Swing shift and a bad haircut....

Greetings! Tim is not happy...not happy at all. In fact, Tim is very sad....sad that his chin is naked and his lips are cold. Today Tim went for a haircut....a haircut to cut the hairs on his head...

Last post Tim shared that the kids at House of Jubilee loved his beard and were constantly yanking on it. Alas, the red beard that made Tim look like a teddy bear is no longer with us.

Tim explained to the barber that he wanted his beard cut to 1/4" and the dear man just did not understand and shaved his beard OFF. Tim phoned me from the barber just to warn me of the pending doom and I couldn't help but chuckle..."Welcome to the Philippines!" (Note to self...I will continue to cut my own hair.)

A depressed pirated-movie-carrying Tim came home....the movies are to occupy our time while we wait for Tim's beard to grow back! Just kidding. It's all a part of the experience, right?

In other news, I worked swing shift in the birth room yesterday. While it was a good shift for visiting with other midwives, very little labor occurred. But a lady named Michelle came in and left quite an impression on me.....

She was just barely 33 weeks when she came in and clearly having strong contractions. Given her due date was October 15, we were quite concerned. My supervisor explained to her that she could not deliver at Mercy as we are not allowed to deliver premature babies below 37 weeks. Michelle understood, but began to cry (I don't blame her).

I asked her if I could pray for her and she nodded. I prayed that the Lord would protect her and her baby and that He would give her peace. She looked very weathered for 21 years old and had already given birth to three children. Her bana (husband) looked very concerned and my supervisor opted to transfer them to the hospital.

I was able to ride with them in Mercy's ambulance and walked with them through the mess of the hospital to triage. The hospital was very full and people were yelling and scurrying around....it was so heavy there. Lots of children crying and wounded Filipinos walking aimlessly about. Julia (the intern midwife I was with) handed in Michelle's papers and we were told to sit them down on a crowded bench and then leave.

I felt like I was abandoning them and felt a little sick. I asked her one last time if I could pray for her and her bana and after praying, she smiled and said "salamat" thank you. Then we left. I felt awful. But I am hoping that though she was in a crowded and heavy place with beds only a couple inches apart, that they were able to stop her contractions so that she is able to deliver at Mercy....and if not, that she will have a safe and healthy labor and baby. Please pray for Michelle, too! Sending laboring women to the hospital is no fun....for anyone.

Thanks and please keep the comments coming! I get to work the night shift tonight! I will try and take pictures......Be blessed!

House of Jubilee

Today we went with Jenn and Joe and some of their kids to the House of Jubilee, a local ministry that feeds children and provides some basic tutoring. I believe this was the most fun either of us have had since we arrived here in Davao. We got to play with the children, which mostly entailed them climbing on us or pulling my beard. My beard is getting rather large these days, and the locals seem to be quite puzzled by it. The kids were quite happy to play with it.

When we arrived, the children were very happy to see us. Some of them cheered and greeted us around our car before we had even gotten out. When we entered the gate of the property they cheered even louder. I was the last to duck through the gate, and when they saw me, their cheers turned into a chorus of "Whoa!" Again, I think my beard (and perhaps my size) are quite the attraction.

The children gathered together to sing some songs about Jesus. The leaders would proclaim that "God is good", and the children replied at the top of their lungs "All the time", leaving my ears ringing. After the singing they washed their hands and had lunch. We were able to help server the lunch and assist the younger children with cutting up their food. After lunch they brushed their teeth (something they are in desperate need of) with toothbrushes provided by Jubilee.

These kids are severely malnourished. For many of them, this is the only meal they would have received today. One of the girls, aged four, could barely walk when she first arrived at Jubilee. Her mother feeds her coffee and pig fat. Now, thanks to the nutrition that Jubilee provides, she is walking! These folks serve the kids four or five days a week.

Bethany and I are going to go to their church service tomorrow morning. We were very blessed to be a part of the activities today, and we know we will be spending more time with those kids.

Cheerio.
Tim

Feeling a bit better!

Greetings! Thank you for praying for me these last two days! Yesterday, our dear friends, Jenn and Joe, came over to pray for me as I was barely able to get out of bed. The diarrhea, intense stomach pain and migraines made the humidity and crazy heat almost unbearable. I spent most of the day laying lifeless on our bed sweating like a stuffed pig. Not fun, but God's mercies were once again, new Friday morning and I made it to prenatal check-ups! Praise God! I hated having to stay home from swing shift on Thursday, but walking to prenatals this morning made me feel so grateful for His provision of health.

