life's ups and downs

Hello Friends and family.  This time I have broken my record for the longest ever space with no blog post via the sheepishmidwife.  I admit I tend to lose faith in how many eyes see my blog, no judgment here, I am pretty sure I am the worlds worst blogger blog reader.  Truly, I think I might be…. anyway moving on.  

                                               New chapters

Life in the Philippines has continued with its normal ups and downs as life tends to do, but recently life has shifted somewhat.  What I mean by that is simply that the same pattern of assignment, clinic work assignments has adjusted slightly in that our assignment load has lessened, in fact I only have to hand in my final assignment.  This is exciting as it allows for flexible hours in the clinic and preparing ourselves to begin studying for our NARM exam.  But I don’t feel like talking about academics, except that I am enjoying not being weighted down with deadlines.

                                            The interesting October

I shall talk about October, because October was crazy.  Without going into too much details, there were 25 babies born at the clinic and I got to witness 6 of them kicking and screaming into the world (they actually do kind of do that).  Sleep was was hit and miss, but since we had no pressing assignments it made it easier for the other senior volunteer and I.  Most of the babies decided to come within 2 weeks of each other, twice we had all 7 beds filled with mothers and babies. My theory as to why they all came at the same time: Typhoon Lawin.  

You may have heard about it on the news.  Typhoon Lawin was the biggest typhoon that Tabuk has ever seen: signal 5.  I think the babies all decided they better come before the storm.  That way they could still get to the midwives and not risk being born in the middle of the wind and rain. Other babies made the wise decision to be born after the typhoon had cleared.  One of the patient’s that delivered about two weeks after the typhoon described her conversation with her baby concerning this matter.  During the typhoon she told her baby to not be born yet.  After the typhoon when she was busy cleaning up from the wind and rain; she told her unborn baby to wait still a little longer until they got things cleaned up.  So about two weeks later mama was ready and so baby was born nice and healthy at the clinic.   

My personal experience with the typhoon was as follows.  We were all trying to prepare ourselves for the warned storm ahead, but what I wouldn’t give to go back and to a better job of taking care to put my books and suitcase under more cover.  They ended up taking on some considerable water damage. When the storm started I told myself to suck it up and sleep by my lonsome in my room, cause I was sure it was going to be fine.  We also were storing the clinic dog Madra in my room and out of harms way, so I figured I should stay with him and keep him somewhat calm.  However he was much calmer than I.  After listening to the howlnig wind and rain with tremendous pressure against my windows I gave up the brave fight and joined Keri and the two other visiting volunteers who were attempting to sleeping on the floor in the living/dining area in the center of the building.  As the storm worsened the other midwives joined us, we all felt a natural instinct to put distance between us and the glass windows which every once in awhile would violently swing open.  The water started pouring in from any and all cracks and crevices, no matter how many towels were applied or how tight the doors and windows were closed.  we took it in turns to sweep the increasing water away from our foamies on the floor (yes, I said sweep).  I’m not going to lie people, I was mildly freaking out and tensing up every time a wave of intense wind hit the building.  I did, after all, grow up in a deep valley where violent winds were something you saw on the News and the Wizerd of Oz.  

As the storm died down the staff midwives returned to their rooms but us volunteers fell asleep and woke to find the foamies drenched in rain water.  We all returned to our rooms of which were flooded, Madra was marooned on my bed.  We all slept for a few hours and then awoke to the morning.  

The winds had died down to what we might call a very windy day in the North Thompson valley, and the cleanup began, we had no power and no running water….well no running water from the tap...we had plenty of water running on all three floors of the clinic.   our clinic building had actually fared well compared to others.  There were only a few broken windows and some damage to the roof.  However it still won't be cheap to repair and thankfully Shepherds purse has volunteerd to pay for the damages.  People in smaller dwellings were the ones whom were really affected.  

I talked to one lady from our church whose part her her and her family’s roof blew off while they were still inside.  Thank the Lord they weren't hurt.  We heard that out of everyone affected by the typhoon 14 people died, which is less than we imagined, but of course one life is too many.  

As far as injuries at the AGGMC family, I apparently volunteered to be the scape goat for everyone. It was actually to the point of humorous.  the night of the typhoon my wrist got strained (no sprained, just strained, from trying to open the bathroom door and the wind forcing the door against my efforts. I know, it sounds really pathetic). Then the next morning I was walking down the sleek stairs to the water pump where the breakfast dishes were to be washed.  In this process my foot slipped, I lost my footing, feet wen flying, dishes went crashing (including my favorite coffee cup :( ), and my back hit the cement staircase and I slid down about four or five steps.  Four midwives rushed to my aid (advantages of living in a clinic) it was quite the bruise and they sent me to bed with some ice.  About an hour later I got up and someone looked at me and said "your elbow!" I looked down at said elbow and was shocked to discover a massive swelling the size of a chicken egg.  It was so big and looked so bizarr that we all started laughing. I hadn’t even felt the pain at first but turns out my elbow was what broke my fall.  

