Miriam, midwifery, missions!

Well it has been a while, I thank you for joining me again, hope that you are all well and I apologise about my very infrequent blogging. Life has been a whirlwind these last few years and I will attempt to catch you up on the highlights.

I left you at the commencement of my midwifery studies down in Dorchester. I am happy to say that I am now a professional band 6 midwife working at the University Hospital of Wales.
 I had no idea what midwifery was or what it would entail when I said 'yes' to this God given adventure, however, I absolutely love it. I have now been working in Cardiff for nearly a year and a half and am trying to learn as much as I can in order to be as competent as possible for when I start working abroad as a missionary midwife.

God has been talking to me a lot about identity over the years. This has been one of the most important revelations that I have received and try to live by.
 When I went to be a missionary in Sri Lanka I had no job identity to give me security  or with which I could  boost myself or prove that 'I was somebody' thanks to the job title. On the contrary, I was learning that I was somebody because I was a child of God.  I was learning (and still am) what that means and what it looks like. After a few years, God then offered me a professional name- midwife - as I now know my identity in God and therefore do not find my identity or 'value' from being a midwife but continue to find it in God and have midwifery as a skill . I know in hindsight that this was in order for me to learn to have faith in God and to trust and rely on Him first and not in my own efforts and competencies.
This theme on identity linked in with the theme which God was talking to me during a recent visit to the Philippines (this month) where I had the privilege to volunteer at my friend Dominique's organisation which is centred in the severely impoverished area of Smokey Mountain.
The main theme this time was on adoption.  I was able to spend my birthday there this year and God spoke to me about my beginnings and what my life has become and how it is because of my parents adopting me, adoption into God's family and His love and His plans for me that it has become what it is.
When I was born I was then abandoned- I had absolutely nothing, to the point of not having a name, no possessions, no voice, no walking ability, no birth-date, literally nothing.  In court the judge even thought that it wasn't worth adopting me as I was so sick. Needless to say, I was not off to a great start! However, God saw beyond all the earthly circumstances and had a plan and a purpose which was beyond all that I could have imagined. It filled me with great gratitude to my parents for adopting me and the knowledge that God does care for all his children and that he does look after us like a father. The Drs had reported at the time that I was not going to be able to even survive the journey to the UK -however I have been able to travel to many countries over the last 10 plus years in order to share God's hope and love with many people. Knowing my identity in God has helped me to live my adoption to the full and be grateful for what God has done and is doing. It also allows me to enjoy my job and understand the privilege it is to support and share with women the birth of their baby and support them when necessary with bonding, loving and caring for their child.
The trip for me was so refreshing and awakened me and gave me an excitement to continue this mind boggling journey with God.

A year full of more than I imagined... :)

For a year where to begin with I had no idea what was going to happen or what I was going to do... it has actually gone pretty well :) 
                                                               (be warned.. total overload of pics  :)

LOUGHBOROUGH !!

So, in September I had just started an Access to Nursing and Midwifery Course in Loughborough. It has been a challenging year filled with a lot of work for the Access Course, also a period of running all over the country to attend exams and interviews at Universities that I had applied to... and a lot of waiting...AND...I'm happy and relieved to write that this September I am going to be moving down to Dorchester and starting my first year (out of three) as a Midwifery Student at Bournemouth University!!! 

HOLLAND !!

Last October I was able to attend a Mission Possible conference in Holland.  It was a conference about reaching the difficult countries.  There, I understood that God was giving me this opportunity to study midwifery in order to have a key into very difficult areas and countries.  Obviously, as a Missionary to the countries that I spend most of my time in, I see the huge physical needs as well as the spiritual and I've wanted to be able to help more than I was... and being a Midwife will be an extra way in which I will be able to do that - so I am very excited about it all.  I was also privileged to carry the Sri Lankan flag and represent Sri Lanka in a small way at the conference which for me was really special.  I was also able to catch up with my lovely friend Heike :)

THE PHILIPPINES !!

This past month I was in the Philippines. I was volunteering for Dominique, a friend of mine who is the director of Iris Philippines and Unveiled Faces that works with women and children from Permanent Housing on Smokey mountain in Tondo Manilla.  

It was really amazing. I had such a blessed time working with the women there. Some days the walk up to the fifth floor was a struggle but after the slipping and sliding and trying to hold my breath, I would get to the top and be greeted with hugs from a crowd of lovely children and the women... the best start to any day!! 

I would share with them everyday and just spend quality time with them, as well as help them with the unity of their team, go on outreaches in order to love and encourage those who also live difficult lives to just encourage them and pray for them.  

