More Surgeries!

Saturday, August 05, 2006 at 5:59 AM PDT

Well here is the latest....I have to have Jonas, Gabriel, Michael and Sarah at the hospital this afternoon. That means in four hours from now. They could be doing the surgeries as early as tomorrow morning and by tomorrow night this time their little faces could look so very different. I do not have too much news at the moment because the medical team just flew in this morning but you will know as soon as I do. Jonas is the only one who will have his palette repaired and he might be in the hospital three or four days but we could be home with the other three by tomorrow night.

I hope you will pray for us and for the skills of the doctors to perform these surgeries to the best of their ability.

I am also in charge of get some interpreters together and that is a huge job. We have to have eight a day and some on standby for a team of 30 or more medical personnel. I just found out about this yesterday. They are hoping to see 600 patients and I am not sure how many surgeries. It is going to be crazy between now and August 18. The one wonderful thing I learned from the last medical mission in Nanjing was to get the doctor's licenses approved before they arrived. The hospital that they are working with in Xian repeatedly told the person who is coordinating the mission, that they were not needed but I urged him to do it regardless. He listened to me and just yesterday the government phoned after he was on the evening news and told him nothing was happening unless these verifications were complete. They were done!!! So they are starting right away.

The adventure conitnues....

Love and laughter,

Amanda