Still there are places that are affected by the typhoon, people who have lost their homes, rice crops that have been destroyed; leaving a shortage of food for some.  An area called Pasil lost access to their bridge and have a shortage of medical supplies.  There are still locations that are out of power.  If you want to donate to the cause, you can do so through the Georgia Macad, who is the director of the clinic, go to her blog, gthemidwife and you can donate to her with a note for Typhoon Lawin.  

So that was October, please continue to pray for the people of Kalinga and surrounding areas for recovery from the typhoon. and to be with the families of those 14 people who lost their lives. 

                                       

                          post typhoon cleaning

                                             
                                            my freaky looking elbow after my trip down the stairs

                                                     We all love Bugnay

Since my last blog post we have taken several trips to Bugnay, some were for a few days and allowed us to do some hiking to other villages, others were just an over night event.  One such occasion was when some of us attended the celebration of the translated new testament into the local language.  sadly I missed the actual program part, but made it in time for the traditional dancing, which we got to take part in, despite the fact that I look like the awkward Canadian among all the expert dancers.  

Following is an excerpt of a trip we took to Bugnay in the month of August. 

Women wash their dishes together at one of the communal water pumps, a girl scrubs her clothes clean at the outside running faucet.  Babies rest in slings tied to their mother's or sister’s back.  We enter a little house where we eat the best white beans I've tasted.  They are grown in a nearby field, we also partake of the native rice that is the "bread of life" to the Bute-bute people. Both Man and woman partake in its production.  I am completely exhausted after our church service from earlier (from being sick the night before) so our hosts offer for me to take a Sunday nap on their bed.  After being slightly more rested Belen (my Filipina friend and acting guide for the day) leads us over water ways and steps, weaving through dwelling places with tin and bamboo roofs, dodging chickens, pigs and children.  We sit with the clinic directer’s mother-in-law whom is poddng beans with her daughter. She offers us coffee.  It is the traditional Kalinga coffee made in a kettle with lots of sugar.  We drink it with immense satisfaction, listen to the deep melodious sounds of the local language while gazing through the valleys of rice covered mountains.  This is Bugnay of Tinglayan, I have yet to meet a person who has not been charmed by her people and awed by its beauty

                                                      Life and other things 

Church life continues to be great, I have been volunteering with the kids on a slightly more regular bases depending on on my life at the clinic, I think some of the kids don't know what to think of me with my strange Canadian accent but we manage, since a lot of them understand some English.

Two of our midwives have given birth!  Both are beautiful baby boys, whom everyone at the clinic has instantly fallen in love with.  Lucky for us both of them live on the clinic compound so we get to see both babies frequently.

 I got to witness a great birth last August of one of our previous staff midwives, it was a very special birth and I felt so honored to be there.

I have definitely come to the conclusion that although midwifery is a difficult and challenging profession, it also never ceases to amaze me, and I do love it, even after several nights with little sleep.

We introduced our Filipina friends to s'mores the other day when we celebrated Ellora's birthday, we got a nice little campfire fire going and roasted hot dogs and then showed everyone how to make and eat s'mores, it was a big hit! and we all probably ate way to much.

It is so hard to believe it has been well over two years since our arrival here.  In some ways it seems just like yesterday but in others especially when i think of the bewildered, fresh off the bloat wide eyed 22 year old Canadian who never spent more than 4 months at a time away from her beloved Aveley Ranch and no more than 3 months completely away from family, it seems like a life time ago.  I am excited to see my family again, but at the same time I feel a punch in the stomach when I think of leaving the people here.  I remember years ago my mother reading a book to use children about a man from China who was raised in America, in his adult life he would go back and forth between the two countries.  There was a line in the book about how when he was in one place he found he was missing the other, and vise versa.  I remember thinking how awful that must be, to feel split in two.  I realize that the life I am leading means that these will be familiar emotions. But like night shifts and mints-meat pies I don’t think it is as awful as I once thought, it simply means that my heart belongs to more than one place.

