The Little Children's Home

TLC Home is an orphanage that is under the same ministry as the birth center. For me spending time there is dangerous, I fall in Love! They currently have 13 children waiting for adoption. I love holding the little ones and sometimes would love to ditch the birth center to spend more time with them. Even when they burp up all over you, like Kesha who quickly became my favorite! She won me over when I got her to take her nap with me. She loves being held and gets upset when you put her down. Kind of needy, I have heard rumours that I was like that as a baby.... We bonded.

The Joys Of Travel

I have spent too much of my free time lately on hold with the airlines listening to "I Can Fly" on repete, only to be interrupted by a lovely voice reminding me that someone will be with me shortly and my call is very important to them. The whole time all I'm thinking is CAN I FLY????? Alex and I are attempting to change our tickets to get home. We originally bought our tickets for one year out so we could change them at a later date. That later date is quickly approaching and we are trying to get tickets for September 14th. We arrive back from Singapore on the 13th and want one day to collect ourselves before making the journey home. So now Alex and I are in a battle, all flights are booked full from the 14th to the 21st. We are on a waiting list but are not allowed to know how long the waiting list is. I guess they fear we may find the people in front of us and "fix" the problem, tempting at this point.... tempting! In the mean time we have to call back everyday to renew our request and see if any changes have occurred. Let's get specific. We are praying for the 6:30am flight out of Manila on September 14th with no extra fees or taxes. If you want to add first class we will not complain! I just have to keep laughing through this all. So here are some aids to help you do the same!

Prayers For Penatals

At Shiphrah Birth Center we have three prenatal check up days a week with each day bring over 50 women to the clinic. The day starts at 8:30am with a Bible study then we move on to exercise, teachings and prenatal check ups. I usually see 8-12 women each day and this has become one of my greatest areas of ministry. I love getting to learn more about the women and see them as they go through the pregnancy. This is the time when I really get to meet the needs for those around me by doing more then buying their vitamines or few check ups. Many of the women come from the poorest of the poor. Some are living in homes for unwed mothers, we see many scared teenage girls as young as 15, and because our mission also runs a baby home next door we see women who have decided to give their babies up for adoption. Sometimes these issues seem so overwhelming to me and I am not sure how to relate to the women. So I pray. It is such a blessing to pray with them and for them. In a culture that is so focused on shaming someone who does something wrong, prayer to make them feel loved opens their hearts. I am seeing women and girls who's lives have come from such a different place then mine, but I have found a common ground in prayer and needing the love of God. I ask that you will join me in prayer for these strong and beautiful women.

Baby Holding, My Antidrug!

Some days you get so caught up in all the work the newborn exam and postpartum and is the baby breastfeeding, has the baby been given a bath yet and all the medical stuff that you forget to just hold the baby. Then life gets stressful and you remind yourself "I need some baby holding time". So that is what I do I go kidnap a baby from a very tiered mom and realize that life is amazing once again.

Take A Test

So my roomies and I were wasting some time on our Sunday afternoon taking tests on www.blogthings.com. You would have known my results because I almost had a lapse of judgement and posted them for you on my blog like the web sights encourages you to do. So you could have found out that; I have an amazing personality, should be a nurse or teacher or that I am going to be a cool parent and my power animal is apparently a deer? But then I decided that was putting myself out there a little too much. Basically it comes down to the fact that people want to take their own test they don't so much care that you are likely to live to be 100 or that you should paint your toes pink! So if you have a little time and want some reassurance that you have a winning personality and life will go amazing for you as long as your character always matches up to an apple pie, do some quizzes and feel good about how normal you are.

The 4th Of July

The 4th is my favorite holiday. Summer fun with family and friends, BBQ and fireworks what more could you ask for. So like most Americans the girls and I had to work until 1 that afternoon and go back to work the next day. But we did not let that stop us from having a little celebration of our own. Here are some pics of the night which started with a bowl of cookie dough and ended in us singing the National Anthem at the top of our lungs. God Bless American!

Where Does Hope Come From?

