Best Christmas Present II, and Dreaming Big Dreams

I'm sure my SQUEAL of delight could be heard all the way around the world and back home when I opened my belated Christmas care package that arrived from some of my dear friends back home today! Seriously Holly and Josh, Shawn and Betsy, Drew and Michelle, Grace, Michelle B and John, Sarah and Zack, and all my old co-workers at Moe's!!!...you've outdone yourselves. Truly, I am beyond blessed to have such an awesome community of friends. It was a refreshing, uplifting, and encouraging JOY to open that box today.

Just like real Christmas! Boxes/wrappers torn open in a frenzyThank you! And I know the mamas and little babies will thank you when they are wrapped in the super soft baby blankets you sent for the birth center.

I'll share a bit about my vision for this upcoming year, and what I want to do when I leave here in 2012:
I had a great Christmas break. I was able to get away for a couple days and spend some time in silence for the first time in 5 months. I feel like my vision for how I want to serve women in the world is really being refined here while working at MMC. I am getting involved in an organization here called Talikala that "offers support, advice, training, and counseling to women and girls who have been forced into the sex trade here in Davao." I will be doing prenatals, building relationships with, and taking women at Talikala as continuities of care clients for MMC. The sex industry and sex-trafficking is a huge issue here in Davao (and the Phils in general), as I'm sure you've heard if you pay attention at all to the news, etc. I feel really blessed that this opportunity has fallen into my lap because, as I realized over Christmas break, in 2 years I want to start a charity based birth center in Portland in an old victorian house. I want it to be called The Lifehouse. I want to serve pregnant women living on the streets, pregnant prostitutes, teen moms, and women living in the margins of society. I want these women to be able to come to The Lifehouse and be treated like queens as they birth their babies into this world in a compassionate, nurturing environment. I want them to have access to parenting classes prenatals, lactation consultants, etc.
In Portland, 42 percent of the female youth accessing services are pregnant or parenting an infant, and more than 50 percent of female youth in transitional housing are pregnant or parenting. They are choosing to keep their babies because they want to have families. They want to have families different than the families that they grew up with. They need compassionate midwifery care and support to show them that they CAN do it. God's love can redeem anyone and anything. I am living proof of that.
I have BIG dreams. May God go before me and prepare the way for me to serve his daughters. Please pray about this with me.
I am learning SO much here, and I know that serving the mamas at Talikala and MMC will further prepare me for serving women at home.
Here's some of the beautiful mamas and babies I've had the privilege of getting to midwife here lately...My 2 lovely "conts," and their gwapo kaayo boys. I love these ladies. They crack me up during baby checks talking about filippino food and recipes (chicken liver adobo, anyone?), and despite our language barrier I really click with them. SO thankful for that.Amor and her little man. I was her midwife 6 weeks ago and today was her last check-up at MMC. I can't believe how big her bata is getting! And she is doing great kaayo.Resa and her little girl Rhianna. Resa gave me the gift of having the COOLEST labor ever on New Years Eve. Her baby was born right before the New Year, but she was crazy awesome. And her bana is a barber! They thought it was hilarious that I was a barber back home ;)
Because I've actually been getting some e-mails lately from people here in Davao because they've stumbled across my blog, I have decided to limit the info/pictures/what I say about women's birth experiences here on my blog. I want to protect the privacy of the women I serve and unfortunately public blogs are a little too...well, public. Hope you understand.
But I do feel like the strength and beauty of these mamas need to be shared, and I need to share the amazing work that we do here at MMC loving and serving these mamas, and even saving lives.

I will be going on a week long outreach up into the mountains all next week doing prenatals, teaching health teachings on diarrhea, measles, and nutrition, doing immunizations, etc. Please pray for safety and provision (and extra language skills! Dili English) for me and my classmates who are coming. And that the people we are serving will feel loved and cared for. I will update when I get home.
Peace out.