I am growing excited for the next stage of my life as God is beginning to form new dreams into my heart, but these dreams are in the early stages so I shall tell no details yet :) 

I saw my first breech birth the other day! (that wasn't on a video) it was a surprise breech and once we discovered that the wee babe was indeed intending on entering the world bottom first, there was no time to transport to the hospital so the baby was born at the clinic, Our midwife director is no stranger to delivering surprise breech babies so she knew what to do.  It was a prefect birth, the baby boy was as healthy and strong as any and his mama did so well! it was pretty amazing to witness. 

It may come as so surprise that blog posts take me several days to write, I wanted to write this paragraph before I post.  I have been going back and forth as to whether or not to share it, because it is easier to share the joys than it is the struggles.  But I think it is important to share struggles, because it proves that no one is perfect and oh how we need God to guide us. So here it.  '

Today was a hard day. It was a day I wish I could rewind and do a better job of. I won’t go into details cause of privacy and all that but there was a moment where I felt I failed people around me and when my heart was overwhelmed.  No worries I am okay and everyone around me is okay.  I am blessed to have good friends that I can talk to and they can help me get back on the horse when I fall down.  Where I am going with this?  In the world of missions and midwifery, there are hard days, days where you feel discouraged and, yes like a failure, days that you wish you could do over. This is why your prayers all mean so much to me and why I encourage you to remember other missionaries and people who work with women and birth, remember to pray for them, that they will get through the hard days and remember that God is in control and to let Him guide us.  

Well I think I hit the highlights of the highlights.  We are beginning to make preparations for Christmas complete with putting up our wooden bamboo Christmas tree, I will strive to give you an update after Christmas and post pictures of the third year Christmas spent in the Philippines.  which sounds totally crazy to my own ears.  
                                              
Ellora and I set up the Christmas tree on November 25, you can buy fake Christmas trees here, but the husband of one of the volunteers made this Christmas tree out of bamboo for their first Christmas in the Philippines and handed it down to us when they left, I have become quite fond of it....

                                            After we set up our tree we made hot chocolate from scratch, complete with the left over marshmellows from the hotdog roast

I shall leave you with some prayer requests

-That I would have a calm and peaceful heart in the last few months of my stay in the Philippines

-For a free vehicle when I return to Canada 

-To continue to grow and learn 

-To be able to complete all the little things that need to be done before the end of my program

-Fiances as needed

things to be thankful for

-I am so thankful to everyone who has donated, my financial situation has been stable and that is all because of people willing to donate and give, I am so thankful to God for this

-For the people that are around me, I have come to love each and every one of them

-For God's faithfulness in every step of this journey 

To await the fate of a post that's late

I know, I know it has been forever! I am surprised my sister (who usually gets on my when I haven't blogged in awhile) hasn't sent me any frantic facebook messages asking about me next post ;) but here I am again at long last, typing out another update for those of you who take the time to read it.  So what has happened.....well last I left you I had had a crazy busy month, since then things have come to an incredible quite state at least as far as births, other areas of my life have certainly been active, i went on my first tropical vacation!!! which was fantastic, metsome new people, more assignments thrown my way and some babies and pregnant bellies sprinkled throughout, oh yeah, and I turned 24.  Yikes!! how did that happen?

The cake!
so I mentioned that i was going to attempt a black Forrest cake for my birthday, as that it is the custom here, if its your day you make a meal, or snack for everyone else, the result is that everyone is super excited about everyone's birthday :).  Anyway to my great delight and almost surprise, it worked! it actually tasted like a Black Forrest cake which made me super happy!

The black Forrest cake, te girls decorated for me, so sweet of them :)

That evening Jess and Ellora took me to our hangout place, Total Gas station (which is nicer than it sounds) and hung out together.

The Holiday
So both Ellora and I get two weeks off of clinicals and we decided to use one of our weeks to escape to the
 island of Palawan in the city of Peurto Princessa.  We were eager for a break as we have had little rest from assignments and felt the need to just be still for awhile.  So we packed our begs and via bus and plane headed on Holiday.

We booked two tours, one to see the Underground river (one of the new 7 wonders of the world) and another to go island hoping.  One day we spent the entire day at the beach and got so burnt our skin hurt for several days but it was worth it!  we spent some time at a coffee shop, watched a movie in the cinema (the Jungle book) we swam in clear blue water (which was so warm), ate some really good food; indluding crab (first time I had actually crab in the shell) and lamb (well it was lamb mixed with beef but the first time I have tasted lamb in almost a year!)  and hung out at the local mall.  Most evenings we sprawled on our beds with our noses in our novels reading like it was going out of style ( if truth be told it sort of is) it was really fun reading something other than midwife textbooks or something on our required reading list, just pure fluffy romance novels!
                                                  the beach: about a 5 minute walk from our guest house

                                                the underground river

                                              Cowrie Island: one of the islands we "hopped"

After a week we returned to life in the clinic, with peeling skin, a little darker and happy

Hellos and goodbyes
We have had two interns staying with us, both observing the life of the midwives here at Abundant.  Both of them have fit in very nicely one of them will be here for two and half more months.