 I really can't express how much I enjoyed the times that I was there with them, I really had missed not being on mission and have missed Sri Lanka a lot.  But this trip really made up for it- it was an overload of love and just amazing times...

On this "dumpsite" I found such priceless treasure... :)

During this time I was staying in Balut YWAM Centre with more lovely people who looked after me so well and made me a part of their family- we laughed a lot and played a lot.  Never have I heard such screaming and shouting during a game of UNO - and Dobble was just off the charts...!!

I also was able to spend a couple of days in Shalom, in Anti-Polo, a centre for pregnant women who can't afford to pay hospital bills so they can have all their care and give birth in this centre for a small amount and get a lot of loving care at the same time. 

It was started by an Mavis, an English midwife about 40 years ago who would let the women who were living in squalidness to have their babies in her living room instead and from there it just grew and grew and now they have a beautiful big centre where hundreds of women come each year.  The midwives there were so lovely to me, taught me things and gave me my first proper initiation into midwifery and child birth.  

The first birth I saw at 2.30am was a women who haemorrhaged, she was OK and the baby also.. but that was a hefty first experience of child birth!!  Though at one point I did manage a smile and giggle as the midwife pulled the reluctant partner to come and look at what she was doing whilst she was dealing with getting the placenta out- and needless to say... he did not look good at all!!!!  The rest of the births were normal and I was able to cut the cords :)

I also went down South to Tacloban for five days with my Filipino friend Shiela who I bunked with in Mozambique 6 years ago!! Tacloban is where last year's Typhoon Yolanda/ Haiyan hit.  We were helping a wonderful group who feed a few thousand kids every week in schools. 

Everyday at 5.30am they start preparing and cooking delicious food and then at lunch they distribute in several different schools. It was so much fun joining in with them. 

There is still so much building and restoring that has to be done. The scars of the Typhoon are everywhere but they all are saying that the businesses in Tacloban are doing so much better than before the Typhoon.

 A few of the women who were helping in the feeding had lost children and husbands yet they seemed so strong and determined to carry on living and rebuild as well as they can, despite all. 

Something that really stuck out for me during this trip was just how strong the Filipino women I met were!  From the non-screaming women giving birth without painkillers to the women in Tacloban who had lost everything including family members, to the women in the Permanent housing.. such inspiring strong women!!

AND...I managed to fit in a little weekend holiday with Shiela- it was supposed to be a 'restful' break for the both of us.. yet it turned out to be a super fun, camping, crazy waterfall jumping, terrible surfing, volley balling, hilarious paddle-boarding, river-chubbing, yummy boodle-fighting 15 person group weekend in Real Quezon that started at 4am..!!

  

Sheila and I

As you can see my year has been full of surprises and more colourful and eventful than even I had predicted... 

Not only have I been able to experience loads of new things: a new momentum, new studies, a new country and new friends and catching up with a few old ones.. but God has used this year to build me up again and just confirm who I am- to me and to Him.  It's really been a crazy ride.. but God has been faithful every bit of the way as usual -I have been blessed so much that it's been overwhelming... 

 I also want to thank all of those who have supported me in different ways throughout the year... it's precious... and I'm so grateful...I don't take it for granted...

Open hands Open hearts

Walking back from Easter Sunday church service yesterday I was filled with such thankfulness, excitement, joy and and overwhelming love for God for all that He is and all that He has done and for giving the world Jesus and for saving me and just feeling so so so loved by Him.

As I was going along I noticed in a dark alley way coming into the road that I was walking along, a shadow of a person sitting crossed legged on the ground with a cloth on the floor with a few coins scattered on it...   I walked by wanting to give him something so checked my pockets for money and only found some small coins that I thought were not worth anything and so carried on walking.  I then realized that I was walking by someone in need, and how easy it is to just pass them by... even after a church service where we celebrated God giving us Jesus, the most precious thing to Him, and His Resurrection!  I was also reminded of a cousin of mine who gave a homeless person a considerable amount of money not that long ago and was worrying about having given too much and it just reminded me that we don’t have to give people our ‘coppers’ we find in our pockets, or ‘extra' money that we have... but we can give deliberately.

  So, I went to the machine and got a bit of money out and walked back to him.  I gave it to him and he was so surprised.  It was not a lot, but it was possibly more than he was used to getting.  His bowed over head looked up at me he took his hood off and he said thank you, shook my hand and was just so grateful and I was able to talk to him tell him that Jesus loved him looking into his eyes.

Compassion is not just a feeling of sympathy or sadness for someone and the desire to help them; it also needs the action of helping them in love.

I know what some of you are thinking: that I don't know what he is going to spend that money on, but in this case, I really don't mind.  Obviously I would hope that he spends it on something like food or something, but it's not for me to worry about because it created an opening for God.

