I am living in Davao City now with fifteen other young women, split up into two houses next door to each other. The women are all amazing and we immediately become like family after only a few days of getting to know each other. All of them come from different walks of life and have absolutely incredible stories of what the Lord has done in their lives and their hearts in order to get them to the Philippines. From South Africa, to Switzerland and California to Idaho…different languages…cultures and callings, and yet we all have one thing in common; we desire to be heart-felt, well-educated, rural living, independent, confident, freely-loving midwives! Ready to serve the Lord at every moment, and take on the world one baby at a time!!
The weather is so hot and so humid and sticky and tropical! It rains and pours and thunderstorms almost every night. It is wild! Dancing in the rain has become a nightly ritual and after studying for 6 hours straight, it fills us up and cools us down!!
The clinic that we work in and study at is called Mercy Maternity Center and is next door to our home. The windows next to our beds are directly across from the clinics birthing rooms, so we get to fall asleep to the sound of laboring Filipina woman every night and wake up to the screaming cry of a baby taking its first breath! It is unreal. Probably a nightmare to most normal people, but for us, its music to our ears! Haha!
Already we have been given the chance to minister to many women and children, take visits to the local hospital where we will eventually transport our own continuity patients in an emergency, camp out on the beach on Samal Island (ridiculously gorgeous, and the home to any visitors, just a 10min fairy boat ride away from Davao!!). We have gotten to watch and assist with several births, begin taking prenatal, learn a new language, live with the people of Davao, and bond with locals and our supervisor midwives! Things have been busy, busy, busy!!
As for Davao and its people, there is much poverty and desperation here. The other morning, I had left my house at around 8am to go to the clinic and two little boys were outside of the gate picking through heaps of trash on the side of the road. They had no pants on, no shoes on and were looking frantically for something as if it had been waiting there for them and they just needed to find it. I realized later that they were looking for food. They were hungry. That sort of thing is normal here and knowing that we are not here to “save” Davao but to live here, learn and love the people with our whole hearts, and help in any way that we can, almost leaves a feeling of hopelessness sometimes. We can not help every single person and fix every single problem, there are just too many needs, too many desperate eyes and mouths begging for money while you walk in the market…we are all only humans, we too are weak, with the same needs, maybe not the same physical and financial needs, but emotional needs. We all need to feel and know that we are loved. We need to feel wanted and to know that someone cares about the way we feel inside. We need to be seen and heard. We need to know that we are forgiven and set free!
All we know is how to give Jesus. To walk in His Spirit. To pour Him into others and to live and move in Him, in His promises and His Kingdom, one that does not look like this world, but is brought down to this earth so the King can be revealed. To introduce them to the King that gives beauty for ashes and strength for fear, gladness for mourning and peace for despair! And He knows how to do and give everything else…even the needs that we cant see.
Many of us students spent the first few nights crying ourselves to sleep because of the overwhelming compassion that weighed on our hearts, that we didn’t even know we were capable of feeling with our own limited, self-seeking hearts. We didn’t know we could love a people so much that it physically hurt. Jesus has been breaking our hearts for His people. To truly see them. To look at them with His eyes, hear them with His ears and speak to them with His voice. It has changed us forever, and this is only the beginning.
But even in the midst of the suffering, there is a great, deep abiding joy in their spirits. They are filled with light and they love freely. We have been transformed by them, not just by their perseverance in hardships, but the overflowing love and hope that spills from their hearts. They are strong, and steadfast. They love their God, and they have taught us in everyway that no matter what another person has said or done to you, you are to love them. Simply because God says so!
They have welcomed us into their country with open arms and have made us feel at home! They are hilarious and fun and even after an emotionally hard day, with hearing certain phrases 10000000x a day, such as, “MAAYONG BUNTAG PUTI!” (Good Morning white lady!!) and “Maaaam, do you have a bana ? (husband) Can I be yours?” You cant help but smile to yourself and laugh with wonder why the Lord would ever choose YOU to do this, here, on the other side of the world! Haha! He is the God of surprises!! And His joy is our strength! There hasn’t been a day that goes by that the Filipinos have not taught us how to laugh at life and never to take yourself too seriously!
But to laugh and love and honor God and your neighbor before yourself and to eat as many fried, sugar-rolled bananas as you can before you die!

Where Do I begin??