As often happens here at Abundant, there are many hellos and just as many goodbyes.  Jess one of the other volunteers here, whom arrived a little over a year ago headed back to the States.  She had a terrible time saying goodbye and we had a terrible time letting her go.  She has gone on to pursue higher education and although we all agree it is the right decision for her to move on we still threatened to lock her in her room :) We miss you Jess!  

Church life 
I am continuing to enjoy attending our church. Recently Ellora and I have been meeting with our pastor's wife weekly to enjoy a cup of tea, visiting and discipleship, we have only done it twice so far but i am very much enjoying it, and it is refreshing to have an excuse to get outside of the clinic for awhile and take in the wisdom of a Christian woman who as been walking the straight and narrow for awhile now.

God, as always teaches, stretches and molds me,  not in dramatic ways but softly.  Trust seems to be the common theme, it feels like every time I go to ask Him about something, His still small voice responds with Trust me,"

Clinic life.
This last month was a little slow as far as births but we are hopeful it will pick up soon.  it is after all our slow season.  Yes believe t or not there are fast months and slow months for babies.  But as always life in the clinic is never dull.  There was one birth the other day where the baby of a young mother was born beautifully into the world but failed to start breathing right away.  We stimulated him by rubbing him with a blanket (his heart  beat was fine; just didn't feel like breathing yet) and then gave some puffs of air.  During this time I spoke to the mother, telling her to talk to her baby.  Her entire family were in distress and in tears at this point.  Despite the fact that she (the mother) was crying she started to call to him through her tears while he lay on her stomach during the process of giving him air.   While she talked to her newborn son he finally started crying and breathing and we all praised the baby for his effort and said a silent prayer of thanksgiving.

I hear of people who are not to keen on midwives because they believe them to not be as safe as a doctor. Although I agree that doctors are trained in emergency situations (which is why a patient is always referred when there is a complication beyond the midwife's skill level) and we need to have doctors and midwives work closely together, I would like to kindly inform the world that I have seen these midwives save lives an perform excellently whenever a complication does come up unexpectedly.  whether its a hemorrhage, a stuck baby or an infant that doesn't cry right away.  Midwifery is not just about loving care, rather it provides safe care in a loving manner.  It is pretty amazing to be a part of this team and see these women at work.
                                                       
                                         I am holding the baby from the story above, he is 6 weeks old in this picture

I have been happy with how my skills are slowly improving.  There have been things that I have taken longer to get the hang of but slowly and surely my hands are understanding how to tackle certain tasks and my the heart beats a little less fast before certain procedures.  I remember not long after I arrived I thought, maybe this isn't for me, because things are not coming naturally.  But I have discovered (and I think I mentioned this before) that just because we are not "natural at something" doesn't mean we are not meant to do it.  For example I am gonna take a guess that Moses did not feel like a natural leader, I mean the guy had issues with speaking in public for pity's sake.  But God made it clear that he (Moses) was going to lead an entire nation out of Egypt anyway.  So God gave him the tools to do it.  In fact I think if one looks through the Bible God often takes people out of occupations that they are "natural" at and puts them into areas that are new and foreign to them, but he also teaches them and guides them.

Okay that was my deep though for the month :)

Another April from home
So I got through another lambing season away from home.  The first was in Bible college and the second was last year.  It is the time of year I miss home the most, possibly as much or even more than Christmas if you can believe it.  Last year was really hard, this year was better.  There were a few moments when i saw pictures of lambs and the people working in the pens, that I shed a few tears.  What can I say, I love being among sheep I always have and I always will whether I end back on Aveley or in some far away land.  The strange thing is, that Lord willing I will be back for lambing next year.

Computer unfortunates 
My computer had a break down! yeah talk about STRESSED OUT! Okay so it wasn't really a break down but I woke up one morning about two weeks ago and my computer had wiped everything, it was like it had gone back to factory settings and I couldn't find any of my pictures or documents, including my current assignment.  and note that this compute is 6 years old so that was 6 years of information I had that was simply gone...or so I thought. Fortunately with the help of one of my cousins via Facebook I was able to locate everything which had automatically backed up onto my internal hard drive.  My computer still isn't completely back to what it was but I have the info back, so that is good enough to me.  Thank you Jesus!