I got to work with an intern from Colorado who has 11 children! YES, eleven kids...all her own...all delivered vaginally! Nuts! Joyce and I had a great time listening for fetal heart tones and asking all the usual questions.....she is a great midwife and taught me a lot and I was able to teach her some Cebuano! We made a good team and she let me do a whole bunch of the exams on my own! I am learning more and more everyday....like how to determine if edema/swelling is serious or if it is just the heat or how to find the heart tones of TWINS!

We got to exam a beautiful lady named Juvelle that will be having twins very soon! Feeling two babies and hearing their hearts beat was an amazing experience! It's her first pregnancy and she is very excited to be having twins. Joyce and I giggled and joked with Juvelle as we felt for the positions of her two babies. Fun. Then we got to pray a blessing over her and her little ones. That's my favorite part.

The pictures are of the prenatal classes taught today by my friend, Jenny, and being translated by Melody (she ROCKS)! She was teaching on birth control....a little-known subject here....as prizes for women who answered questions, Jenny brought condoms....and you should've seen the buntas get excited about getting a condom! It was better than candy! We had a good laugh.

Jenny did a great job explaining all the birth control methods and which ones were the best. Here, the preferred method is "withdrawal" which totally doesn't work, but many of the women are taught this is the best and then they come into Mercy pregnant! The women are taught to check their cervical mucus and understand when their bodies ovulate....a task that is harder than you'd think! I am still learning to do that myself!

But in a few months, I will be in Jenny's shoes - teaching and hopefully giving out great prizes! Scary and fun all at the same time!

Tomorrow Tim and I are heading to "House of Jubilee", a ministry that feeds the poor children of Davao. They are expecting over 100 children tomorrow! And we get to go help! We are very excited to get to know this ministry and serve in a different way.

Thank you for all your comments and encouragements! Please continue to pray for us as we know we've been under some attack....

Be blessed!

Slow Day

I'm going to keep this fairly short because I don't have much to say on the matter. What matter? Nothing matters. Check out what Ecclesiastes 1:2 has to say on that matter...

Hey folks, I spent another day on the boat yesterday. Please be praying for Glen. The engine installation is going slower than anticipated. Yesterday he arrived at the boat to weld the new engine into place, but by the time I had left at 2:30 they were still struggling to maneuver the motor into the right position. As it turns out, it is rather tricky to move a few tons of raw diesel power a fraction of an inch. Glen was feeling frustrated because he had hired a man who specializes in engine installations, but the guy didn't show up because he had to go to a funeral or something.

On the bright side, I did get to go with Glen to the warehouse where he buys all the metal that he needs. This is where we will be getting some of the materials for the water filters. On the really bright side, I got myself a wicked sunburn (see Ecclesiastes 1:3). I spent some time hammering a few pieces of steel on the back of the boat (that sounds more romantic than it really is). When I started the job I was in the shade, but I have discovered that the earth has this annoying habit of rotating (see Ecclesiastes 1:5). Anyway, at some point the shade went away and so did my pasty white complexion. (Is that really how you spell "complexion"? It seems kind of Old English. The language, not the floor polish.) ("polish", not "Polish". I can't believe the people group is spelled the same way as the verb.) (Have you ever seen so many brackets back to back?)

Bethany and I had a few friends over for pizza last night. Then Jenn and Joe brought their dinner guests over and we played a few games. Good times were had by all. Below is a picture of what happens when you play spoons (a card game) with people who have ADD.

Please be praying for Bethany. She is having tummy trouble. It kept her up much of last night and it looks like she won't be going to work today. And please pray for me...three Ecclesiastes references in one bit of prose is clearly an indication that I have too much time on my hands.

Be blessed!

Tim.

Uh oh, Tim's rambling again...

I thought I would give you a brief report on what I have been up to lately and show you a few pictures I've taken along the way. Last week I joined Glen Knight on his boat(s) for the day. Glen is my new friend who runs Remote Island Ministries. I had joined him on his boat in order to help out with the installation of a new engine, but our day didn't go as planned.

The new engine was supposed to arrive from Cebu (the second largest city in the Phils) that morning, but after I arrived at the boat we learned that the engine was not due until the evening. We decided to spend our morning inquiring about a crane that we could use to switch engines at a local dock. We were taking the Tropicana (pictured below, it is the smaller of Glen's boats, though at 62 feet it can hardly be considered small) across the bay when the engine suddenly cut out and we started to drift south.
Without the engine, we were drifting parallel to the waves which made for a rather turbulent ride. The crew did their best to get it going again, but after we had drifted a mile or two, they decided it was best to call for help and get towed back to the Nativa (Glen's large boat, pictured below). The turbulence left me feeling a little seasick just in time for lunch!
After lunch we decided to take a drive up the mountain on Samal Island, where they were just beginning a church building project. Faith Baptist, the church Bethany and I have been attending, has a seminary that works with RIM. The students go with Glen on the boat, preach the gospel in the villages and then plant a church there. We drove up the mountain to a village called Bandera to see them unloading the bricks that would become part of the foundation. The church will be located right at the top of the mountain, across the street from a school and the barangay hall (something akin to a community center...sort of).

