feeling the feb.

February, I remember feeling that last year this month went too fast, and again I echo this thought.

Last year, a girl called becca led my outreach until the month of January. She then went back to Perth briefly and then to Vancouver and got engaged and was married before we saw her for our debrief in May. She was a part of staffing the lecture phase this year and then moved to Wollongong . Last week, the pregnant becca and her husband Chris visited our team while they were doing a project here, ahhh friendship. While on our way to get iced coffee, she began sharing with me, “it’s not about the outcome, it’s about the relationship on the way”. Oh how I needed to hear that, to hear it from someone who has been in my shoes with years of experience. That’s why we are here, to meet the women, to share with them in their pain, to learn together as a school. There are tasks, skills, evaluations that of course that need to be ticked off, but those are not to rule me in co-leading the team. The principles of the kingdom are based off of what builds relationship. I once heard a man, (I think I’ve shared this before) who said you can replace the word “sin” with the term “relationship breaker”, that’s how serious G*d is about relationships. My feeble task-orientated self needs to change.



I have been sharing in my blog updates about how the battle between life and death has intensified here. We are not elite to the strongholds of the city, but aware, and thus must stand strong. Just opening your eyes in the morning can be a brawl of lies. We have entered into more fights for our unity, more difficulties with sickness and most of all, more struggles in communication. As a result, we have gone deeper into wor*hipping and inter*eding for this city and recognized our authority because of the name of J*sus.



We have one more month here in India . Staying for only two months is actually such a short time, then again, even four months in Tanzania felt short. We will be heading into the Philippines in my next update. I do have a mailing address here. I can send it to you individually, but through a mass email is slightly insecure.

I want to leave you with a beautiful testimony from earlier in this week. G*d has met us in the hospital. Since the first birth attendants came here seven years ago, we have seen his kingdom begin to advance. There is now a new location/building of the hospital-that gives much more space and is just more livable, there are more doctors-whom we have seen relationships increase with, there is newer equipment-that we have seen give much better care since we have been here…

So here is the story from Consuelo. Consuelo was once a student on the school and then returned back to Texas to receive her accreditation as a midwife there. Since the car accident in Nigeria in 2005, Consuelo has committed to see the school rebuild so she is here for our final month in India- teaching us, working with us at the hospital daily.

The Miracle of Life at the Edge of Death

(Consuelo York, midwife serving with the Birth Attendant School , 2 March 2010)

A lady was laboring today. When she was feeling ready to push one of the other tutors saw that the umbilical cord was coming out before the baby’s head. This is a very dangerous, and often life-taking emergency situation. I was called over, as well as the doctor. I arrived first and checked to see if she had opened enough for the baby to be born, and she had. I maneuvered the baby’s head to take pressure off of the pinched cord so she could get the blood she needed to stay alive.

The doctor arrived and told me that they knew that the cord was coming first and that I should just wait. I asked if the baby was still alive. I knew that if she was, the mother had opened enough to deliver quickly to preserve the baby’s life! I knew that delay would certainly mean death. WE checked and found the baby to have a heart beat; so I commenced with assisting this baby to be born safely. The doctor saw that the baby delivered quickly and revived immediately. Resuscitative measures were not even necessary.

As I entered the newborn room a few minutes later to see the baby, I had such joy that G*d’s hand in this child’s life had preserved her to fulfill her destiny. Yet, I was also aware that sadly her mother seemed not to be delighted to have a female child. So, for my pr*yers over this child, I called her Joy. My prayers to G*d for this child were that she would fulfill her destiny as a child of G*d, He delighting in her life being preserved, and asking that He would cause her to be accepted and loved by her family.

tank you (as said in telagu) for reading.
bless you guys.