In other news: medical team and a baby
Another medical team came from Canada via Samaritans purse, to provide a free medical clinic to the tribal villages in the mountains.  I did not attend as I and several others had to stay at the clinic while the midwives who spoke the local dialect went to help.  After a week in the villages the team came to the clinic for two days of outreach here.  It was packed with a LOT of people who came for medical check ups and eye checkups.  during the tribal outreach they also had a dentist who did extractions.
In total the medical team saw 1500 people!


The day before the tram left they had a banquet and pool party.   Near the end of the banquet one of our pregnant midwives Rema who had been in labour since that afternoon and had gone swimming and everything, decided her baby was getting serious about being born.  So she and several other midwives headed back to the clinic where a few hours later she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy!!

Weather and thoughts on weather
For any of you who wonder what the weather is like here, Well we are in our summer right now and it is hot. actually it is less hot now than it was at the beginning of the month.  However we all agree it is much hotter than last year.  I am probably only mentioning this in my blog because I am sitting here on my bed sweating like crazy cause not only is it hot but we have "brown out" the term used for a power outage, which means my fan is not working...yikes! its okay it can;t last forever.....and actually right now we are hitting rainy season which means we get these incredible rains every night and awe inspiring lighting storms.
            Really I have never seen such incredible lighting storms before.  The other evening I was sitting on the veranda overlooking the rice fields and was watching the lighting in the distance.  The streaks of white light danced across the sky and seemed to touch the peaks of the mountains.  I felt this sort of Holy moment, as me eyes beheld the sight.  Lightening is such a mighty and powerful thing, dangerous even, and yet it is beautiful, almost a reflection of a particle of God's character, not that i am trying to compare creation to the creator, but as a painting reflect the painters emotions I think perhaps God's creation may reflect His to some extent.  Whatever the case, watching the lightening storm reminded that God is so incredibility mighty, strong and even fierce, but He is also beautiful and loving.  We have such a mighty and powerful God who for reasons that are beyond us loves us to heights greater than our sight. Its pretty amazing when you think about it.

Okay so I guess that's my second deep thought for today, last one, promise! ;)

So my life continues on,  I have 9 more months here and I am determined to savor each moment. which brings me to another item.   I have one more semester to pay for.  So far people have been great at coming forward with a little here and a little there but I am still about 3000 USD short.  Again I am not trying to pressure anyone to donate but if someone felt led or inclined to any amount is always lovingly received. You can donate here, on my blog through paypall, through my gofundme account https://www.gofundme.com/CallTheMidwife or can give it to my mom Karen Moilliet who can put it directly into my account.

Well I think that's all for this post folks I hope that you are well and enjoying life.  Thanks for taking the time to read, I know there are plenty of other things you could be doing

Prayer requests: for the patiens and their families and all of the staff, Two other midwives are also pregnant, so prayers for their safe pregnancies goes appreciated.

Until next time, over and out,
the thesheepishmidwife

March marches in

Is it really March already? how did that happen?
Life has continued on since my last blog, there have been babies, assignments, church, and outings.

Life in general
Not gonna lie to you I am a little fuzzy as to what happened in January, we did have a great assignment on breastfeeding which was really interesting and very informative.  In December we had the assignment on fetal development, part of the assignment include Ellora and I collaborating and coming up with a teaching material.  We got to use this teaching material when we went on our out reach to Bugnay, which was pretty neat.
Speaking of which you might remember Bugnay from a previous post, Ellora and  spent some there shortly after we came here.  Anyway there is a maternity clinic but unfortunately it has to be closed down temporarily until we get supervisors trained and renovations done/  There is a big need for this clinic as the village women have no other facility to give birth unless they manage to find a car that can drive them the hour or more drive to the hospital.  Until the clinic is "rebooted" w are doing monthly day trips to do prenatal and postpartum care.

Clinic life
February saw lots of babies into the world.  Last year there were only nine births in February, this year there were nineteen,  a record month for February which is typically quite slow.  I had a lot of patients that I watched over and it was a very busy time but also very rewarding.  One such time, early in the month after the baby has been delivered I was sitting in the labor room while the mother and her new son were cuddling, she turned to me and said "thank you mam," I replied simply that she had done all the work and then she replied "yes but thank you for not leaving me." it was a really cool moment.  It is moments like that, that remind me I am where I am meant to be.

There was another baby that I witnessed into the world whom was very small, 2.1 kilos to be exact which is 4.6 pounds, this is considered to be an abnormally small baby.  In most hospital facilities the protocol would be to take the baby away from the mother and put him in an incubator, in some situations this is a good thing, however in other cases the best thing is to put the baby skin to skin with the mother.  This is what we did.  sometimes small babies can have a hard time breathing or just coping well, but as long as that baby was skin to skin with her mama she was just fine.  The little baby is currently gaining weight very well.

