'Miracle' pastor back home

ROTORUA'S Pastor Timothy Lee wants to walk again but if he doesn't he will be content as long as he's helping people.
"It might be that God finishes healing me when I get to heaven one day. Even if that's the case as long as I can be available to help people then I'm content with that ... It's a chapter I can learn from and it opens the doors to new beginnings that I wouldn't otherwise have entertained."
Timothy arrived home on Tuesday night after spending six months in Auckland at Middlemore Hospital and then the Auckland Spinal Rehabilitation Unit following a mountainbike crash on the Exit Trail in Whakarewarewa forest.
Timothy is now a tetraplegic. He has movement in his fingers and toes, can control his wheelchair and is learning to use a computer with voice recognition software. Everything else has to be done for him.
"It is still very difficult to accept being like this for the rest of my life. I've just got to take one day at a time and from a faith perspective I believe God has a plan for my life. I've still got to trust him despite the difficulties."
He says he is "rapt" to be back in Rotorua, surrounded by his family, neighbours, friends and church family.
Over the past six months he has experienced myriad emotions including anger, frustration and grief.
"Grief is the big one, grief of the losses in your life."
Timothy used to be a very active person, enjoying the forests, lakes and the snow, but he also enjoys working with people - a part of his life which is not going to stop.
"I'm privileged to be sitting here with a mind and a voice which I can hopefully [use to] encourage and make a difference in some people's lives."
He has mixed emotions about returning home after building some close relationships with staff and patients at the spinal unit.
"I've just had six months taken out of my life. I've been in a clinical environment and all of a sudden I'm home. I'm just reflecting on how it's going to work."
A lot of aspects need to be taken into account - getting medical supplies, nursing care and equipment, including a different bed and gym equipment.
Timothy has a temporary wheelchair until his permanent one arrives. Their bathroom has to be altered and a lift installed in their two-storey home.
Seeing his two sons Hamish, 15, and Callum, 13 and spending time with the family will be a priority.
Every weekend the family travelled to Auckland to see him and wife Jenny says she is looking forward to having a "chilled" weekend at home with her husband.
Hamish says it will be great to see his father every day. Timothy also looked forward to eating a "decent" lasagne, steak, salmon, decent salads with avocados and a greater variety of fruit.
Speaking of May 31 - the day that changed his life - he says he remembers waking up in the forest after landing from the jump.
"I remember waking up on the Exit Trail, actually down the bank feeling incredibly uncomfortable but I felt a real sense of peace. Although I couldn't move I didn't feel anxious. God gave me peace."
However, Timothy says he was grateful when his neighbour Wilfred Wong-Toi, who had gone riding with him, showed up.
The pair had been riding together but Wilfred had gone ahead. Wondering where Timothy was he came back to find him and "swung into action" contacting emergency services.
If he'd been on his own Timothy says he could have easily died.
He's also grateful to another neighbour Stefan Nuff, an anaesthetist who was working at Rotorua Hospital that night.
Timothy recently saw the two men and was able to thank them for saving his life.
He doesn't have any concerns about the track, describing it and others in the forest as world class.
He said he had attempted the Exit Trail jump twice and successfully achieved it the second time.
"Because I had done it successfully before I was confident to give it another go."
He said he would love to mountainbike again and still encouraged his son Hamish to go mountainbiking. However, his warning to mountainbikers is to always go with someone.
He can't speak highly enough of the huge amount of support he has received in the way of people giving their time by doing their gardens and preparing the meals for the family.
He is also aware of the many people who have been praying for him in Rotorua, New Zealand and overseas.
"It is just very humbling to be a recipient of people's prayers. I know that prayer works."
Although he is a tetraplegic, he believes "God has already been at work answering people's prayers".
"I'm already a miracle... They [the doctors] said to my family on the night of the accident that I could be on a ventilator for the rest of my life... Things were looking pretty grim," he said.
"Consultants at ICU said that there was a high likelihood of severe neurological deficiency."
In terms of goals he has set for himself, he wants to be able to feed himself and flip the pages of his Bible.
In the meantime he is looking forward to spending Christmas with this family and is "busting to get back" to preaching.
He has been asked to preach occasionally over the summer at Rotorua Baptist, the church he led before his accident.