The yard boy

I was looking forward to having my own yard to tend to. But I had some nerve damage to my right shoulder during surgery, and I was told that I shouldn't mow my own yard for a year. Yikes! I'm not even planning to be here a year. Fortunately, my 17-year-old nephew, Nathan. was looking for part time work, so I hired him as my yard boy. Here he plants a crepe myrtle. Nathan will be a senior in high school this year. I'm so glad that he lives nearby, for many reasons!

I bought a house

I used to joke that one day I would retire from my overseas work and come back to the U.S. to live under an underpass. But I really wanted a house instead. I'm picky like that. And since my salary has not increased in twenty years, while everyone else's in America has, I wondered if I would be able to even afford a house if the current housing cost trends continued upwards between now and my retirement So I prayed and asked God what I should do.

I know some people who live overseas buy a house in America and rent it out while they are overseas. But I was never home long enough to work on buying a house (I usually only stay in the U.S. for two months at a time). But since I have medical issues, I am home much longer this time around. 

I looked at houses in the neighborhoods I liked, and they cost too much. My tastes always seem to be higher than my pocketbook can handle. 

But THEN, a house in a good neighborhood came up for sale. I knew the people moving out. They had to make a quick exit for personal reasons, and the house needed a lot of fixing up since many maintenance issues had been neglected for many years. So they were selling it for cheap. I found out about it before it was made public, and the neighbors wanted to give me the first shot at getting the house. Without their generosity, I wouldn't have succeeded in buying the house. Others could have bid more and were waiting to do so.

So I bought it.

And it is next door to my parents' house. :-) 

Doing the needed repairs myself (with the help of family and friends) means I could make it work. I got it back during the spring. I did a few weeks of repairs while recuperating from chemo, then I had surgery and radiation which put house repairs on the back burner. But I moved into the one bedroom that was move-in ready, and Mimi and I live in the house already.

Some may wonder why a cancer patient would invest in a house since life is so uncertain. But life is uncertain for all of us, and we still buy and sell and carry on with our lives. No one knows if they will wake up the morning after they sign their housing paperwork. Romans 8:28 is at work in my life. The year in America has some good purposes for my life. 

Visitors from Tasmania

When I moved to Tasmania in 1987, so did another Texan, Sandy Hatch. She got married a year later to Warren Graetz and she has lived in Tasmania ever since. We were both back in Texas at the same time, so she came to Houston and stayed with me a week while I was undergoing radiation treatment. She was a great encouragement and help. 

One weekend, Sandy and I traveled to Whitehouse to visit my family. 

The top photo of Sandy and Warren was taken at MD Anderson, on the skybridge. The other was taken while having dinner with the family of my brother James. (Interestingly, Sandy and James traveled together on the same Continental Singers summer tour in the 80s). 

So glad I was able to visit this dear friend, who has already returned to Australia.

Visit from a childhood friend

 

Kim and I have been friends since 5th grade, and she came to visit me in Houston. Her daughter (pictured above right) also lives in Houston. 

Kim and I drove down to Galveston for lunch on the beach one day. It was really hot that day and we weren't much in the mood to take photos. So this bad one is all we've got.

A visit from my oldest brother and his wife

My oldest brother C and his wife P came through Houston a few days ago. We spent the evening together and I cooked dinner for them. Unfortunately, my all-electric kitchen lost electrical power while I was cooking. It was a minor disaster and we were still able to eat.

Memorial Day flood

It was my great misfortune to have been in Houston on the evening of Memorial Day 2015 when the great flood hit. Hundreds of motorists were stranded overnight on the highways, thousands had their homes destroyed, and my car was a minor victim.

The rains and thunder were unlike any I have heard in my life thus far. And I consider myself to have endured quite a few storms (mostly overseas, some in east Texas). The lightning and thunder were relentless for seven hours straight in my part of town. I knew my car was at risk, but it was too dangerous to go outside and move it. The rain POURED out of the sky without stopping, hour after hour after hour. I was thankful to be on the second floor of a garage apartment. I was also glad Mimi wasn't there. She might have died of fear.

I went outside several hours after the rain stopped. I didn't see the worst of the flooding, as I'm sure it had subsided somewhat in those few hours. This is what I saw.

 You can see that the water had been at least a foot higher before I took this picture.