In my case it comes as a reminder from a little green owl that was given to me in the most unusually sort of way. Let us please remember that the owl is the wisest of animals. As a made the painful switch from the domestic to international flights at the LAX airport last January I stopped to ask for directions, which I do often in airports when traveling alone. So I do not have issues with directional pride. I am bad at directions, always have been! If any of you have made that same switch over at L.A. airport feel free to say AMEN. Back to the story this is so not about a painful airport experience it is about HOPE. As I asked for directions a guy stopped to do the same and we then decided to go at this adventure together, kind of a two heads are better then one deal. As we walked we completed the basic airport interview. He was from Washington State worked as a forest fire fighter but was being sent over as aid to Australia as their whole country seemed to be burning down at this time. Having spent sometime in Australia myself it kept the conversation going. I guess we did a pretty good job bonding during this time because by the time we entered the International building the security guard just looked at us and said “let me guess newlyweds?” we had to inform him that it was far from the case. We were about to part ways when Mike insisted on giving me this stuffed animal named Hope. At first I kindly refused. He insisted some more and I thought about what my next step in life was and agreed to take it. Plus he did have two so I did not feel terrible bad.

Since landing the in Philippines Hope has stayed by my bedside. His name tag reads:
Hope n. desire for something good, accompanied be the belief that it is obtainable; the source and reason for optimism.

This is a reminder I often need. Living here has made me realize you have to choose to turn your eyes towards the heartbreaks of the world in order to change them. You have to allow them to change you first. Most of the time doing the right thing is doing the hardest thing. Although at times this is the scariest, hardest thing I have ever done I have found Hope in the middle of it all. Hope when a bald headed street girl in a dirty little dress gives you the best hug ever. Hope from amazing friendships that witness your hardest times and encourage you to carry on. Hope when a teenage girl that attempted an abortion decides to give up her own dreams and in choosing life hears her baby’s heart beat for the first time. Hope does not come running after you in the airport it is what you find when you choose to look at the pain and find love instead.

And a little shout out to Mike where ever your travels have led you I pray Hope has found you along the way.

Me Being Preachy

Video may take a while to load but it is worth the wait.

Technology

I am in my kitchen making some homemade yogurt. It is a healthy, cheep breakfast and a science all on it's own. Heat the milk up to 185 degrees, then cool to 110 then add live bacteria which is good and will kill the bad bacteria.....see what I mean? I am getting all smart making yogurt. The thing is yogurt is not what blows my mind, I understand yogurt. What I do not get is technology. I forgot the recipe so I looked it up online then I took my laptop into the kitchen because we have wireless. So the internet is this amazing thing a huge source of knowledge and I feel very 2000-and-something-ish using it as my cookbook. And can I just say I still do not understand how the radio works and now we have the internet! So yep here I am writing you from the Philippines and you are going to be able to read this is just a second. So anyway as my homemade yogurt and online worlds collided I just thought that is crazy!

WOW

Can I tell you something you already know? Our God is so amazing. We serve such a faithful God, a God that answers prayers. Over the past few weeks we have been invited over by two different missionaries for dinner. What a bless to be part of a family. Dinner around the table, board games and homemade cookies! I can not even tell you what an answer to prayer these visits have been. I am not just talking about the cookies, but the community, family asking how you are doing and praying for you. So a big thank you to the Wassel and Hause families for your love, prayers and showing the character of God to four girls in a big city! I can not leave out the Chestnuts who are so kindly letting us house sit their wonderful home while they are in the states for the summer. This has cut our cummute to work to 20 mins instead of one hour. So God is good to us in the daily life issues as well!

There Is A Monster Under My Bed

As Lindsey and I slept uncomfortably sun burned in our double size bed surrounded by our thick mosquito net (which drastically limits the oxygen flow and slowly suffocates you) a monster played under our bed. He would have gone unnoticed had he not knocked over a bottle that was on our night stand. With that, Lindsey woke up and saw his reflection as he ran across our windowsill. She quickly clang to me waking me up and saying we have a rat in our room. That is the last thing you expect to hear or want to hear in the middle of the night. Before moving here I did not have much reference to rats except for Templeton on Charlotte's Web and even that singing and dancing rat freaks me out a little. I tried to be the brave one as I know Lindsey's fear of rats is much greater then mine. Then he ran across our head board and I was scared. So we tucked the mosquito net in all the way around the bed as tight as we could. Without any body parts leaving our protected cage I pushed through the net to turn on the head board lights. Then I grabbed a bag that contained some of my belongs shook it as hard as I could and threw it across the room, that should scare him away, right? So after the monster played on Lindsey's night stand, ran across our heads to my dresser we assumed it went up the wall, into the bathroom and out of our room. But we still spent the rest of the night in the middle of the bed with the lights on.

My Neighborhood

The glass is always half empty when you are waiting for it to be full of money.