Baby Lovin

So there's been a few babies lately! Melissa and I got to help with a birth the other day. Melissa got to catch and I was going to handle the baby after it was out. So the head was out and all the sudden another mom runs into the delivery room and plops down on the other bed. Melissa is obviously distracted and quite skillfully delivers her baby and is just smiling at the baby. About 5 seconds later I look over to the other mom in the room and notice that her baby is crowning. So I'm just standing there in awe watching the second baby come out in about 1 minute. I yell "baby out!" and Melissa looks at me "Yeah, the baby's been out for a couple minutes!" "No no! OTHER baby out!" So everyone looks over to her and her midwife and just starts smiling so big. So I ran between the two and got the babies situated and whatnot. It was so much fun. We've been waiting for the fully dilated mom to run in and have her baby. We finally got to check that off the list! :D We also got to check another big goal off our list! Both of us had a baby named after us this week! Melissa got a little baby named Princess Meliza and I got Eliza Molly. :D This was a very exciting week for us! On top of all of this there was also another birth last night! I got to catch and a Kings Kid named Amanda got to cut the cord! It's been so fun getting to teach them what to expect and how to help. We even taught some of the boys how to insert IVs! (Yes, Melissa and I were the available veins.)
Anyways, that's the baby update! The outreaches have been so fun! The kids are doing awesome and getting to learn a lot and just love on the kiddos here. This week there's still another day of prenatals and the dump and housing projects. Keep this week in your prayers! We've began the one week countdown to coming home and it feels like there's still so much to learn! We'll keep you guys updated and we'll see you way too soon! :D
Love,
Molly

Kings Kids!

Hey guys! So on Wednesday Kings Kids got here safe! Thanks for keeping them in your prayers! It's so great having more people here... they're really cool! It's 30 people, most ranging from the ages of 14-18. It's awesome to see what God is doing in the lives of this generation. They're so in touch with God... it really is amazing to just sit and listen to their stories and what God has been showing them. They've been doing some outreaches at the clinic in the mornings and then they did the Hospital and the Dump Site yesterday. It's really a different experience when you go with this big of a group that is totally on fire for God. There's so many feelings when you walk into a place of so much need. Many of the kids felt, and I agree, just a spirit of darkness in the hospital. I'm honestly not surprised because whenever a light as big as 30 teenagers walks in with the sole purpose of spreading the love of Jesus, Satan doesn't just sit back and watch. There's always barriers and his defenses. Thankfully these kids weren't distracted at all. They walked in and just went up to patients like they were pros. They got to pray with all the kids on the pediatric floor and give them little gifts too! It really was cool to be a part of.
In other news, I got to deliver another baby boy the other night. He's a cutie. The mom was the quietist mom I've ever seen. Granted it was her 7th child, but she didn't even make one sound. Like I've said before, these moms are champs at labor. But it all went really well! A girl named Emily from Kings Kids even got to watch! It was a long labor but they both did fantastic. :D Melissa and I decided to stay at the house with the kids instead of moving over to the clinic. We're having too much fun with all the kids! There's 20 girls so we're not exactly short on new friends. :D So we're still hoping to catch as many babies as possible but we're also going on a lot of the outreaches with the kids.
Please keep the next two weeks in your prayers! As previously stated, Satan doesn't sit back when this kind of force is on fire for Jesus. Pray against spiritual warfare and pray that these hearts here can stay strong and focused on the goal. It's their 3rd week here in the Philippines so also pray for energy! They're going to do an amazing work and prayer warriors are always needed! I love you guys so much and will check in again soon! :D

A very eventful week....

So this week was full of new stuff for me! I finally got to deliver another baby! It's been so long! The mom had a long, hard labor and was exhausted by the time pushing came around. We welcomed little baby Yuri (spelling?!) into the world about 12 hours after she came into the clinic. This was a hard birth for me. When the head came out we all noticed that it was very non-reactive. Then we noticed that the lips were turning blue. Right when this realization came into play, I saw that the cord was tight around his neck. I quickly removed it and started trying to get the baby out. Push down on the shoulders, pull up, push down. Pushing down brought the baby out a little further. Uh-oh. Cord was tied twice. Pulled the cord off again. Push down, Pull up. Baby out. Baby not moving, not crying, no heart tones, no breathing. Everyone moved into fast action. "Cut and clamp the cord! Get O2 ready!" 2 Pumps through the mask, compressions. So I quickly cut the cord and the baby was moved to the other bed. Full resuscitaion was done. Then a cry. Weak, but there. It was the scariest moment of my life. So scary in fact that I had to leave the delivery room and catch my breath. I wasn't prepared for that. Luckily the baby CPR class was done the day before so everyone was fully versed on how to do it. It was just such a scary moment. But this truly beautiful baby boy was tough and made it through. He's doing very well now! It made me wonder what I would have done if the baby didn't make it. How seriously do I take the line in the Blessed Be Your Name song? "You give and take away, Lord. Blessed be your name." Would I see it that way? How strong is my faith in the Lord to still praise Him when He takes away? It does make you wonder.

