An Open Letter to my Mom from Hong Kong

June 13, 2010

Dear Mother, Here we are in the Matida Hospital in beautiful Hong Kong three days after Mark's total knee replacement surgery and all is well.   We are so grateful to our wonderful Lord for His lovingkindness and loving care and for being our strength in weakness.   His eyes search to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on our behalf, His children. Mark has had trouble with his right knee for a long time, and last December slipped on the ice making it worse.  So he finally went to an orthopedic surgeon in Beijing, who is actually from Hong Kong and only goes to Beijing twice a month for consultations.   Dr. Kong is a wonderful, soft-spoken surgeon with an excellent reputation.   Our school insurance pays for the whole thing except for transportation and my lodging. The last month of school for Mark was a busy one...spring trip with 7th graders, final exams, many meetings, preparations, packing up his classroom for the annual painting of the school, farewell parties, graduation, regular Bible studies, regular English corners with Chinese friends....SO, we scheduled the surgery for after school was out.    On June 9 we flew from Tianjin to Hong Kong.  It was turbulent about a fourth of the time...but we made it !!!    Then it took three busses to get from the airport to the hospital which is located on the top of a lovely green mountain.  Since Hong Kong was a British colony they all drive on the left hand side and there is definitely a strong British flavor even though there are mainly Chinese people here. Very international city. This is a small, very modern hospital where most everyone speaks English.  Random fact:  The movie, Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing was filmed in 1949 in the same area as this hospital.     Mark's room has a beautiful view of the harbor and skyscrapers and every day the weather is different...cloudy, clear, misty.   We love it.   But today the visibility is about zero and I feel like we are in a cloud. It's hot and humid outside, and inside the AC is too high so I am wearing Mark's terrycloth white hospital robe.     The night before the surgery I had some fears and anxieties, especially hearing the anesthesiologist talk of all the worse case scenarios as well as the best case ones.   I know that the Lord is always in control and that our times are in His hands, but I was struggling.  I prayed and read the Word, and in the middle of the night the Lord gave me the words in the song of How Firm a Foundation... FEAR not I am with thee O be not dismayed......you know the rest.   I truly felt upheld by His omnipotent hand and had perfect peace. It was a long long four hours that he was in surgery, and I took a mini bus to a local grocery store to buy some food for me.  I'm staying in a nice room very close in the same complex as the hospital.   I came back and waited in his room til he got here .....I was so glad to see him awake and smiling...although groggy and tired.   You know what it's like...as you have been through surgery, and also have seen Daddy go through it. The Doctor is amazed that Mark has felt little or no pain.  He has felt discomfort in lying flat on his back for long hours.  Every day they have him up doing simple exercises with his leg..... I went up to the 3rd floor maternity ward yesterday to see the babies. It's a very small hospital and very homey.   There were only three babies up there, and then they rolled in a brand new little baby boy and I saw the American father beaming as he took photos of them weighing and measuring his little son and then wrapping up in swaddling clothes and laying him in a little crib.  Precious moment I got to witness.  Then the next day I went up again and saw a young Asian mother walking down the hall with her little baby girl in her arms .......as I was looking in the window, she asked,  "Which one is yours?".   REALLY !   I gently said, "Oh I am just up here looking at the babies......my husband had surgery downstairs recently."   I was flattered.       This same lady told me that she has an 11- year old son and is from another city in China, not far from Hong Kong.  Her husband is a business man, so they could afford to have the baby delivered in this hospital so she can have HK citizenship.  In the mainland they can only have one child.  So people who can afford it find loopholes.   She did tell me that her son is worried that they won't care for him as much now that the little sister has come.  He has been "the little emperor" for so long.      Yesterday I went to a very famous place called The Peak , only about 5 minutes away from here.  It's a huge shopping center and lookout point with amazing views of Hong Kong harbor.  We are way way above all the skyscrapers and sometimes above the clouds !      I wandered around the shops, bought a few things. I wish Mark could have been along with me.  Not fun by myself. I wanted to find a place to get a manicure  (in our city they are everywhere) but this place is quite POSH, so I asked a shopkeeper and she pointed around the corner to a place called "Vunderful Feesh"  (Wonderful Fish)....I went to see what it was and found that it was a place where you sit around a little pool with your feet in the water and little fish eat off the dead skin cells of your feet.   I had heard of it before, but just didn't want to do it.   I probably would with a bunch of fun women.  Friends say that you go away with your feet feeling amazingly smooth and soft.     The nurses here are so nice and friendly.  One is a young Filipina nurse named Girly.  She said she is 6th of 8 children and her mother said she couldn't remember all the names.....so she just said Girly.   Her little brother's name is Boyly.   Really ! I'm hoping to venture out on Monday or Tuesday into the central part of the city to an outdoor market area just for fun.  And there are several good Christian bookstores , too.  Most of the time I am right by Mark's side, but he doesn't mind me leaving for a few hours. Guess what !   Dan and Danielle are expecting a baby boy in November !!! He will be the first Prescott grandson.  AND  Tim and Allyson are expecting another baby in February !!!  Hannah and her siblings told us on SKYPE the other night and we were so excited.  That will bring it up to 15 by next year ! (We always include baby Luke in the count) Well, if all goes well, there are four days left in the hospital and then we will go by taxi back to the airport and someone with a wheelchair will be there to help Mark get to the plane.  We just have economy plane seats so we hope it won't be a problem.  THEN when we get back to our apartment he will have to walk up two flights of stairs.    I miss you and can't wait to hang out with you and Deborah. I love you, Marilyn "Your lovingkindness is better than life thus will I praise You"  Ps 63:3