Breathe baby...

Hello hello!

September has been very neat.... as you may have known, our finances as a team for the 8 month outreach were due, and in the end we saw full provision, for all students, all families, all couples. That’s a whopping $232, 538.75. Thank you to those who responded to the Montoya family’s need as well. They went from owing $17, 000 to $10,000, to 0 in a week. From contributions all over the world. They’re a great family of five, leaving American luxuries to minister to the poorest of poor.

These past weeks we have been covering newborn care, assessing mother and baby immediately following delivery, and also a few days afterwards. This is my bunkmate Synnove and me learning how to wrap the hips and belly for a nice secure hold and relieves backpain for mom. Synnove is so great, she’s a Norwegian that has lived in Denmark all her life, she speaks perfect English (without an accent!), and loves songwriting and singing. She is one of the most thoughtful people I know, she’s always humbly leaving little presents for people here and there, discretely, for no glory at all. She’s also such a jokester! Her sense of humour is hilarious. Her and I have a lot of fun together.


(<--) “The Iwata Obi” Japanese Maternity Lumbo-Sacral Support Wrap.


On Thursday, we had such a privileged day. We got to go to the hospital! My favorite place! haha... well that’s kind of true actually.

When I was little, we went to the hospital to visit someone ( I think it was my grampa after knee surgery) and I remember looking at all the beds of people spilling out into the hallways and thinking it was “cozy”. It just seemed like such a peaceful place, everyone was sleeping all bundled in fresh white sheets, the lighting was soft, people talked quietly and the nurses shuffled from room to room. Holding my mom’s hand I remember saying, “Mom, I love hospitals! They’re so peaceful.”

Not the common response, eh?

I myself never had to be admitted to the hospital, so the only times I went to this mysterious place were to give nice hand-made cards and flowers and visit a smiling restful relative, and look out at the view of the city from their bedroom window. Sounds pretty nice to me!

Later, when I was 17, I volunteered at the Children’s Hospital twice a week before I left for a New Zealand Bible School, and it was there that I was confronted with more harsh realties. My first training day we went up to the different wards, and I was introduced to a bald 15 year old girl that had cancer, and as I said “Hi,” expressionless she turned over and threw up from the chemotherapy drugs. The next girl we visited was hospitalized from anerexia. Her hair was thin, and her clothes draped on her like on a hanger. The next girl we saw didn’t really acknowledge we were there.... she was sitting on the edge of her bed staring at a point on the floor. She was admitted because of a drug overdose.

I came home that day, with a new perception of hospitals. This is reality for those girls.
The hospital was not just a place where I went to visit moms and their newborn babies and family that had successful operations.

Anyway, so we got to go to the hospital, and were taught Newborn Resuscitation by the midwives. We learned how to do chest compressions to get their heart going, and how to use a bag-and-mask to give them little puffs of air for their breathing.
The rate of how fast you do it is about 40-60 times a minute, which you can pace by saying:
breathe baby,
breathe baby,
breathe baby,
breathe baby...

It all seems so hypothetical, we were doing it on plastic baby dummies. It’s hard for me to imagine holding a real baby and doing that. Oh Lord...

We also got to look at a real placenta! Which was highly interesting for me.

We leave for Tanzania in 11 days. Am I ready for Africa?

Travelling by plane continues to confound me. How is it that you can be standing in an Australian airport at the beginning of the day, walk through some aisles and machines, grab your bags, sit for a while in a seat, and then walk down another aisle and you’re in a completely different continent. In a matter of hours. Doesn’t make sense. But that’s what’s going to happen!

Because we’re bringing heaps of medical eqipment, our personal bag can only be 11 or 12 kg. So the packing challenge begins!





But I have a great praise report.
Over the past month or so, I have really started to think about a digital SLR camera. I appreciate good photos so much, and if I’m gone for so long, in such interesting settings, would it be worth it to invest in an SLR? That being said, I don’t really have “extra” cash to buy it with, but I was willing to put out the money now and then pay it back as soon as I could. For weeks I was reading up about cameras, the different models and prices, went on classified ad sites, contacted a lady in Perth about her used camera, etc. But really just prayerfully pondering why I had this longing in my heart for a digital SLR, yet being at peace with either outcome.

Anyway, last Friday, a girl I know from the base comes up to me and says, “Fia, I want to lend you my digital SLR camera for your outreach. God’s been speaking to me about holding things loosely.”

!!! That’s an 8 month outreach, and she loves photography! I had just briefly talked to her about camera advice the previous week for about 3 minutes before class, and now this?

What an unexpected, amazing answer to prayer!

I also got given a blank-page (no lines) journal that week as well, which comes at the perfect timing, (my journal is just finishing up) and blank pages are the only ones I use now, and they’re so hard to find!
God is amazing (isn’t He always!), but yeah, through those incidences He’s really shown me that He delights in my creativity, and love for expression.

Praise the Lord, even when we have little, he still gives good gifts. Amazing.


“Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, in which there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning.” James 1:17