a secret post of ramble

having kids, that must be the fear of the lord on your life. how many times, even per day, do i open my mouth and say "when I was growing up..." I obviously had an excellent childhood if I so openly share about my childhood multiple times in a day. thinking of the habits formed, the patterns learned, the mistakes made, the problems solved...its a lot of responsibility.

tonight i was telling some friends about how i didn't like mexican food growing up. often on sundays i would myself getting free refils of my shirley temple, staring at the menu, wishing i liked the food at azteca. on any given sunday i would order either a. cheeseburger b. chicken bruger or c. sopa de tortilla

this last time i was home with my family in april, i went out to dinner with mom and dad, it happened to be mexican food. i explained to them that i didnt like mexican food when i ordered a cheese burger. and i thought, wow, after all these years of not liking mexican, my family thinks i do like it. did i ever tell them i didn't like it?

i remember one time in a restaurant, i was maybe 5. we were out to eat with another family that had 6 kids, bringing the total number of people to 14 people. it seemed like so many of us at the time, having eaten out with outreach teams twice the size, it seems reasonable now. anyway, i remember the waitress taking orders from most everyone, but she skipped me. when the food started coming out to the table, i didn't get any food, (remember, i didn't order any). the food was all distributed and then terri said something to me about what i got and i burst into tears. i think my mom had decided we weren't all going to order and share with each other a couple of meals, but i just thought i had been skipped. yet i knew i had been skipped, but i never spoke up. my first voicing of "i was skipped" was when i burst into tears when the waitress came. i think dad or mom took me away from the table to see what was wrong with me because i couldn't stop crying. 

i am not a verbal person. voicing my needs, my opinions, my desires, visions.... its still strange sometimes. mom and dad you did an amazing job raising us kids!! i look back now and see how complicated it must have been, four monster running around the house making a mess and demanding cheeseburgers instead of tacos. and i see how much i was shaped, habits i formed that i am still reshaping in order to be like jesus. and i'm learning it is not always right and is definitely not helpful for me to be non-verbal and just to go with the flow... even though that is what i am most comfortable with. as God shapes me as a leader, this is something that is being confronted regularly.

i have a ways to go in this process of learning to communicate. this week we have someone sharing on fear of the lord. its arguably one of my favourite topics to talk about with a new group of birth attendants. what does the term "fear of the lord" mean?!?! 

well, its changed my life. 

anitha

yesterday i was posted with four students in the admissions room at the hospital. this is where every woman comes through - regardless of whether she is a gynaec case, in labour or having postpartum difficulties...
i was sitting with a madame** talking about the commonality of consanguinity, when a man calmly walked in the double doors gripping a hankerchief between his hands nervously. He had been caught in the uncommon monsoon rains of the day and his face told a story of a hopeless husband looking for someone, anyone who may be able to help his wife.
we followed him out to an ambulance* and we helped in the struggle to shift the woman onto a gurney. We rolled her into the hsopital with her family trying to explain what the case was. We caught that the baby had died and that she was being referred from another hospital because of a heart condition.
Once we had her settled, her male family was shooed out and her sister was able to accompany her. The woman, we will call her Anitha, grabbed her husband with the same desperation he first showed and begged him to stay. I witnessed a moment that reminded me of Jesus - he did what he didn't want to do, knowing it would be best for her care, he left her. If the family disobeys the hospital staff the implication is the quality of the woman's health care, as the staff will not tend to her until there is only one attendant. 
Anitha's baby had died inside of her, she was struggling to breathe with a heart condition that had just been diagnosed the day before, she complained of pains in her chest, she was writhing in discomfort as she could not get enough oxygen.
We monitored her condition for 3 hours... knowing that it did not look good. Her pulse rate went up to 148, respirations were 52. She was showing signs of shock with her cold, clammy skin and unheard blood pressure.  Multiple Madames attended to her and showed faces of "its late in the game".
For hours we stayed with Anitha - knowing she needed a ventilator, blood, a c-section... but what of these things were available and was her condition stable enough for them?

We transferred her to another ward, and after the intense 4 hours we decided to take a seat in the canteen. When we came back from lunch, helped with the shift changeover and then when to check on Anitha. We came into the ward to find her body covered and her family coming in, saying their good-byes.

Anitha was one of the 1,300 women that die everyday due to pregnancy related conditions.