MAAYONG UDTO!!
Thank you so much to all who have supported me and are continuing to support and pray for me! No words could ever describe how blessed I feel! I have been showered with nothing but love the last month and I will never forget it. I know that even when I do feel alone, I am not alone, but the Body of Christ is one! We have eachother to lean on, to cry on, to laugh with and rejoice with. The love is overwhelming! Know how much I love you all and I will try my best to keep you updated with pictures and journal entries. Well here I am Lord! Living in Davao City in the beautiful Philippines.A place I never thought I would be living for two years, if you asked me 4 years ago! I should know by now that you are a God of surprises, just when I think Im going left, you tell me to right, flip a u-turn and drive off the cliff.

The journey here...well lets just say, that it has completely thrown every single one of my expectations out the window. I never knew the trials and tribulations and heartbreak that I was walking into...and yet... I have been set free. My heart has been healed in the breaking, and the Lord has become greater in the trials and tribulations. makes alot of sense right?!? haha. Im not sure if it has really hit me yet. I see my flesh and it is crying out for something other then this, this is painful, and yet I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am where the Lord has put me. I left the man I love. I left the family and friends I know and love. And it hurts. But I know that Jesus's joy comes in the morning. I know that his mercy and grace is enough. It covers my mistakes, my short commings and failures. And He gets to be God once again. He has brought me to a valley...
This has been the hardest, lonliest, most challenging, painful time in my life. I feel my flesh being seperated from my spirit. I can feel my heart breaking in pieces and in places I never knew could break. I feel at times that I have no hope, no freedom, no more love, no more life inside me. Dry, and broken before God. The God that created the very girl that sits and weeps at His feet hungary for Him, needing Him, dying without Him. I know it sounds crazy, haha but I had NO IDEA what I was in for! I am dying right now. really and truly there is a death taking place. BUT I know that there will be a resurection!! and I hope soon! haha. cause it hurts! I didnt know when Jesus said, "You must take up your cross my daughter and follow me..." that he litteraly meant a cross! I can feel my cross, its big and has splinters and sits heavy. I see my flesh and sin hanging down from it, sometimes dangling right above my head. To where its all I can see. But I know that He is able, He is faithful to complete this work in me. I know that this pain wont last forever. I cry most of the day everyday. Cry with laughter, with joy, with grief and grieving being away from everyone I know and love, cry with the pain of dying to my flesh and what I really want, with compassion for the people, with lonliness and with no other reason then to cry and cry hard!

This really has been so so so so hard. haha I dont know what else to say! I can either tell the Lord that its too painful and go home to the man I love, to the family I love and be comfortable again and continue with the same prayer "Lord, I want to serve you and give you everything" Or I can embrace the pain, run with it, cry with it and let the Lord strip me, day by day, hour by hour, minute by mintue and let him make me into a servent. Embrace the lonliness and stop running from it and let Him find me in it. My biggest fear, biggest fear biggest FEAR..is to be alone. And here I am, in a valley and the thing I fear the most has come. My heart rejoices, only for the fact that He is working in me. working and working and yet I tremble trying to grasp on to the girls with me and yet, they slip through my fingers. No one is left but Him. Me and Him. Him and I. dancing in the valley of bones. My head on His chest, my feet on his feet, slow dancing. as I cry and tell him why I am afraid to be alone. and then I realize, that I am not alone forever, but in this season it is needed. so that I come to know our God. Our God that led His people into the dessert only to set himself up to be glorified. only to take care of them and provide for them. only so they would come to need Him with every fiber of their being. Only to be our food and water and shelter. He is my only food, water and shelter here. I am naked and broken and thirsty and hungry, and yet...here He is....haha doing a work in me I never thought possible.
I never thought possible. ever. never. No one told me it would hurt like this haha! I had no idea!! but yet my soul is filled with a knowing, not even peace or joy yet...but a KNOWING. That I KNOW Jesus. I know my God. HE is GOOD. HE is FAITHFUL. HE is HOLY and STEADFAST. HE is GENTLE. HE does not condemn. He does not leave us in the valley forever. He forgives and forgets. HE lOVES even the worst and ugliest and weakest of us! I KNOW these things. Even when I can not fathom them. cant even recall why or how I know them, Yet... I KNOW. He is JESUS. HE is the one that takes us and carries us to the Father, and lays us at the alter when we cant walk. JESUS. JESUS. He is the answer to it all...all...everything. All our needs as humans.
We are such desperate people. We need Him.

There is so much need here. So much. mostly spiritual. I see people walking around, living without a clue of who the one that loves them is. It kills me. I have never seen such a hunger in poeple. they want Jesus. I want Jesus. We all have no where to turn but up. Up to Him. to fix our eyes on HIM.
He is at work! To say the least! My heart rejoices in the pain because I know He will get all the Glory. He will get all the praise and His name will be above all other names. JESUS.