By giving just that small amount, deliberately, not skimping, the man was touched and I believe he was able to receive more than just the physical money, but also knowing that someone noticed him as a person, not as a stereotype, or just ‘anyone’ on the street; he was able to also feel a bit loved, and the action of him lifting up his head touched me so much.  It doesn’t take much to make someone feel worth something, it doesn’t take amazing amounts of time out of our day, it doesn’t need to cost us huge amounts, but we all have possibilities and opportunities to make someone’s day, or even life better.

How easy it is to forget that God died for us all, all mankind... and because Jesus gave His love for us, we can give out that love to other people... so that they can experience love and be touched and transformed... It’s easy to walk by someone and judge, or ignore or see them and think that we don’t have anything to give, but we all have something to give, whether it’s having a conversation with someone, smiling, giving a hug, giving time, gifts, praying, buying food for people, we all can do it and it makes a difference in people’s lives more than we know.  So this is just an encouragement to keep your eyes, hands and hearts open...and for those who already do (for example my friend Hilary)...to keep on :)

!! News !!

The truth is that for the last few weeks since plans had changed and Micronesia was no longer the goal, I was freaking out a little. Never have I been in such a situation as far as I can remember, where I really had no idea what to do at all... I often don’t know what is going to happen next but I know the step I am supposed to be taking in the present... but this time it was just...nothing ...nothing in the present and nothing in the near future.. . it was in a way quite scary.  The only thing I knew and was telling myself over and over again that I could trust God and  that I had made the right decision...of course I managed to freak out quite routinely but in the unknown, the disappointment I knew that God wouldn't fail me..  what would come next though, I had no idea whatsoever...

UNTIL...

About 2 weeks ago...  I suddenly had an urgency to answer a question God was asking me... I had thought about it quite a few years ago but pursued other things instead and then a few weeks ago I was thinking about it again a bit before but not really seriously as something to do now necessarily...   

God was asking me if I would be a midwife.

 Now, it wasn't just like a question thrown in the air, I literally just couldn't think of anything else for two days and I knew I had to make a decision there and then.  There was a huge urgency about it. 

So on the Thursday I said yes to God and rang up the College here after looking up certain things on the internet and not having a clue really.  The woman on the other side told me that I was cutting it a bit fine and that I should come in the next morning.  So I went in on the Friday and ended up filling an application, passing a test, passing an interview, getting a conditional offer and then getting a permanent offer which I accepted and I also got accepted for a loan and all this on the Friday morning. It just so happened that enrolment was on the following Monday!! Hence the urgency. Had it been any later, I would have had to wait a whole year for the next opportunity!! God really knows what he is doing! 

I have no idea about the British system or all the ins and outs of the course and things that I would have known about had I have studied in Britain.  When I said yes to God for doing the course I was expecting to have to take out loans for this Nursing and Midwifery access course and then for the three following years of university.  This week I learnt that the loan that I took out for this course disappears when you graduate university and the fees for the three years at university are actually paid for because for some reason it is!! So I have just been overwhelmed with everything just ‘going right’!!

As soon as I said yes to God it was like I suddenly saw God’s strategy and I just started dreaming about it all and what being a midwife means in my missionary life and getting so so excited!!  I can go everywhere... I have a ‘valid’ reason to be in places, I will be able to help improve the quality of life of the places I go to, I will be able to help save lives of babies and women, I will have this key that will allow me to go to the most difficult and un-reached places and take God with me...as it just so happens that women have children...everywhere!! :)  It’s really amazing all that God is showing me for the future. I am very excited and I could never have planned all of this myself. 

This year's course isn't particularly an easy one and there is a lot of work and a lot of competition to get into the universities but I know that this is where God wants me and I will do my best and he will do the rest. 

I already started my first week and I am really enjoying it. I have already got a small group of friends and I think that it's going to be an amazing year with them.  The course is on Mondays and Tuesdays and a lot of homework and studying the other days though I am still trying to find a job!

So as usual, God knows what he is doing!   I was telling a friend the other day (and also reassuring myself in the process) to just trust God and just believe that he has something prepared and ready for us and that we shouldn't  panic because in hindsight we might feel a little silly because God is always faithful...and we can hope in him because he never fails...

I'm really just so amazed at how God really does keep his promises... I know that obedience opens doors, that when you sow you reap but I will always be amazed at how much more God blesses us, loves us, knows what is best for us...and how he really does guide our paths... :)

You Call me out Upon the Waters

Spirit lead me when my trust is without borders ...Let me walk upon the waters wherever you will call me... Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander...and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Saviour..

