Thanksgiving and Lips...

Our day of Thanksgiving meal was McDonald's. The manager didn't want us to take a picture so I'm looking out for him!

Getting my antibiotic shot after the stitches.

Fun times.

Some of my students during the Lip Dub competition.

Hanging out with friends. We got rained out of our tennis match.

Post-surgery.

Pre-surgery

Mandi, Chelsie, Sophia, Becca, and Rebecca at Aloha's Thanksgiving.

The past two weeks have had two themes. Thanksgiving and lips.

A week and a half ago (Nov 19), our fellowship celebrated an early Thanksgiving with a potluck. Everyone brought a dish or two. We had all kinds of traditional Thanksgiving foods, which is very rare in China. Thanksgiving is the only time all year I'll get anywhere close to turkey, pumpkin pie, and stuffing (my personal favorite). After the amazing meal, quite a few of us walked to a nearby field to play some touch football.

I was playing quarterback for a lot of the game. Towards the end of the game, one of our Australian friends (Dan) was rushing me for a sack. I barely avoided him and threw a long pass for a touchdown (just letting you know!!). However, when he jumped up to block the pass, he accidentally elbowed me on the right side of my lower lip. It didn't really hurt, but I could tell that it was probably bleeding. I asked Dan, and he said it was...a lot! Before I knew it, I had blood all over my clothes and hands!

There's a lady in our fellowship (Cheryl) who is a doctor, so a few people walked back with me to see her. Cheryl looked at it and said what I was expecting: I would need stitches. I had bitten my lip with my upper and lower teeth in different places. It was pretty nasty.

Stitches don't make me nervous, but going to a Chinese hospital for any reason scares me! I'd heard a few horror stories, and never wanted to visit one! Cheryl didn't have her equipment with her, so I'd have to take the risk! Rebecca, Mandi, and one of our Chinese friends (Rachel) took a taxi to the closest hospital that Cheryl recommended.

The entire experience was pretty hectic. We walked around to a few different buildings trying to find the right place to go. When we finally did find the correct, I was immediately taken in to see the doctor. Mandi was my translator while Rebecca and Rachel went off to get me registered. All three were a huge help. I felt like I had three secretaries with me!

I think the surgery took longer than the doctor expected. The anesthesia wore off before he was finished. The last few stitches felt like he was trying to rip my lip off! He told me that it was a little difficult to fix because it wasn't a normal cut. He had trouble finding parts of my lip to sew together! I ended up with 7 stitches.

After that, I was going to have to get an IV (you almost ALWAYS have to get one if you go to a hospital here) to fight off infection. I really didn't want to, but we called Cheryl and she said it would probably be a good idea. But before I could take it, I had to take a skin test to make sure I wouldn't be allergic to it. I failed the skin test, so we then had to take a taxi to another hospital to get a shot instead of the IV! We finally made it to that hospital and I got my shot (in the lower regions if you know what I mean). We were finally ready to head back. The whole experience took 3-4 hours. It was a long night! Thanks to Dan, Cheryl, Rebecca, Mandi, and Rachel for all their help that night. I got the stitches off a week later, and my lip is almost completely back to normal. The doctor did a really good job.

Earlier that week, Mandi, Rebecca, and I were the judges for (ironically) a lip dub competition. All the classes in Senior 2 played a clip of a movie and replaced the actual sound with their voices. It was live, not recorded. It was fun to be a part of, just a little long. There are 30 classes in that grade! Plus, there were about 6 groups who did the same clip from Monsters, Inc. The whole competition took about 3 hours.

We celebrated our 2nd Thanksgiving this past Saturday at Aloha (an American restaurant we frequently visit on the other side of Wuhan). It was all you could eat of turkey, stuffing, biscuits, and pie. Needless to say, I had my share of Thanksgiving food this year!

While we were over on that side of Wuhan, we had an amazing time of pryr and wrship with members of our Zhong team who live there. Paul J is very excited about the HS, and he enjoys teaching us about Him.

I've also had some great opportunities to share with my students. I gave some Books to two of them who had asked me where they could get one. Plus, another class that I teach has students who are doing an English project on the New Testament. Their teacher knows I am a C, so she asked me to meet with them once a week so they can ask me questions. Please be thinking of these students as well as me over these next few weeks!

That's all for now! Hope you're doing well!

Isaiah 49:8