The weeks have flown by and I find that I have been back in China for a month and yet so much has happened that it feels as if I had been back a year. I have just reached my one year anniversary here and I am daily amazed at the blessings God has placed in my life, there are literally hundreds of names for those blessings. At the moment I am sitting in the waiting area of the Hang Zhou Operation Smile Charity Hospital along with six babies and their ayis. We are here for cleft lip repairs on each of these little ones, in fact as I write the first two are in the OR and I have finally managed to comfort both of their awaiting ayis. It has been quite an adventure as we left at 5:30 Sunday morning on a two hour bus ride to the airport- yes you heard that correctly the airport. I flew with 6 ayis and 6 babies who had never been on a plane before! In fact one of the funniest moments came as I was teaching them how to fasten their seat belts as none of these women had ever put one on before. When we arrived after our 2 hour flight I asked how they liked it, one ayi replied that she felt a little nauseated and thought the train would be a good idea for our return trip if we could get tickets. The others quickly told her that she could deal with the stomach problem that they liked not being on a train for 16-20 hours! We will have to wait and see if there are train tickets available for our journey back.
So you may ask what has kept me busy for the last several weeks…can I just give you a glimpse of an outline? Otherwise the volume would take more than just one cup of coffee. I returned to MBHOH in time to put final preparations together for the incoming surgical team that arrived to repair 11 of our cleft lip and palate babies in our very own OR. It was the first surgical group and it really went very well. That group was here the end of June, first part of July and since then the 11 have almost completely recovered. I love to see them smile with their WHOLE lips! While that team was with us we also had another group of volunteers visit to play with children. At the end of those two groups there were a couple days of quiet and then a couple more groups came in and at this moment there is another group currently at the unit. In amongst all of the comings and goings were visits from the designers of our new unit in Zheng Zhou which is scheduled to open the first part of September, a visit from Robin, Joyce and their daughter Katie, and the Chapmans.
Then on July 19th Victoria Mayo arrived to spend a week with me. What a treasured time we had! I so enjoyed our conversations, and we took plenty of time for them as we worked on a quilt together, played with babies, made pizza, checked new babies in, went shopping in the markets, played with babies, and of course as we celebrated Victoria’s 18th Birthday on Saturday the 24th!
Victoria is preparing to start nursing school this fall and has an incredible heart for orphans. She was a special blessing to my summer just as she and her family have been a blessing in my life through the years.
Well if I want to get this little note out to you any time soon- or rather before children begin coming out of surgery I want to send it now.
With a grateful Heart for each one of you,
Mariah
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