All this brought me to Jeremy Camp. I absolutely love the song "Walk by Faith." It's one of my favorite songs... all about how when life is hard and when you don't see God in the circumstances I will walk by faith and know that Jesus is good. Sounds like a good theory right? Then I learned the story behind it. Jeremy Camp wrote this song in the hospital waiting area a few hours after his wife died. He married her knowing that she had cancer and had a few months to live. When she passed away he was standing in the waiting room and started writing this song... "I believe you when you say your hand will guide my every way... I'm broken but I still see your face..." That's the kind of faith I want to have. I have to be running toward God so fast and so focused that what happens in life just brings me to my faith. I want the faith that can live through the storm and still see God when I'm completely broken. Jesus is good, this I know. Jesus knows me, this I love. Jesus has a plan for me and it's not to harm me. Jesus knows what He's doing when I can't see the whole picture. Jesus loves me and hates that I hurt. Jesus stands beside me in that hurt and is my comforter. Jesus builds me up and makes me stronger. Jesus has His plan and rejoices in my love for Him. Jesus is my daddy who is madly in love with me. How wonderful my Jesus is.

And all of this brought me to my next life struggle. This week I finally hit the breaking point in my back pain. For those who don't know, my back has been hurting for quite some time. Constant for about 3 months now. And this pain is different. I've been sore- this was like shooting nerve pain. So naturally, being me, I said everything was fine and took any route that avoided going to the doctor. I stretched and took some meds- all was fine. K, all was not fine. It started getting worse. So I figured, well, might as well see a doctor while I'm here and it's cheap! Enter neurosurgeon land. He ordered me to have an MRI, gave me some pain meds and some muscle relaxants (haha...if you every wondered what being totally loopy is like you should try a muscle relaxant), and ordered me to rest my back. So I had the MRI done a few days ago and got the results today. I've been praying that it was just a muscle strain that got worse when I didn't take care of it properly but there was the idea of a slipped disk in my mind as well. Turns out it's the ladder. TWO slipped disks to be precise. Kinda sucks, right? So now it's just a lot of resting, meds, and some forms of physical therapy for treatment. Surgery is a possibility but not the first line of options obviously. We're gonna try to avoid that at all costs. i'm gonna ask you guys for a lot of prayer though! I wasn't really expecting something like this and a miracle would be fantastic! :D The pain is pretty intense but it's bearable for now! Jesus can be my healer for sure. Thanks in advance for all the prayers! :D l

Well, this was my week. Lots of deep thought and some scary curve balls thrown my way. I'm relying on Jesus to help me pull through and I'm definitely excited for what He's teaching me and the multiple ways He's showing His love. I can't ever stop smiling about His beautiful grace and provision that He's shown this whole trip. It's coming to a rapid close but His work in my life will never be forgotten. I'm hoping to finish this race well and to stay strong until the end! Jesus has so much more to teach us and I for one can't wait to learn it all. :D Love you guys so much! I miss you and will see you in T minus 20 days!

Unclean

The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, `Unclean, unclean.' He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp.
Leviticus 13: 45-56
This verse was on my mind today at the dump site. Melissa and I went, as has become our usual Thursday afternoons, with Father Heinz to the dump site today. We did the usual handing out of cookies and medical check ups. Though, this week we decided to change it up a little bit. We went to the local department store and bought a cheap volleyball and some stickers for the little kids. So instead of helping with the medical checks we played with the kiddos the whole time. We started playing volleyball but it turned out to be a little bit risky since it had just rained (resulting in black tar water lining the streets). So we broke out the stickers. Mass amount of children piled around and placed loads of spiderman stickers all over their faces and arms. When they started to run out of room on themselves they started putting stickers on us instead. Trust me, we have the photos to prove this. Once the stickers ran out, I decided to start spinning the kids and making them fly like I do with my 3 year old class during the "Jesus is my Superhero" song. They loved it! It was so great! But they were all a little timid at first... I couldn't realize why until one the kids looked up at me, looked at themselves, and said "but you're going to get dirty" and kinda started stepping away. I looked down and realized that indeed my arms and neck were on their way to a blackish color. At that moment I realized what was going on- they were ashamed for me to hold them because they somehow knew that I was "cleaner" than them. I finally looked at the little girl, said "I don't care", and went to pick her up. They all were ready to fly after that little conversation.
This all brought me to this verse in the Bible. During those times if you had leprosy and you came into town you had to shout "unclean" everywhere you went to warn people that you weren't safe to touch. It was pretty much public humiliation. You already have to live with the fact that you are sick and hurting and now whenever you're around other people you have to let all of them know it too. It made me really sad that these kids are living that life. We're the white people who walk in and suddenly they are self conscious about the fact that they haven't bathed in a while. They're scared for us to touch them because they don't want us to be dirty too. All of them were like this. They were worried about our arms that were getting dirty because of the volleyball. They were worried about holding our hands or riding our backs... they were worried about them being who they are. My heart broke at this moment. I don't ever want to be the person who puts on hand sanitizer after they shake hands with a child. Or not hug a kid for fear of getting dirty. My arms are open for them. They'll always be. I love these kids already and I want to play with them and hug them and let them feel safe with me. I' happy that we got to be the light to them today. We got to have open arms and smiling faces. I love this trip so much... :D