We have been getting settled in Brenham. A church here has graciously let us stay in the house pictured below for a few months. We have an extra bedroom if you would like to come and visit us. If you come, we will take you to the tour of the Blue Bell factory. We went yesterday and it was very interesting.

The car in the photo is our new ride. We bought it last week. It is a Toyota. It is the sixth different model of Toyota that we have owned.

We have been back in Texas for one week now. It has been busy because we have been getting settled in our house and trying to get our sleep patterns on the new time zone.

I have been thinking about whether or not I will keep writing the blog. I’m not sure whether or not I will have anything interesting to say. Maybe I just won’t write as frequently. We’ll see.

We depart for the U.S. on early Sunday morning, May 31. We will arrive in Austin very late on Sunday night. This week, and the last couple of days in particular, have been filled with packing and saying goodbye to everyone. This picture was taken at a gathering we had with many of the guys who have become our friends through the English class.

This past week at church, there were a few more African songs during worship. Here is one of them. (The audio is not too good so believe me when I say that it is much better in person).

Next Sunday, we will be out of town so this was our last time at Glad Tidings International Fellowship. The following Sunday is the day we fly back to the U.S.

I went on a bike ride yesterday to a new place that I had not been before. I was on a dirt road on the side of a mountain in a fairly secluded place. Fortunately, I brought my camera because I came across a small chapel out in the middle of nowhere. It was clean and in good shape so I know that it is being taken care of. However, since it is in such a remote place, I doubt that it gets much use.

There seems to be a tradition here to place small chapels in remote places. I will research that and find out more details but here is the photo I took.

We go to an International Church that is in English. There is a large group on people from the Philippines and a large group of Africans.

During the worship time, we usually sing songs that we are familiar with. However, sometimes the Africans are responsible for worship and it is REALLY good when that happens.

Here are a couple of clips from the worship today. It is better in person than the video illustrates but you will get the idea.

The surgery was on Saturday and it was successful. It is Tuesday now, and I came home from the hospital just before noon. I am feeling fine and don’t have any tubes attached. For the next seven days, I am supposed to eat soft foods and then after that, I should be back to normal.

On the plus side, my throat was not as sore as I feared after the surgery. It was all done endoscopically so there is no scar.

Another plus has been that I have not felt hungry these last three days. They were giving me some food through the tube while I was at the hospital and it was enough to keep me from feeling any hunger.

On the negative side, my experience of waking up from the anesthesia was not very good. I was only partially awake when they wheeled me from the operating room. It seemed like the guy who was pushing my bed was driving fast and making lots of turns. I got nauseated and threw up on the trip to the room. When I arrived to the place where family and friends were waiting, I had blood on me and I was groaning loudly.

When the doctor talked to me after the surgery, I was not completely coherent but by evening, I was feeling much better. I was surprised by how many times I had encounters with nurses or other hospital workers who couldn’t speak any English. It made me be uncertain sometimes about what exactly was going on but in the end, I guess that it was okay.

While in the hospital, I watched a number of movies on my laptop to pass the time. There are two movies in particular that I watched which are difficult to see under normal circumstances. I watched “The Godfather” and “Braveheart”. Both are very violent and are nearly three hours long. I don’t think I have ever seen the complete movie on either of these because there were lots of things in both of them that I didn’t remember.

Thanks to everyone who was praying for me and for all of the nice notes of encouragment that I received.

I will be having surgery on Saturday, April 25. I have a Zenker Diverticulum which is a cavity in my esophagus where things can get diverted. I found out that I had this problem because I began having problems when taking pills just before I went to bed. Sometimes, it would seem like they were getting caught in my throat. No amount of water or food would get it unstuck but the sensation would be mostly gone by morning.

A few weeks ago, I had another episode and it still felt very stuck in the morning. So, I went to the doctor to have them check it out. I thought that they would take an x-ray but instead, they knocked me out and stuck a camera down my throat. Below, you can see the photograph that they took of the pill which was lodged in my throat. They got the pill out and gave me the diagnosis. A few days later, I went back to the hospital for a barium swallow x-ray and you can see that below too. It confirmed the previous diagnosis.

This condition is not common and when it does happen, it is usually in people who are much older than me. It is caused by some inherent weakness in the muscles of the esophogus and maybe some mechanical mis-timing of the swallowing process.

I will have to stay in the hospital for three or four days after the surgery and will have a feeding tube for up to seven days. I am not looking forward to having a feeding tube for seven days. As I get more information, I will update the blog.

We have access to a car but we don’t drive too often. The main thing that prevents us from driving is the lack of parking. In some places, like the center of the city, we almost always take the bus because parking is so difficult there.

Since parking is so scarce, people will park almost anywhere. It is acceptable to park of the sidewalks and in the center median of a street. Double parking behind someone else is fairly common too. If you get hemmed in like this, you just lay on the horn until the other person comes to move their car.

We thought that we had seen almost every odd parking situation there was, but just the other day, there was a new one in our own apartment complex. There is a small nook at the separation point between two buildings. We drive by this spot every time we exit the complex.

Just the other day, someone started parking their Smart Car in this spot. This tiny car actually fits pretty well in this space. I can see why people like this car because it is much easier to find a parking space with this car.

When I was a kid, baseball was definitely my favorite sport. Like everyone else, I played baseball in the summer. I liked it and played every year until I was 14 or 15.

During college and even after I started work, I played in a number of slow pitch softball leagues. I like softball but I always wondered what it would be like to play regular fast pitch baseball again.

I got the chance to find out last weekend. There is a local club team of adults who were playing a team from Bulgaria. They were going to be short handed so I got invited to come.

It turned out that that had just enough players so I started out helping as an umpire. Later, I got in the game and had one at bat.

I struck out on two swings at bad pitches and then took a called strike on the only ball in the strike zone. It was fun but I think that it quenched my desire to play baseball for a while.