Inn of Sixth Happiness

Still here in Tabuk at what we like to call the "Inn of 6th Happiness"

Got to deliver this CUTE little guy one of my first days here. Although he was his mom Martha's tenth baby, he was well loved!! His parents let me name him after my brother Jacob.

We visited Martha and Jacob twice at their home. Such a beautiful family!
Anyway...life is great here....even livin' with da crazies...

Blessings of Children

Traveled to a village for the day to do prenatals. Taught devotions on how women can bless their unborn babies.

Singing, joking, storytelling, laughing, snacking, talking, loving.

Healthy women. Healthy kids.

Women tell us, "We don't like to use family planning here....just family planting."

Pastor and his wife. He wished for a dozen children. He has six....and grandchildren.Shocked face when found out I'm from a dozen children. :)

Children ARE a blessing

Where I Am...

Michelle (one of my classmates) and I are spending the next 3 weeks here in Tabuk, Kalinga. We traveled up here from Davao a few days ago by plane, taxi, and bus. We LOVE it! Wonderful people, mountains, cool weather....doesn't get much better than that. :)

We're living with Georgia, a Canadian midwife who is married to Achao, a member of the But-but tribe. She runs a clinic in her home downstairs and lives with about 9 other people (her son, other midwives, us, etc.) upstairs. It's an awesome set up...super relaxed and interactive with the patients. This weekend, we'll be traveling to the But-but tribe here.




We've been adding words in But-but, Ilokano, and Tagalog words to our repertoire of Filipino languages. I'm constantly amazed at how many dialects are in this country and how many languages each Filipino speaks. Most of the Filipinos I know speak at least 5 languages! We Americans are happy if we know just one! lol

Carlston's Lobby @1am and then....

On our way to Tabuk (where we'll be working with the midwife Georgia...more on that later...), we spent the night in Manila. The following is taken from Ancient Paths

PM 9:30 : The lobby has free wifi!


PM 10:00 : No worries about anything; 4 security guards present.

PM 10:15 : Concerned about little fish’s poor health.


PM 10:30 : Facebook-ing ..

PM 11:00 : New guests arrive… with matching sweatsuits.

PM 11:45 : THUD. Opening yellow elevator doors reveal collapsed white foreign man.

PM 11:46 : Heroic security guards help him. Jordan & I gather courage for our CPR skills.

PM 11:47 : CPR not indicated (thankfully)

PM 11:48 : Foreign man (pale and disoriented) on couch after second collapse.

PM 11:49 : Foreign man comes to; drinking a coke. More foreign guests arriving.

PM 11:52 : Collapsing man back into elevator without mishap; followed by guard.

PM 11:59 : New foreign men guests arrive. One goes to room.

AM 12:00 : Strange car arrives. Another newly arrived guest slips guard large wad of cash. Then leaves.

AM 12:00 : Guards suddenly are carrying automatic weapons. Still no worries though..

AM 12:02 : Happy guard fumbling with automatic weapon. He gets scolded. Hmmm..

AM 12:05 : Receives lesson on using automatic weapon from the more experienced guard.

AM 12:30 : Facebook is addicting. So is reading the news.

AM 12:45 : Guards more relaxed since the guests from earlier are gone..

AM 1:00 : Jordan & I go to bed. Next door phone rings every 135 seconds for a while.

AM 1:10 : Our room 418 is the arctic. No control on AC.

AM 4:30 : Saying goodbye to Jordan's dad.

AM 6:00 : Consider switching off breaker going to aircon. Unsure what else that breaker controls. Decide risk is too high.

AM 9:00 : Good breakfast of rice, fish, sweet sausage and coffee.

AM 10:00 : Checking out.

AM 10:15 : Taxi driver promises a working meter. Get in taxi.

AM 10:16 : Meter not on. Driver fumbling with it. Mutters something about lucky day.

AM 10:17 : Lucky for us because if meter is broken… by law we get a free ride…

AM 10:17 : And… CRASH! Someone’s blue car door is now quite crunched.

AM 10:19 : Blue car driver touches his side window with one finger. All the glass falls out.

