over due update...

This is a brief update on all that has been happening in my life here in India. But this will be short and to the point, just like my verbal conversations.

My third week in Varanasi I had minor surgery. Yes, a very scary thing to deal with, but now three weeks later I am fine and completely healed. It was an infected sebaceous gland on my neck that had to be cut out. I have had surgery before and this experience was nothing like what I had experienced in America. The surgery room was so relaxed, people in and out, answering cell phones, and people not even wearing gloves! Some of the procedures were out dated and the whole time my mind was screaming, This place is not sterile!!!!! Most of you know I taught Microbiology lab last semester and I have far too much knowledge about bacteria. But God is good and challenged me through the whole process. Gently, God asked me over and over again, Who or What do you trust? Your knowledge? The modernness of the west? Or do you trust me your God?

The next three weeks I spent every other night traveling to the clinic for wound care. Thus I began to pray for Dr. Tiwari a lot since I was seeing him so much.

When my stitches were removed the wound was not closed and I had a huge open wound on my neck. It was about 2-3 inches long, 1/2 inch wide, and about 1/2 inch deep. Hardly anyone could stand to look at it, and I myself had a hard time putting medicine in the wound daily. After running through the emotions of fear, sadness, shame, and anger...I then settled on humor. We then began to call my wound "the mouth, or talking neck." It really did look like a mouth on my neck. From then on every day friends would ask the mouth how it was doing, and in true puppet form the mouth would just respond, tikke tikke.