Assignments anyone?
In January we had an assignment on breastfeeding which was super interesting, we learned so much, I did a presentation with one of the other girls where we interviewed different people about their breastfeeding experience and noted the similarities and dissimilarities.  It was really neat to be able to talk to women with different backgrounds, beliefs and experiences on the matter.

February saw us working on a Nutrition and an Art assignment.  The nutrition assignment was very interesting and I leaned lots, I am pretty sure I am eating more vegetables because of it.  I also had a lot of fun with our Art assignment, where we got to write a short story about a fictional midwife, I set my story in 1983 Edmonton about a frontier midwife.  It was a lot of fun to write.  I also put together a picture video with music which represented my journey to midwifery.  I got the other clinic staff and volunteers to help me with different picture poses and put it all to music.  I was very happy with the result.  I really liked this project because it shows how God really paved the way for me.  Even though I felt like I was swimming up stream to get here, the truth is that God was very carefully placing stepping stones in front of me.

And in other news!

I was in a parade!!! Okay so I grew up watching the Mayday parade (and when i say grew up I mean I saw it like maybe three times) and I always wanted to be in a parade and my wish came true.  Every year in February overlapping with Valentines day all of Kalinga (our province) celebrates Kalinga day, which is really Kalinga week because it lasts for 7 days.  Anyway there are several parades that occur during the week and on the last day of the celebrations the Abundant Grace of God clinic staff and volunteers joined the procession.  we all dressed in our purple scrubs with the clinic's logo and marched through Tabuk while throwing candy to the kids.  It was a lot of fun, a little hot but fun nonetheless.

And speaking of Kalinga day! we deffinitly got in on some of teh fun besides just teh parade.  One the first day, I went with several of the girls and Catao and I went on the ferrest weel which was really fun! we also went on the "scary train" ride, which really wasn't that scary.  We ate Shawarma and hung out.  On the last day of teh celibration (after the parade) we went and ate more Shawarma (shawarma is a big thing on Kalinga day and really good!!!) here is a picture of us eating Shawarma

So life continues.  It is a good life, sometimes it is hard other times it is full of joy.  Things that were once so foreign when I arrived a year and half now have now become familiar, like hailing a tricy or jeepney, eating rice 2-3 times a day, doing laundry by hand, maneuvering through the market place to find the best fruits and vegetables and knowing the best days to go, and delving into the world of midwifery.

                                             a day in the clinic

                                               
                                                 Midwife power!

Thank you all so much for your continual support and prayers throughout this journey

A little money talk
So I haven't talked a lot about finances recently but I realize that I need to let you all know where I stand.  I do not have enough money for my last semester, never mind my plane trip home and of course other expenses that come up.  The Canadian dollar is not helping matters either.  In August I will need to pay my final semester which is about $5000 US where the dollar stands now it will cost me almost $7000 Canadian.  As I cannot work overseas because I am on a missionary visa not a workers visa I am dependent on donations.  I also want to take this moment to thank everyone who already has been donating to me, it means so much! thank you!  I also know that some of you want to donate but can't or don't feel you are in place where you can.  But prayer is a huge need! for both the incoming of income and for the rise of the Canadian dollar.  If you are interested in donating you can do so through several ways, if you know my mother Karen, you can give cash or cheque to her and she can deposit it into my account, you can also use the paypall account linked to this blog, or you can pay through my GoFundMe which my mother set up for me.  I think you can find it under Vienna Moilliet. Again no pressure to donate its just if you feel led.

Thus ends another blog post from thesheepishmidwife

P.S. so next week is my 24th birthday and I am going to attempt to make a black forest cake, hoping and praying it goes well, yes i am praying, I believe God also cares about randoms details in our life such as black forest cakes :) I will let you know how it turns out in the next post.

Farrell for now friends!

A New Year

Greeting everyone!
this is my first blog of 2016!

I know it has been awhile since my last blog but here it is at long last

Babies and assignments
The last bit of November saw more babies and an assignment on fetal development, which was very interesting and fascinating!  and I learned lots. We finished another assignment on the "Newborn" in December and are now starting to delve into the world of "Breastfeeding"

We have had several busy days in the clinic, one of these days was when I wasn't on a scheduled shift but was there due to watching over a patient that i had been taking care of since her first prenatal visit, and I was doing her labour watch. I ended up staying all day.  During this time there were three other babies born, so it was a lot of darting in and out of labour rooms all day.  The patient that I was watching over ended up having to be transported to the hospital which was difficult because i had been with her all day and we all wanted her to able to deliver at the clinic. \  but in the end she had a normal and safe delivery.

