

(thankfully, I don't think Caroline knew what the girl was trying to say, but about a minute of silence  and disbelief after her departure, Alyssa turned around to me and said, "Did she just say what I thought she said?" and we shared quite a laugh together.  Oh my goodness!  In those situations, I truly fight a mixture of emotions in the moment-- anger, sadness, humor, misunderstanding, awkwardness all wrapped into one!)

Oh for the day when more people are aware of alopecia!


It makes it so much nicer to be in settings where Caroline is not "the bald girl."  She's just CAROLINE, you know?    Like here, at our RUF Welcome Back Party when the students took her canoeing.


Love these guys and gals.


And we love YOU, Alyssa!  Thank you for coming to see us!