On Sunday, I left for the drive. It was really neat to go to PCC Oakland. Everyone at the church just seems so warm and caring. What a blessing to worship with them! I have to confess, even as I was praying for many to register, part of me kept from being too helpful. After all, even though the drive was at a sister church, most of the members had no clue who Joe and I were. We were blessed though, 88 people ended up registering. (Same number as PPC Perry!) So many people expressed concern and love. It was amazing. Lisa, Cammy, and I were busy, busy, busy. I'm SO thankful for Lisa and Cammy. They were such troopers. They worked from 10:00-4:00pm at the church...straight through lunch even. Then we all went to Cammy's hotel room to double check everything. It was a long day. But a good day. It was neat, because we were even going to pack up a little early (around 3:30pm) because the church was suddenly empty. But just as we were walking out, another group of people showed up. Yay!!!!!
Sweet Sheena drove Joe to the drive in the afternoon when we knew it would be less crazy. He looked so handsome! After the drive, we met up with my dear sweet cousin Lilly. She was at a conference in DC for a week, and instead of heading straight back to Seattle, she came to visit for a day! I love my cousin Lilly so much, she's so good to me. So it was great to see her. She let us put her to work immediately, so post-drive work go finished really quickly.
Sunday evening was really fun. Cammy had discovered that she had very close family friends who are relatives of the Ott family! So the Ott family treated us all to a wonderful dinner. We had such a blast. It was really a wonderful time. After we got home, Lilly, Joe, and I had a silly time swapping stories. Joe and I also had the privilege of being entertained by Lilly comparing and contrasting her favorite chips (Snyder of Berlin Bar-B-Q chips) and Joe's favorite chips (Troyer Farms BBQ chips). It was really amusing, and it seems that in the future, Lilly may not be quite as loyal to her favorite!
This morning, Joe got his blood drawn at the hospital. Everything went up except for his platelets. They dropped again...but they are still high enough. So, it was yet another blessing! We also stopped by to see Joe's dad while we were at the hospital. That was fun. And, Cousin Lilly and radiology resident coordinator Lilly got a chance to meet each other. Yay!
We then headed over to the CMU drive. We thought we were going to help. Turns out, our help wasn't needed! Those Lambda brothers were amazing! They had created a shift schedule. They were also recruiting like crazy...in English, Mandarin, and Korean. It was awesome to see. So we got "kicked out."
Joe and Lilly used to take piano lessons at CMU from the same teacher, Mrs. Avery. They decided it would be fun to go visit the building again, and see if Mrs. Avery still used the same office. We were walking around and couldn't tell where Mrs. Avery was teaching. The amazing thing is that we ran into Mrs. Li, Albert's former piano teacher. If we had walked down the hallway a minute sooner or later, we would have missed her! Mrs. Li was so shocked to see the three of us, and immediately called Mrs. Avery to tell her! Mrs. Avery immediately made plans to meet us on campus (we found out she still has the same office.) It was amazing, because Mrs. Avery was just about to head outside to her garden, so the phone call came just in time! Within minutes, Mrs. Avery was able to have a little reunion with two of her former students! Too perfect.
Lilly needed to head to the airport, so after a great time of catching up with Mrs. Avery, we stopped by the area where the drive was being held. Wouldn't you know, they just ran out of swab kits! The drive had to end an hour early. I believe 122 people registered. So we ended up with a total of 210 registrants between yesterday and today. What can I say, praise God! Cammy has promised to come back in the Spring with boxes and boxes and boxes of kits so that even more people can register, and we won't run out of kits!!! Now I just keeping praying that these drives benefit Joe and many others who are searching for a match!!!!!!!
We have so much to be thankful for this weekend. Thank you to Cammy for spending so much time in Pittsburgh and helping us with the drives. Thank you to Pastor Hugo and PCC-Oakland for opening up their church for the drive, prayers, and support. Thank you to Lisa for working all day Sunday and acting as though it was such a natural thing to do. Thank you to Sheena for driving Joe to the church. Thank you to hubby Joe for being so thoughtful and bringing snacks and drinks! Thank you to Cousin Lilly for going out of your way to come to Pittsburgh to see us and spoil us, and help us. Thank you to Louis for helping to coordinate the CMU drive and spreading the word to all of your connections. Thank you to the CMU Lambdas for being SO amazing and energetic about recruiting. Thank you to all the people who helped to spread the news about the drive via word of mouth, fliers, and emails. Thank you to all of the people who registered. Thank you to all of the people who made plans to register but weren't able to because we ran out of swab kits! You are all amazing and beautiful. Thank you to Joe's parents for dinner on Saturday. Thank you to Dr. and Mrs. Ott for treating all of us to dinner on Sunday. Thank you to Gordon and Julie for coordinating the dinner. Thank you to Maura, Lydia, and Abbey for being so fun and entertaining. Thank you to Mrs. Li for taking time out to chat with us and calling Mrs. Avery. Thank you to Mrs. Avery for rushing out to see us! Thank you to everyone who is praying, supporting, and loving us from afar. Every day we feel so blessed and just know that even through the hard stuff God is watching over us. But this past weekend was especially amazing. Thank you, thank you, and thank you again.
Joe, Lisa, and Cammy after the church drive.
Joe's dad, Joe, and Cousin Lilly (Lillian!)
2 comments:
this was a really fun entry to read - say hi to lillian for me! :-) glad to hear that you all got to hang out and the drive went well. i can just imagine the shock on mrs. li's face. hehehe. -jennylin
Great to know the drives went so well. :) And it was so sweet of Lilly to visit you guys. Lilly didn't change at all, and I am so happy to see her in the pictures. Looks like you guys had a great time, and I envy you so much!
Yi-Shan (Sandy)
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