My supervisor had her baby! A very cute little boy.  it was a very difficult labour and in the end it had to be a cesarean, but both mom and baby are doing well, do keep the mom (Novie) in your prayers as she recover and adjusts to motherhood and her baby that he will continue to grow big and strong.

In December I got to greet some more babies into world.  Some mothers came in with just long enough for us to prepare the birth room before they pushed their babies out into the world.

I took care of another woman in labour whom I have been aiding during her pregnancy.  I was there as she heard her baby;s heart beat for the first time, felt the baby grow as she came back for each visit, stood by her as she labored and got to greet her baby boy into the world.  the picture of this little  fella is below
                                          
Holding one of the baby's I welcomed into the world 6 weeks ago, in this photo he weighs a little over 5 kilos. He and his mama came in for their final check andare doing very well




Recently Ellora and i went to a baby baptism where Ellora was one of the godparents. We were both at the birth of this beautiful baby girl so it was pleasure to meet her family and see the mother again

              At the Anglican church where this little darling (the baby) had her christening 
                                       


Christmas parties
On December 12th we had a Christmas party for all the women that had attended the well baby seminars for all of 2015 (seminars that teach mothers about everything from discipline to family planning to how to handle emergency situations involving their children i.e chocking, diarrhea)

So many women came that we had to have the event outside under a massive tent.   There were games, A Christmas message and a whole lot of food!


                                           dishing up the food for the well-baby seminar: not a party till there's pancit, and fried chicken! 
                                      

On December 20th we had our staff Christmas party which also took place out of doors under a tent.  Games were provided for both the kids and adults with lots of fun results.  We ate a LOT of food, and all so very delicious! we also had a kids Christmas skit which I had volunteered to organize.  Several of the kids of the staff participated.  Ellora narrated the Christmas story while the kids acted it all out and I cured them.  It went pretty well in the end!

I also did the Christmas message, about five minutes talking about the true meaning of Christmas, which is Jesus and salvation of course :)

During all these festivities a woman came very much in a labour and a few minutes later she gave birth to a baby girl of whom she named Mary Christine (A very cool Christmassy sounding name),  The event seemed very fitting for a Midwives Christmas party.

Also during the party everyone's "secret Santa's" were revealed.  During the month of December everyone at the clinic had someone else's name (without that person knowing) and was buying them a little gift every week, and then sneaking into a location where they would find it.  Every week had a different, the first was "Something Useful" the second week was "something delicouse" and the third was "Something funny" then on teh 20th the person would get the "real gift" and find out who their secret santa was.  It was a really fun activity, and my secret Santa ended up being Anie a great midwife and friend who bought be a really nice hand made beg which I absolutely love!


To the theater and return!

Act 1: the thrill of the movies
It turns out that both Ellora and I are star wars fans so the excitement of the latest movie hitting theaters last month did not escape our notice.  We do not have a theater in Tabuk so going to seeing movies is certainly not a common activity.  However we happen to know of a mall in a nearby city called Cuayan (when I say nearby I mean a three hour drive or a four our trip by bus) that contains a movie theater.  So while hoping that nothing would prevent the theater from the showing the film on that specific day, Ellora and I made plans to make the journey via public transportation (on a bus) on December 23rd.  We also planned on taking advantage of being in a big mall and hoped to do some shopping as well.  The husband of one of our supervisors kindly drove Ellora and I do the buss at the abnormal waking hour of 5:30 a.. in his tricy (see one of my early blog post for discription). the bus took off an hour later.  It was a rather bumpy ride as the bus looked like it had seen better days and was bit rattly. There were no windows so we had the pleasure of the fresh country air all the way there. We arrived around 10:00 a.m. in the city of our destination.  I should mention at this point that we did not have an exact idea of how we would return, we found out that the bus that we arrived on would return that way but it would not give us enough time to watch our movie, however we were quite sure there would be other means of transportation so we did not worry too much.

After confirming that Star Wars was indeed playing that day we decided on which showing we would go to and then hit a coffee shop where we tried to figure out the best plan of action for getting home.  We got some info for a few options and concluded should not have a problem.

We went to our movie: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and it was as or even more epic then we imagined.  Both Ellora and are very expressive movies watchers, so we each gasped, squealed and squirmed in our seats.  It was so much fun and I highly recommend the movie!


                                          right before going to see the movie we got a random person to commemorate this memorable experience; I am holding up 7 fingers to indicate the 7th episode of star wars; Hay, I'm a fan!
                                

