Picture of the Week

They're heeeere.....and they're great! Class of 2010

Samal and Talikud Islands

Last Saturday morning, I got off night shift, changed out of my scrubs, joined a few of the other students and a missionary couple visiting from Sudan, and spent the day on outreach to some other islands. We traveled by jeepney, bus, motorcycle, foot, ferry, and motor boat to get there; did checkups and prenatals; and had a great time. :)

Hiking down to the ocean

Our boat to another island

On our way there, the water was smooth, but on our way back, it was much more choppy and the boat was rather scary and tippable

Checkups

This little guy wasn't feeling so great and had a really high fever

Our lunch: fish, crab soup, soy sauce, rice, and fresh seaweed

The beach next to their village

Huge clams. When we poked them, they instantly clamped down with so much force, they sprayed water into the air...

....the Filipinos warned us to not step in them, or they would cut our feet horribly when they clamped down.

On our hike out, we stopped at this lovely toilet. I hit my head on the roof and knocked an ants' nest of hundreds of ants and little ant maggot babies onto my head....I nearly had a heart attack. :P lol

On the ferry back to Davao City

Bigger and Better

Twenty-one feet tall... obviously not tall enough. Besides, the main posts were getting a little wobbly, so it was time for a change. The old zipline needed replaced...

Now towering 34 feet above the ground, the new tripod zipline spans more than 300 feet.

In construction


Part of the construction crew

And in operation

Double Baby Day

It all started at 6:12 AM when I delivered little Ryan Angel, the third son of this beautiful family who absolutely adored him.

A few hours later, just when I finished with the newborn exam, bath, immunizations, paperwork, patient log books, and birth certificate for little Ryan, another expecting mom, Nora Naninunan, came into the clinic.

Less than ten minutes later, I delivered yet another screaming little guy, and his family is completely different from little Ryan's family. His mom has nothing....and I mean nothing. She had no diapers, no baby clothes, no baby soap, no breakfast, no clean clothes to change into after birth...nothing. And she lives in Isla Verde (I've written about Isla Verde here "Grasping for Words"). It breaks my heart to see women like Nora with husbands who won't or truly *can't* get jobs, who have nothing, and have no way of providing for their families.

On the birth certificate, although Nora did not know how to sign her own name (we used thumb prints), she was proud to let me know that she was a "born again Christian"...and could I please put that on the certificate? *Such* a sweet lady.

This is Nora's tenth child (although three of her children were premature and died at a very young age), and she asked me to name him. Her other sons were named Matil, Tamil, and Tatil, so we decided to go with something a little different and named him Taylor (after my brother of course :). Taylor Piping Naninunan.

Now, although this was quite the privilege, it was also sad. Taylor is an unwanted baby...another mouth to feed. He'll be going to Nora's sister (the woman sitting next to Nora in the picture above) who only has three children and will be able to better care for him.

We gave Nora baby clothes and diapers from our stash of donated supplies, but I wish we could do so much more for her. This was poverty beyond my American mind's ability to even comprehend.

Just another day...

...with never-ending book reports which are very endurable as long as we include never-ending tea :)

AND, to interrupt the monotony, we take a break from the book reports to watch an attempted worm extraction from our poor house mom's ear

Unfortunately, the key word here is 'attempted', and our house mom later had to take medicine to banish the worm. And so...back to boring book reports.

More of July

In late July, all eighteen of us crammed into our beaten up red van for a day in the mountains, just this time we remembered the camera (so now we can blog about it :P)


A log was in the way...that should explain.

Most of us went exploring on the creek, the dads went fishing, while some just hung out at the campsite.


Ummm...Taylor?


"Ooh, that's cold!"

One of the few things we found floating down the river


Standing on the United States/Canadian National Border (on the US side of course :D ), in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by huckleberry bushes

Boating the creek in a half barrel contraption



Uh, boating?




Eating cherry pie

"Hey! Look what I caught--cherry pie!"

Littles asleep on the drive home

July

I had an aMAZing one month visit home this July in beautiful Idaho. The month was busy...but great--loved seeing my family again. :)

Just a few memories...


Trying to get over jet lag (this is actually a very good memory...look! We were able to sleep :)

Milking the cow...

Ice cream made from that fresh milk. Mmmmmmm

And cherry pie

AND huckleberry pancakes!

The cherry-shooting slingshot:

The victims:

THIS is what happens when we stay up past midnight playing games....or maybe it's the milk's fault. Mad cows disease or sumpthin'. Yeah, that's it.

In just the one year that I was gone, my family *somehow* collected 15+ kittens. We managed to pawn several of them off to unsuspecting, naive...er.... LUCKY and PRIVILEGED families. Anyone want a cute, sweet, innocent little kitten???

Dinnertime

Hiking....

Swimming...(okay, okay...only two people were brave enough)


And SLEDDING....all at the same lake

Great views

Fishing around our house


"Ummm, guys, this is just disgusting...do we really have to put it on the blog???" :P

Ultimate frisbee

A great dance...

Jonathan and Gillian were quite the dancers....even performed some aerials.


Jumping off the cliff at the Yak

Rafting down the Moyie River


And many, many more memories :)
Love you guys!!