My husband is travelling to another country for a card event, as well as some pastoral appointments and preaching at another church. Here I am, holding the fort with God's strength and grace each new day.
On the day my husband flew, my youngest son noticed his feeding button was protruding slightly from his stomach. This wasn't our first experience, so we suspected the balloon of the feeding button was faulty. After checking, we were right. So on Saturday morning, the first thing we did was change the feeding button. We were still nervous, but we did it.
As you can see from the photo, the old button’s balloon had turned black after a year of being in contact with food in the stomach. The balloon had also burst. Thank God it lasted us a full year, with the doctor’s approval to change it yearly instead of every 3–6 months.
Around noon, as usual every Saturday, I went to visit my aunt. The first thing she did was let me know all the groceries she needed: from meat to vegetables, as well as daily necessities like biscuits etc. This time, she added two more items: her broken comb, which she had never replaced before, and wardrobe fresheners. My aunt always takes good care of her things. She is very thrifty, and most of her belongings last a lifetime.
She cooked another sumptuous lunch for us. She said it had been a while since she made minced pork patty balls (just as she called them), so she woke up earlier to prepare the dish. It was so delicious.
On top of that, she cooked a dish of mixed vegetables with slices of chicken. This time she used chayote, capsicum, and carrots. The natural sweetness of the vegetables was amazing. Yum!
Last Monday was a special holiday for my son due to Sports Day on Sunday. Somehow, we decided to have a revision marathon from morning to night. Let’s do this! We went to McDonald's to fuel up first while collecting the Mario Galaxy Happy Meal toy box. Yay! Then, because of the hot weather and how our home felt like a sauna, we decided to stay at McDonald's for lunch and continue our revision there. So it became a full McDonald's lunch-and-revision day. We studied for four hours straight, with some iPad games in between as breaks.
We still had some energy left, so we continued our revision at night, aiming to complete one part of the syllabus and we did it.
My son’s parcel arrived too, and he was stoked. He immediately assembled it and tried it out—his dip bar for calisthenics training.
After spending at McDonald's, I made a decision to stop spending by cooking all our meals subsequently at home. I diligently prepared breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next two days. It was tiring plus all the housechores and daily teaching, but I kept going. Then something special happened. The wife of my husband’s friend messaged me, saying she and her husband wanted to bless us with a meal to ease my load. I was moved to tears because I had silently told God that I needed a break from cooking.
She arranged for Grab delivery from one of our favourite Cantonese restaurants. She ordered baked cheese chicken chop rice, pork patty rice with peanut lotus root soup, and signature noodle soup. I was beyond grateful for her kindness and thoughtfulness. We ate with gladness and thankfulness in our hearts.
I am still counting down to the day my husband finally comes home—6 more days to go, and we will see him soon. Each day feels full in its own way, sometimes stretching, sometimes sweet, but we are getting through it one step at a time. The house feels a little quieter without him, yet it is also filled with small reminders of grace: strength for what needs to be done, help arriving at just the right moment, and little pockets of joy in between the long days.