The insurance adjuster says it still works. The interior is being replaced. Hopefully I can pick up the car sometime soon.

Insurance takes away some of the pain, but it is still an extremely unpleasant experience to go through. I hope I never have to go through it again.

UPDATE: The insurance company finally declared my car a disaster. It was totaled. Since the car was being leased from a non-profit organization that was in no hurry to replace the car, I was in Houston without transportation. But God provided and I never missed an appointment. I am back on four wheels again. More on that another time.

Thirty-seven years later

During the last week of February, I was in the hospital due to a severe infection. I posted something on Facebook with the initials of the hospital where I was staying. Next thing you know, I hear a knock on the hospital room door, and in walks the pretty lady above. I didn't know she was coming and she doesn't live near me. Yet, without a moment of hesitation, I gasped and said, "Jana!"

I last saw her in 1978, when I graduated from high school and she was probably 16 or 17 years old. I immediately recognized her. And she is just as sweet as she ever was, with the love of Christ oozing from her as it always had.

Jana, along with a few other of her classmates (most specifically Angie and Dalene), have helped me tremendously, jumping in to raise funds for my expenses, to contact the American Cancer Society on my behalf, and seek housing for me during medical travels. 

It is no accident as to whom God puts in your life. Who would ever guess that after 37 years of having no contact whatsoever, Jana (pictured here with her husband who I met that day), God would bless me with her presence once again?

Many of those reading this blog have the same kind of heart as Jana, and it is no accident that you are in my life either.

My lovely little Pekingese

It sure is nice to have Mimi with me in the U.S. She keeps me laughing, smiling and happy all over.

Mimi has been an "only-dog" for ten years, so she's had a hard time adjusting to sharing a house with a poodle. Mimi is aggressive, even hostile towards the other dog, thinking it might steal her food. My parents have really big hearts though, and they love Mimi despite her personality flaws, knowing she's been through a lot lately.

Right now I'm in Houston for six weeks, so my parents have kindly taken on the responsibility for keeping the dogs alive and happy during my absence. I kind of miss my cuddly little sidekick. I know she's in good hands though. Hang in there little baby!

Pretty little liar

On my trips to Houston, sometimes I stay overnight with a family consisting of two parents and a 8-year-old boy named Cole. I just met this fine Christian family in recent months. My brother J has known them for years.

Last week when I was in Houston, the adorable boy Cole took down the collage of his baby photos that was in the guest area where we were staying. He was embarrassed by one of the baby photos in which he was taking a bath and his private parts were showing. His mom made him put the framed glass collage back on the wall before he broke it. But we gave him an idea that he might put a post-it note over the one offending part of the collage. He ran in the kitchen, got a yellow post-it note, and covered the photo.

The cute little fella was relieved. He laughed along with the rest of us and said, "Sometimes I am forced to lie and say that the photo is of my cousin instead of me!" 

College friends and health updates

Sorry I haven't been updating the blog lately. I took a hit from chemo, but chemo is over now.

My brother J and I got a visit from some college friends yesterday. Wes S. and Steve P. came to visit for the day. We actually needed some help with some things, and they volunteered to come pitch in and help us out. We loved the fellowship time with them. Not only had we all gone to college together in Brownwood, but after college we all ended up in Fort Worth and attended the same church. I hadn't seen them in about 30 years, but we kind of picked up where we left off.

L to R: Wes, Steve, Elizabeth, J

We took 17 photos, and my brother J made goofy faces in all 17 of them. Someday I'm going to make a collage of his goofy face photos. Every goofy face is different.

In other news:

I defied the odds for months, but as you can guess from the photos, I finally lost all my hair. Well, not ALL my hair. I think I had about 137 strands of hair still intact at its lowest point. It started growing back a day or two ago, so I decided to own up to it. I never shaved my head through the entire ordeal, because I wanted to see what happened if you didn't shave it. Now I know. I'll tell you more about it some other time.

I'm having surgery this Wednesday in Houston. The surgeon will remove all the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck. Please pray for me. I don't know how much I can post during recovery, but when I am able, I"ll try to do a better job about updating this blog. It just feels a little strange to talk about life in Texas on a blog called "Stories of the Middle Kingdom." But I will. Thanks for understanding.