AM 10:22 : Standing on the street. Our taxi driver quite distraught. Many spectators.

AM 10:30 : We find another taxi after 2 tries.

AM 11:25 : Get ripped off AGAIN by ANOTHER taxi driver.

AM 11:30 : At bus station to purchase tickets to Tabuk.

PM 12:17 : Arrive at Mall of Asia to find internet and ice skating rink.

Daddy -Daughter Days

Awesome times!! Dad came to visit for a week!


We did so many great things.....
Found a SWEET bat cave I'd never seen before


Kayaked to another island (yes, the Filipinos thought we were crazy :) Met a whole bunch of nice fishermen.


Met a lot of interesting people actually....

Talked late at night, explored the city and another island to our hearts' content, ate lots of seafood, got lost more than once, tried new foods in the market, toured the clinic and did baby checkups together, played Settlers of Catan, etc.

Basically: best of times!

First homebirth AND First white baby

Sometimes I think I have the best job in the world. I got to deliver these gorgeous kids' little sister.




Seriously....can it get any better?

But the midwives feared God...so God dealt well with the midwives...And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families."

Oh the Joys of Algebra....

For the past month, we midwives have been saturated in algebra--3 hour classes, quizzes, tests, never-ending homework. Our poor baby-minded brains are fried--not exactly used to: "solve the equation 3x2-4x+17=0 using the quadratic formula." And what's up with imaginary numbers??

My brain on algebra------------------------------------>
Not a pretty sight in the least. :P

Anyway, Manny (husband of our new supervisor) was brave enough to face 25 midwives-in-training and teach a not exactly beloved topic. At our first class, he came armed with reasons why midwives need to know algebra:

1. You can really see God's glory in math. Just think about it for a minute--without math, how would we know the grandeur of the universe or the minuscule detail of a cell?

2. Math is one of the only things that builds the logic part of your brain. And yeah, midwives need logic too--especially at 3am with a complicated emergency birth.

3. The National College of Midwifery in the States requires it for graduation.

Hmmm...good reasons.....we'll buy that. (Manny sighs with relief.)

I understood and even (gasp!) enjoyed every class......until the very last one: graphing linear equations. Ooooh, my weakest point. My nemesis. The homework soon stumped me. BUT, praise the Lord for Skype and brothers who didn't even have to take college algebra--the math whizzes just CLEPped out of it. I pulled up the Skype chat box and begged for help.

I got my mom first. She may be a fabulous Editor Extraordinaire...but her math skills are questionable. Let me explain. The chat went like this:

Me: ok...i need help.....I don't understand this. It's the last thing before our final algebra exam today. What is x and what is y when I'm graphing the linear function: f(x)=x-4??
Mom: x is the female chromosome. y is the male chromosome. so this means that there are 4 girls in the room, minus four if the chromosome is present. Got it? And the f stands for female, but they put the X in parentheses just in case you didn't know that and needed more explanation.
Me (being the blond that I am, fell for it): so....y = 0 and x = 4?
Mom: exactly 0 boys and minus 4 females

Thankfully, Jacob (one of the math whizzes I mentioned above) took over at this point. And with a little more chatting and a couple calls, he pulled me through.

I'm pretty sure I cried through every single algebra lesson for the 3 years I had to take algebra in high school (btw, I'm very glad my parents made me stick through it anyway). But, I can now say I got through college algebra without a single tear trickle. And, I'm now a little more enthused about putting my own kids (someday) through the tortures..ahem...I mean, joys of algebra.

Evangelism or Medicine?

A good friend gave me the link to this blog: Word and Deed --a group of 3 families on their way to medical missions in Africa. One of their posts asks a question I've been asked several times,

"Are you first a missionary and second a [midwife], or is it the other way around?" In other words, "Is proselytizing (a.k.a. evangelizing) or medicine your primary goal?"