*people can hire an ambulance to transport their family but it is not necessarily equipped for emergency
 **OBGYN

india.

here i am once again.
third time around and what is happening?
well - it feels comfortable. haha... i think i could live here.
there is the occasional stomach upset and burning as much on the way out as on the way in, but for the most part, the initial shock of life in india isn't very shocking anymore.

communication in india is comprised of shouting, corrections and blunt comments (this is all very subjective). it is a shock to my positive system, but somehow the collective months of life under this communication have allowed an adjustment. it is only a matter of time before i start calling people fat.


some indian fun-ness and my response...
eating with my hand - you have never tasted such delicious food.
your left hand is dirty - "don't touch me with that hand!" "please, excuse my left hand."
how much do you want me to pay? "yeighty rupees madame" - 8 = yeight and a = yay
you are looking very nice in your indian suit! - aside from the scarf that expands my worldview on what scarves are for - indian punjabis seem too comfortable to be be true - don't worry, the sari takes the cake for the discomfort.


and onward to the hospital we go, day in and day out with jesus at the centre.

hi guys.

rachel asked me to post last week and, well, i threw a bit of a hissy fit - thinking no one read this blog except her and my dad... and since i talk to both of them on a regular basis it felt like, "why write?"

after further examination i thought, do i ever write for a specific person? na.
do i ever send my updates for a response? na.

i think it took having a couple moments to think last week after talking my mom. aren't moms the best? and i thought - hey, even if only a couple people read them, ok. its not about who is reading them its that the info is there and available...

so here i am. it is time again to gear up to push for finances. again i have been thinking of the faithfulness of God... his faithfulness even shines in the way that he has me trust him for finances. what ends up happening is a much greater dependency on him through prayer and trusting the strategies that he gives me are exactly what i need. its all about relationship... and that comes through hearing his voice...
i love hearing his voice.

here is a picture from last week. boy i like teaching.

our base dedication...including photos of newly completed property.

here is the worship centre.



before we entered the property our base leadership team washed all of our feet.



my lovely friends, sporting the royal priesthood sashes.



here is the staircase which will take you to all three floors...



annointing the property...you can see the train is the distance.



here you can see the "worship centre"...a lot of windows for all the onlookers to observe.




here is the front door...



some admirable friends from india. they serve the hiv/aids victims of india and we have done ministry together for several years. they were in perth for the dedication night of our base.



here is our sign! isn't it slick? I like it. I'm proud of it.



from the footpath that leads to claisebrook train station! you can see the whole of the property from this shot.

how do i get there?

feeling a bit funny tonight, almost giddy.

lately though, i have been thinking, what once filled my days was creating a schedule that 18 people's "live depended on", or walking a student through a difficult delivery that resulted in a way neither of us had ever hoped for or chatting when someone feels like they just have not been hearing from God...and now...it looks a tad bit different...
so where do you go with it? having been asked a couple of times...what are you doing now? has brought me down this road of...
am i still the same person if i am in the off season?
this issue of WHO AM I?
i am just one voice of a resounding choir humming this same tune.

i am not at identity crisis phase...but i ask this age old question recognizing that until we know the answer...we seem to wrestle with different branches of this nasty root of confusion. jesus knew where he came from, where he was and where he was going...
he knew himself.
i think i get this weird fear of becoming super insular and i digress from learning my own patterns.
but then knowing my identity relates to how i love others, because we are to love others as we love our self...and do we really love unless we KNOW. hmm not sure.
and how much more confidently can i give when i know myself... its like, i don't need anymore of me because i know myself, and i know i don't need anymore- so i can give that much away...

thoughtful.
so, who am i?

discovering.

hit the ground scrubbing.

our beautiful base located in Perth, Australia has been trusting the L*rd for a property to own for years, since before I was even born. Since I joined in 2008, we received land close to where we were leasing a property. Since October 2010 the building has been happening and today the gas is being installed and tomorrow the town of Vincent will walk through to give the yes or no.
In my head, this was all going to be over by the time I returned from all my outreach and holiday happenings. Early January it became clear that there were enough delays that I might actually be here for the move in.
This has meant for me that basically "all else" is done at a later date so that my energy is going towards cleaning and preparing the new property for move in. I am so excited to be a part of it!
What does this new property mean? We OWN land, IN the city. We are taking the land. This is our inheritance.
Why do we need to have a new property? This is where training is happening! We are taking the land here, so that we can train and send others to take the land in other nations!

Trust me, it is so beautiful, I am just in awe of G*d's provision for us! Pictures to follow.