I took a few pictures of the church property. Because it is at the top of a mountain, they will first have to level it off by filling in the lot with stones. You can see a red water tower behind the empty lot. Glen is excited about getting some water filters to this location because he is convinced that the water sits in that tower too long and becomes unfit to drink. Apparently a visiting pastor drank from that source and became intensely ill.
I also took some photos of the kids that were watching us from the school house. Sorry this was such a long post, but now you know a bit more about Glen and his boats and what he does. He and I are hoping to have a water filtration operation started by February. I'm really looking forward to joining him on some of his journeys to the remote Islands. I will learn a lot from him, and I believe that the Lord has great things in store for RIM.

You can be praying that Glen successfully installs the new engine into the Nativa. They were able to get a crane and get the engine into the boat (the crane operator nearly dropped the engine into the ocean), but they still have to hook it all up. Also, please be praying for Glen's wife, Paula, who went back to Texas last week and has become very ill with some mysterious virus.

Talk to you again soon.

Cheers,
Tim.

Learning so much!

Greetings! I am actually writing this in the birth room...it's 2:10 am Monday morning here...the ladies have settled and are sleeping for the night. So far, we've had one birth! Another laboring woman named Micay (sounds like "Mee-Kie") just came in and I am sure we will see her baby in the next few hours, but for now, she is resting with her bana (hubby). We found out the coolest thing, too!....it is Micay's Birthday! She's gonna have her baby's birthday on HER birthday! Crazy! What a celebration today will be!

The birth we had this evening (my sixth attended birth at Mercy!) was a great learning experience. Jenny was my teacher and she is also a student here. Our supervisor was Ate Susan (pictured in previous posts) and another attending midwife was Laura, an intern from Utah.

Jenny, Laura and me got to work with Elizabeth as she pushed her BIG baby boy out. She had a difficult labor and after delivering beautiful Joshua at 10:56 pm, she bled quite a bit, needed some manual assistance in getting her placenta out, plus an IV, a catheter and some more drugs. She was so strong the entire time, wincing in pain as so many midwives were putting their limbs inside her to make sure she was okay. She continued to smile and even tried breastfeeding despite the difficulties. She is resting now and Joshua is doing great.

This was my first time charting the WHOLE entire event on my own, too! It was pretty special. AND THEN!!! I got to bathe the baby (hence the pictures). Joshua was a good sport as I got him nice and clean and Jenny did the baby checks while I charted the results. I had a GAS. Elizabeth was so great with letting me do the dirty work with her new son and her bana was all smiles. Even her mother came to celebrate! Jenny was gracious as I asked her TONS of questions and she explained every detail of the birth and aftermath with me. She made me feel comfortable and encouraged my progress.

Needless to say....I was blessed....and my shift isn't over for another four hours! Busy, but peaceful night. Praise Jesus for healthy babies and healthy moms. What a blessing.

Please continue to pray for us and don't forget to comment...it really blesses us!

------update! Micay's baby girl, Cheska, was born healthy and happy at 3:35 am Monday morning! Praise God and a happy birthday to her!------

Baby Girl, quiet shift

"Maayong Buntag!" Good morning! Today I worked with midwives Susan, Rose, Ate Ana, Ate Estef and pictured below is also Ate Susan. Rose, pictured above, who is so silly and sings non-stop (no joke) was scheduled to pick up the next labor that walked through the doors.
And 45 minutes later, patient Christina gave birth to beautiful Christine Kim. Rose and Susan were her midwives and I got to chart a bit, get supplies and pray with the family. Her "bana" (husband) was all smiles as he gazed at his new baby girl. A fast labor and a fast delivery. And praises to Jesus. She is a beautiful baby....and very quiet. Very appropriate considering they were the only ones here. I felt far more confident in all the things I am learning today.... Thanks for your prayers! Please continue to pray for remembrance of all the crazy things I have to memorize and learn! What a joy and what a task!
Despite the quiet morning, as I left this afternoon, two more "buntas" arrived in labor. Busy swing shift today....it's really HOT today, too, so I imagine there will be many more coming in!
It was a good day. Tim will be posting next with some great pics of our neighbors! Stay tuned and be blessed!