Life in The Family International

Vas writes: I went to see my dentist, Enrique, to get a wisdom tooth pulled. They put this 3-D contraption on me so I could watch DVD’s. It was cool because it helped distract me from the extraction. The only problem was I finished the whole movie and he still didn’t have my wisdom tooth extracted. He tried for another hour and couldn’t do it. He’s a very good dentist, it was just that my tooth was very far back and he was trying to avoid surgery, I guess. By that time my mouth coulnd’t take any more stretching and prying…I mean my cheeks were so stretched out I now have cuts inside from them splitting open.

He said that he was going to call his friend who is also a very good dentist—one of the best here in Cuernavaca—and when he did his friend said “I’ll do it right now” and that it was better to take advantage of the fact that I was already under anesthesia and all so he drove me over to his friends consultory. On the way I was in pain but I knew I should witness a bit to him about Jesus. He had already prayed to ask Jesus into his heart but I talked with him a bit more. I don’t remember what I said cause I was under so much anesthesia, but he seemed to respond well, from what I remember.

So at the other dentist’s place I right away could sense that his friend wanted to prove to Enrique how good he was and I knew I was in for another long haul. I didn’t know whether to be glad so that it wouldn’t be so humiliating for Enrique and this cocky dentist would get a bit of a humiliation or to panic for myself. So I switched into robot mode and said “Lord, whatever you want to do go for it, but could the tooth just please come out today?” and He told me “Yes it will, but it will be hard.” So I asked the nurses to call my wife and tell her what was going on so she wouldn’t be worried because I had already been gone for four hours. I told them to tell her I don’t care what the doctors say and how much pain I am in when I get home I am going to keep this kids vacation rolling and do some seriously fun things with them.

Two hours and a major surgery later, the tooth was finally extracted. Stitches in mouth, I arrived home to find the kids happy having fun with my wife. She’s great and did a good job of keeping vacation activity rolling and insisted on me resting. She put on a movie for the kids and set out a blanket with pillows on the floor for them and me to cuddle up with while watching the movie. So I ended up doing something fun with the kids after all, but just not so vigorous. Well I am just glad after five hours of being in two different dentist’s chairs that I am out of there and the tooth is extracted, Thank God!

Vas and Joni are members of The Family International and are fulltime missionaries in Mexico. Vas helps to organize outreach, writes, records and produces music, plays in a band, performs and does shows, counsels young people and engages in evangelism. Joni teaches her four children, evangelises, performs and does shows, sings and records and assists The Family childcare board. More about Vas and Joni

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2006 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.