Friday, October 8, 2010

Blue skies and lots of road ahead

Since I last posted, we left Dallas and drove to Hamilton. On our last Friday in Dallas, the Chinese boy who had surgery was released from the hospital. Hongsheng is the boy with the tesser syndrome palate that went from his mouth all the way to one eye. His first surgery was successful. They made an incision across the top of his head (never even shaving his hair) and pulled the side of his face into place. It was an amazing surgery with only a small scar near his lips where they formed his mouth.

He returned for a check up and they kept him in the hospital for several days because of an infection.

It was about 9 p.m. Friday night when Ron returned to the RV with Judy (our Chinese worker) and Hongsheng. We bedded them down with us in the RV for the night and left about 7 a.m. the next morning for Hamilton.

We parked two nights in the driveway of Hongsheng's host family (Dr. & Mrs. Monte Horne). They treated us to some delicious meals and we enjoyed a meal at a Chinese restaurant to celebrate Hongsheng's 13th birthday.

We drove to Waco and parked at the New Road C of C and went to church there on Sunday night (Ron gave a report about the work in China).

Tuesday morning, we drove to Hamilton to take Judy back to Dallas to catch a flight to Atlanta and picked up Aida (another Chinese worker coming in to care for Hongsheng). We returned again Wednesday morning to take Hongsheng back for another check up. They thought he was doing O.K. but decided to leave the drianage tube in until Monday.

We stopped at Gatesville that Wednesday night. Ron gave a report on the work in China to that congregation and we had a meal with them. Gatesville is a very small town but the youth minister has about 100 children from the community coming for a meal and class every Wednesday night.

We drove back to Hamilton on Monday to take Aida and Hongsheng to Dallas for the boy's check up. He still had infection so they scheduled him for surgery the next day to flush out the wound and restitch the incision. We took Aida and Hongsheng to the Ronald McDonald House since they needed to be back at the hospital early the next morning.

The boy's surgery was not until 7 p.m. the next night because of emergencies. Aida was there for another day without a change of clothing. She didn't take her phone charger or her computer as we had no idea she would have to stay in Dallas.

Rosy Horne, the host Mom, went to get them on Wednesday afternoon. We are all hoping this second time to open up the incision and flush it out will do the trick.

It is a two-hour drive to Dallas from Hamilton. For us to go from Waco to Hamilton and then to Dallas is about a three-hour trip so on the days we helped the Horne family by making these trips, it was an all-day trip.

We parked one night in Temple and had breakfast with two of their elders the next morning before leaving for Austin.

We have been at the Southwest C of C in Austin since we arrived here Tuesday afternoon. We met with one of their elders Wednesday morning and attended class here on Wednesday night.

Ron has been making calls to other congregations to set up future appointments as well as calling churches in the Houston area. We will leave Austin early next week for Houston. We will be there a couple of weeks.

We have cool nights and clear skies during the day with temperatures ranging from the 50's at night to the 80's during the day.

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