Stuck in Roxas (pronounced Ro-hass)
We did some shopping after, both for clothes and for food.  Now comes the interesting part of the story.  At this time we had figured that our rout home would consists of taking a jeep to the city of Roax and than a van to Tabuk.  We had already confirmed that the jeeps from Cuayan to Roxas continued until 9:00 pm so we had lots of time.  However we were not sure how late the vans left from Roxas to Tabuk.  While we were in the jeans department of one of the stores; I received a text from my friend in Tabuk whom had been provided me with transportation info.  When she realized that we had not left Cuayan yet at 3:00 pm she exclaimed that we would probably miss the van from Roxas to Tabuk because we wouldn't make it to Roxas for the last trip.  We could only hope that maybe there would somehow still be one van left.

We finished our shopping, stood in line for a hamburger to go at MacDonald and then packed ourselves into a jeep heading to Roxas by 4:00 pm.  By this time I was getting stressed as all I could think about was how I was sure we were going to miss the van to Tabuk.  Fortunately Ellora was calm.  I would start freaking out and she was all "its fine, its going to be fine" We arrived at the Roxas Van station (which is just a bunch of vans and jeeps on the side of the road, so its more of a van stop) at about 6:00 pm where we talked to a guy about where we needed to go, he told us to wait and we hoped that a van or a jeep would arrive with the destination of Tabuk. The guys came back and said that there were no more jeeps going to Tabuk that night. We hummed and hawd for awhile trying to decide on our options, then another guy came up and volunteered to take us in his jeep for a price of 1500 pesos (about 55 dollars Canadian), which didn't seem a terrible deal.

In the end however due to the fact that the first guy we were talking to seemed to be hinting that maybe we should just wait till morning and Georgia's advice (i was texting her about our situation) to find a hotel and wait till morning; we decided to stay the night.  We were pointed in the direction of a hotel which was conveniently across the street.  It was a nice hotel with a police post right outside.   The hotel was clean and had air conditioning and the luxury of hot showers (we do not have hot showers in our living quarters so it is a real treat any time we get them)

We found our way to a mall like store a few blocks away which you will see by the photo reminded Ellora and I lot of the Emerald City in the wizard of Oz as everything (except the Christmas tree) seemed to be green.  we got some clothes and snacks and returned to our hotel for a lovely evening of hot showers, t.v. snacks and a very good sleep.

                                  PureGold store in Roxas which was more green than gold; as in the color
                                       

The next morning we returned to Tabuk refreshed and with a great story! in the end we were both quite happy that we got stuck Roxas, it created lovely mini Christmas holiday for us.


Christmas and New Years
Christmas day was nice and relaxing, the night before I had gone to a Christmas eve service at a Catholic church which was my first ever mass.  It was really interesting but I was sure tired after as I am not used to staying up that late unless there are babies being born.

Christmas morning we had a lovely Breakfast and just hung out together.  For lunch we had fried chicken and spagetti, we watched t.v. and just relaxed.  later in the evening we watched a movie by the lights of the Christmas tree

Our Christmas tree, made of bamboo.  Pine cones collected when we went to Sagada (they have pine trees there) and hand decorated by Ellora and I
                                                 

        The gang Christmas morning: L-R Ellora, Keri, Maryann, Vienna, Belen. Ana (our lovely cook)
                                    


Jess, Ellora, Keri, Vienna, Belen Ana 



               Christmas Breakfast




Christmas lunch




New Years eve Georiga brought a whole bunch of food for us to eat, including really yummy cookies.  Keri also had a box arrive from home full of chocolate and candy which she very kindly shared.  lets just say I ate a lot that day.  At around 11:40 p.m. Anie, Keri, Jess, Ellora and I headed up to the roof where we watched the fire works display from various locations in Tabuk.  It was incredible!!

New Years eve, we all had a cup of hot chocolate while we waited for the fireworks to start at midnight 


The next morning all of us who were on shift were tired from our late night but it was worth it!

God as always is teaching and stretching me,  this year I feel Him calling me to listen more, which is something that I have been lacking in, in the last few months.  Spending time with God is something I have let slide and I want to change that.  When I was a child spending time with God seemed so simple and feeling His Presence came with ease, I could never understand why adults had such problems with it.  This simplicity is one that I am Prayfully hoping to achieve again by His Grace

As always thank you so much for all your prayers and support
the Prayer request are pretty well the same,

-Assignments
-Clinical work
-Opportunities to share God's love
-Safe deliveries
-Growth and Strength in the Lord
-oh yes and I have this cold that i would really like to go away!

P.S.: Also I now have a nice new computer charger that is working beautifully!

Many Blessing to you all, until next time
Vienna Moilliet, the sheepish midwife