Here I am sitting on the plane next to Jenna, about to land. This flow of joy comes over me. I love traveling, so immediately I think it’s just another random moment remembering I’m traveling and getting happy/excited about it. Then we get off the plane and I’m still feeling this weird and happy feeling I haven’t felt in a while. We get picked up by this guy, Kyle, and his friends Sean and Aaron. I just can’t understand why I’m so happy still. Kyle’s telling us about their ministry in the car. I realize I’m finally feeling joy again. I haven’t felt like this in so long I didn’t even recognize the feeling. I never realized how dark Malawi really was for so many of us until we left. Being here I just feel like myself again. I honestly haven’t felt this way in probably 6 months. I feel alive. It’s not just because this place is absolutely gorgeous and we have the greatest ministry ever since we can pick whatever ministry we want, it’s just a whole different feeling here.
I went to church on Sunday and it was amazing. It’s taken 6 months for me to go to a church that’s pouring something into me instead of me constantly pouring everything I have out. I can’t tell you how much I prayed for this. It was such an answered prayer for so many of us that it brought tears to our eyes. I didn’t even know what to say besides “thank you, God. Oh thank you so much”. I felt like I’d never be out of that darkness and He brought us out of it. It’s just a memory now. There were so many struggles in El Salvador and Malawi and then He spoke joy over the Philippines and I can tell you I definitely feel it. God’s way more powerful then I let myself think sometimes.
Okay story time!
At our new ministry host, we get to pick any ministry we really want to be apart of; there’s a variety of them. We can work at the kids home, work on cars…pretty much anything you can think of. I decided to work in the Prenatal clinic with the women. We have our first day there and they have me checking the babies heart beat, how big they are and feeling it in the mom’s stomach. I checked probably 15 women then they tell us that one of the women we checked is in labor and told us to come back later to help deliver her baby! What?! Do they know we don’t know what we’re doing? I get the call later in the day that the baby’s ready to come into the world. Annie, Megan and I run over as fast as possible then we just sit for about an hour and play with her other kids, which by the way are the sweetest little things. Then they call us in. The woman(Sarah) is in so much pain(well of course, she’s in labor). The women here don’t yell or really make any noise during labor, it’s just not acceptable. These ladies are tough. Sarah is moving around for a couple hours trying to get in a comfortable position to have the baby. It looked so painful. The midwives told us one of her bones broke, we didn’t hear which one. I’m guessing it was the pelvic bone. Sarah made some noise but nothing crazy, probably close to the noise people make when they stub their toe. The midwives told us that was the loudest birth they’ve ever had! I was in awe because they’ve delivered tons of babies, sometimes even 3 in a day. How in the world was that the loudest? After all of the different positions and all of the tears, the beautiful baby boy finally came out. He was purple. I wasn’t expecting that. They had us cut the umbilical cord, clean him all up, change him, weigh him, then hand him over to his mom. I can’t explain to you how amazing it feels to be the first thing that baby saw when he opened up his eyes, there’s nothing like it. He was a beautiful heathy boy. There are definitely not many experiences like that. I gotta tell you it’s not for the weak at stomach but it’s such beautiful thing.
We went back in the morning to check on the mom. She was doing so much better. We were able to take her other kids from her for the day. We brought them back to the YMC, which is where we live. They have a pool here for all the kids. We took them swimming. It was so much fun. We could definitely tell they don’t do this often. What an amazing experience it was to be apart of that family and love on them for a little bit. That’s what all of these people need is love. I’m so happy I’ve had this opportunity to be apart of there family and so many other families lives. I’m so excited for the upcoming things we’ll be doing here!