Should you combine the two? How do you find a healthy balance between medicine and evangelism? The writers state,

"For many years, Christians have chosen between the categories of Word and Deed. One group chose to spread the message of Jesus, and the other to do the works he commanded. But these are inseparable. The Gospel (which simply means "good news") is to be in Word and Deed. The good news is that Jesus is your salvation for all of time and that His kingdom is bringing you medical care here and now. Word without Deed would be an incomplete Gospel. Deed without Word would also."

Healing and witnessing go hand in hand; you cannot separate the two. People know us as Christians by our deeds and actions. One of the ways Jesus reached out to others was through acts of service. If you can reach out in physical ways that people can recognize and appreciate, you can open doors to evangelism that wouldn't otherwise be opened. Jesus was our example of service. He came to serve us, and we need to serve others. This doesn't mean medicine is the only way to reach out to others (there are many acts of service)--medicine is just one of the things that can be used as a tool for evangelism.

At last year's commencement speech, Matt McNeil, one of our directors, said:

"God affords a midwife the opportunity to preserve life. They are given the power to help turn a possibly negative experience into a positive one. They instruct novices, educate the disadvantaged and gain respect in the community. By ‘missiologically’ I mean that midwives have the ability to transcend all religious, cultural and political barriers to the Gospel message."

There needs to be a balance between medicine and evangelism:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."

James 2:14-18
So, evangelism or medicine? I say, evangelism and medicine.

Hmmm...

Last month, Timesonline.co.uk put out a super interesting article, written by an atheist, about why Africa does need God. If you don't have time to read the whole article, at least read the first 6 and the last 2 paragraphs.

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

"Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset"

*Don't want to forget Uncle Scott Nelsen who always sends us the best links :)

oh yeah....

and something else that happened last month....HUGE fire across the street. Sad day. Super scary.


Fire fighters in flip flops. Only in the Philippines...


Praise the Lord no one was hurt, and the fire was put out quickly before reaching our house and the clinic.

Please pray for the families who no longer have a home and are still trying to pull their lives back together.

And she's back!

Yes! This MIA writer for Siblings United has returned to the blogging hemisphere after triumphantly conquering a 3 week monster of an assignment--76 pages (reformatted down from 102 pages) of agonized over information--just some of the complications possible in labor and how to manage them. Oh pain. But oh so interesting. I love my job :)



Aaaaand....we FINished Anatomy and Physiology and are now taking Analytical Writing...definitely starting to feel like I'm on the homestretch.


This past month was just the usual:

More babies

More happy families

Neonatal resuscitation...gotta save those babies!

A Filipino/American wedding

A closer look at the lovely balut (no WONDER they only sell these things at night when it's dark :P )


And of course, God is good. He never ceases to amaze me.

Have you not know? Have you not heard?The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. he gives power to the faint, and to Him who has no might He increases strength.

Isaiah 40:28-29

Two of my favorite siblings

September

A little bit of September...

Textbooks, textbooks, and....textbooks

When we get bored of assignment and textbooks...

Semester exam....we weren't nervous...oh no, not in the least. *ahem*

Trying to sleep on a slow night shift

Lots and lots of paperwork and charting

Teaching Dads how to give a baby bath...hehe.

My continuity, Dayday (also known as Norie). Delivering her baby was definitely a highlight of September. Dayday was born with extremity deformities, so she has no hands and only one leg, but she is one of the sweetest women I have ever met. And her baby was a perfectly beautiful baby girl.

You can imagine how thrilled she and her husband were! Such an answer to prayer.

She let me name her baby--Rachel Noelle. Rachel: after an awesome sister of mine =). And Noelle: a mix of Dayday's real name, Norie and her husband's name, Emmanuelle.

Going home after a Dayday's birth--2:30am

Dayday--3 days postpartum

Another continuity this month, Gina, had a lot of complications and had to deliver in the hospital. Everything went well though, and I was able to visit her a few times in the hospital. She and her baby are home and doing well now.

5:30am cross channel swim with people from church and girls from Mercy Maternity.

fun fun.....

Until one of the girls was stung by a jellyfish :( Super painful...but she's ok now. And it's true, vinegar works wonders.

Celebrating a birthday :)

On shift, double baby duty