Outreach to the Bukid

Ok, outreach. There's so much to tell! Well, basically, it was great. We cleaned some boils, gave prenatal care, played with a ton of kids, ate rice at *every single* meal, killed a mouse that was in that rice, washed our hair in the rivers every day, nearly lost my voice when a cockroach dropped down my shirt, rode motorcycles for hours almost every day, saw plenty of gorgeous scenery, worked on Bisaya, learned some Minobo, and prayed...a lot.


Here we have the three girls from Mercy: Janelle, me, Charity

Our first night was spent at Ate Mary Jane's house. A midwife in some of the rural villages in the mountains, she was originally going to be the one who escorted us through the area. Sadly though, she miscarried the week before and needed to stay home. However, she was an amazing hostess, and we loved meeting her family. Her testimony, heart for God, and love for her people are incredible.

This is Ghang-Ghang, also a midwife who grew up in the area but now lives in Davao. She graciously took us to the villages instead of Mary Jane.

The pump outside of Mary Jane's house where most of the village gets their water and takes their baths.

All morning and evening, the young kids carry water from the pump to their homes (yikes! and I thought sweeping the floor was a horrible enough chore as a kid...)

Ready to head out...(this was the easiest day riding because we had an extra motorcyle)

"THEN the 'All Natural' coconut is shredded, packaged, and shipped to you." :P

Ummmm.......a little girl :D

We spent the next two days at a clinic just a 1.5 hours ride away from Mary Jane's house.

This little guy spent hours reading Where There is No Doctor. He has the same fascination I had with this book when I was his age...

Inday loved the stethoscope, and when any of the other kids tried to use it, she would very seriously say, "Okay, ooookay, share, SHARE." Really cute....

We started out with just a few kids...

And got more....

And more. And later we had many, many more, but at that point, it was too dangerous to pull out my camera because...

It became almost a frenzy with them trying to get in the photos. :P





Devotions

We were SO thankful for mosquito nets every night...

And plenty of young coconut!

The person taking this picture was just waiting for me to slip and fall in the mud again. :D This is where we washed our clothes and dishes.

These girls took us for a very long walk to see their village.

Rice fields

One of the rivers we swam in every day.

Hair washing party

Third village where we worked; we only stayed here for half a day. The prenatal room was sort of missing a wall... :D

Yes...there were people staring in from all sides the entire time. And we had about three people trying to translate our ridiculously horrible Bisaya into Minobo for each patient. It made for a lot of laughter.



Through each day, we remembered something Ate Mary Jane had told us on the first day at her house. "In over ten years of doing midwifery, I have never lost a baby or a mother during labor, delivery, or immediate postpartum. And I have nothing, no resources--no medicine to stop bleeding, no oxygen to help a baby breathe after birth. At least, it *seems* like I have nothing, but really, I have the most important thing: God. When a woman is bleeding to death, I pray. When a baby won't breathe, I pray. And God has blessed my job. He knows how difficult it is; He hears my prayers. And so, I continue."

Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol Him, all peoples! For great is His love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!
~Psalm 117