A Weekend to Remember

This weekend we took Zeelan to go visit her sister and her sister's husband's family in Suly! It's about 2 hours from us. I don't know how many people live in this home...but a dozen or so...from brothers and wives and sisters and kids, etc. It's a bustling household, but we love it! Annie and Zeelan eating fresh eggs from the chickens straight out of the frying pan on the floor with bread!

One of the brother's sons...Diar! A little bit of a crazy boy, but then so are my boys. Although we did have to call him off a few times for choking and other wild moves. our boys had a great time with him, but i can't say I am not worried for my boys and hanging out with the boys here who are taught to be rough and are allowed to do anything.

One of my favorite things about going to this home is they let m play dress up. They wear these beautiful house dresses. It's a black satin underlay with baggy pants and a camisole. Then a sheer dress on top with a black velour vest! I love it! I think it's so pretty! They have all sorts of colors and patterns. This is Leila, Zeelan's sister, who has become a really dear friend confiding in me about all sorts of matters of the heart.

Most of the time we were there, it was raining, so the wild boys were confined inside, but we got to get out for a walk later on in the day. Here are the boys marching up the hill to look for treasures...sticks and bugs and trash!

Annie and Banoush, one of the sisters sitting in a field making daisy chains...only in Kurdistan would you sit next to the trash heap from some abandoned car!

Here she is up close...one of the most beautiful girls here.

with annie and the finished flower crown

Banoush and I

cute little grubby kids squatting!

Another sister, Shireen. I also really love her. She loves to talk and has many questions to ask about God and Jesus. She also has deep hurts in her heart that only Jesus can heal!

We decided to go to the park before we left to drive home. We had been there 5 minutes and I managed to snap 1 picture before Annie decided to try to jump over a handrail. Following is the story of how Annie broke her arm...not for the squeemish...there is one picture in particular that might make your tummy turn!

After Annie leaped the rail, I was right behind her and saw her go down and ran to her...she just looked at me and help up a very floppy arm! I couldn't believe it! I did my usual freak out in an emergency situation and screamed for Tim. Tim did his usual don't freak out...she probably did not break her arm...then he looked and realized I was right! Amazingly Annie did not shed a tear, until Tim scooped her up and asked our friends to take us to the hospital. That is when Annie started to cry because she has experienced the hospital here before and knows it is not nice.

This is the picture that makes my heart just flip flop for her. All along she just wimpered. They gave us a temporary cast and sent us to get an x-ray.

She was so brave through all of this. Tim was on the phone with an american who works in Suly, who later came to make sure we were getting good treatment. we are so thankful for him!

Let's just take a look at what the Kurdish hospital looks like. They were in the process of cleaning the floors while we were there which involves spraying water all over the floor and then squeegeeing it straight out the front door. we had to wait to go in in fact at first as there was a flood of dirty water coming out the door while we were trying to get in.

this is the horrifying triage room...filled with half naked men. This is the room we had to walk in to, to try to talk to the doctor. There is no waiting for him, you just have to be the first one to grab him.

Here's a picture of the x-ray...definitely broken...turns out both bones in 3 places total.

we managed to get the doctor and he offered us two choices...wait 3 hours for the anesthesiologist to come and put her under to set the bone or he could pull it right there and set it. We opted for the second option. Annie was rightfully very scared as we explained what would happen and we had to ask the doctor 3 times to please change his gloves. He insisted that he didn't need to though since the last patient hadn't had an open wound and neither did Annie. I finally just said, "Listen, we are Americans and the doctors always change their gloves...I just need you to please change your gloves." So he finally did. She was so brave through the setting of the bone. She didn't even cry out when they pulled it...she did however let out a good holler when they twisted it back into place. But it was all over very fast and she was amazing and could see that her arm was straight again. They made a soft cast for her.

We then sat in the waiting hall for another x-ray to make sure it was straight and all looks well. We didn't have to pay anything for the entire trip to the hospital. Our Kurdish friends felt responsible and wouldn't let us pay. But if we had...it would have probably been less than $100. It was a very traumatic event for me, but we made it home, our amazing team leaders, Paul and Erin, were waiting for us with pizza and a get well card! Another amazing thing is that our neighbors Josh and Bevin have a team of American doctors with them right now and they were able to look at the x-rays and let us know that all looks well. We will have to find a specialist to visit in the next week or two and have it x-rayed again and put in a harder cast possibly. But all in all we survived our first broken bone and felt God's caring hands surrounding us the entire time and we know that whatever lies ahead he has us completely covered!