This is a song that I listened to on my friend's blog and since then.. I just can't get it out of my head.. the words are like a prayer to me.... what's on my heart...  

A Blessing In Disguise...

Well, I am finally writing this blog post... I have to be honest in saying that I have been putting it off... it’s not the easiest post to write but now is a good time..

If you read the previous post you might think that I would be in Micronesia today attending the first day of the Mission School and you would be right in thinking that... but the reality is that I’m not there.  I am sitting on a sofa in Loughborough, England with no plans, no clear knowledge of what I am doing or what I am supposed to do.  Yet today, I have joy and I have peace and I know that my God is looking after me...

As you know I was very much looking forward to going to this mission school in Micronesia, I had huge hopes, excitement and expectancy in this school... and I was going for it... working hard, saving every penny and I was getting there.  This journey I was on was to take a certain detour though bypassing the school and teaching me things that are more valuable to me than gold or silver...

      Blessings in obedience     I find myself so often saying things that I really mean with all my heart and with the best intentions  but if the time really came for me to walk the talk I don’t really know if I would.   What could be seen as a blessing in disguise was offered to me.  I felt God giving me a chance to put that into action.  I felt like I was given the opportunity to offer someone who hadn't managed to raise enough money to go to the mission school to go in my place. This may sound a bit crazy but I was being given a choice either  to go to the mission school and have an undoubtedly amazing time or start from what seems like 0 and enjoy someone else going instead. I was even able to take this person to the airport and send her on her way with joy in my heart knowing that it’s going to change her life and though I don’t know what my next step is, in faith I believe that there is something in store for me because of the path I took and blessings will follow. .

 I remember days in Sri Lanka when I would really want to help the street people but I would sometimes be so tired that I might pass them on the street and not stop and after I passed them I would feel I in my heart that I had the choice to turn round and be obedient and go and talk to them and love them.  Each time that I turned my bike around and decided to spend that time with them even though my body was saying no I can just remember that they were the best times that I spent with them.  God would provide a way to communicate either through one of them who spoke English or German and we would just have such a lovely time that would give me so much more rest and peace and joy than if I had gone home and slept.

 .       Love   During this time I cannot say I have not struggled with the decision.  For me and where I am at the moment it was quite a huge step of obedience.  But I have been able to see things in a new light.  In a very small small way, I saw the cost of what Jesus did on the cross to save us... so often we concentrate on the blessing that come from Jesus dying on the cross for us and we forget about his obedience. We forget about what he went through, his heart that had broken for us. We just think that because He died we have our sins forgiven we have this and we have that which is true, but we don’t fully understand what He went through for us.  I saw it in another light, and realized how unimaginable his obedience and  sacrifice was... betrayed, shamed, an ungrateful world against him, beaten,  killed for doing nothing but loving us and giving his life for us...Obviously I cannot put it all into words ... but something has shifted in my heart... an understanding.... more about what it really means to ‘carry your cross’... and giving your life for God... and the amount of love that God has for us...unconditional and relentless love...it was free for us but it’s not something to be taken lightly.. I just want to do what gives God the most pleasure...because of what He did for me....nothing else matters...

I used to think that God should really  know how far I would go for Him, how much I would be willing to give because of going to Sri Lanka alone and leaving family and friends and just basically risking my life there ... but I realize that there is actually a lot more that I can give God and how much more dying to self there is to be done...

    .Faith   Faith requires an action.” Faith without deeds is dead”.... we are often put into situations where our faith is tested. Either we can play it safe and stay securely fastened in the boat with our life jackets on and not daring to jump out of the boat for fear of getting cold or wet or drowning and just keep talking about things that we might be able to do if we ever got out the boat ... or we can jump out and believe that our 'splash' is going to create a massive wave.  I may not know what I am doing tomorrow or the next day but what I do know is that God has me in His hand and I don’t have to worry I just have to keep my eyes fixed on Him..... I have known this when I have gone to different places with no clue of what is going to happen or what I will do, who I will meet or where my finances will come from, God has always been faithful because He does look after us and He has a plan.

   Hope    We have to be careful what we put our hope in.  There are lots of good things that we can put our hope in, but that is not what God wants.  Our hope must be in God alone. Not in a job, not in a school, not in money, not in friends, not in a book,  not in anything but God.  I realize that sometimes I find myself focusing on something else than God hoping that that will change my life, but really, it’s only God who can do that.  These other things are things along the way are only to teach us, for us to enjoy  but they are not things to put our hope in because if we do we will just be disappointed and discouraged and we will never be satisfied.  God will never let us down. 

I realise that lately I have been quite discouraged because my hope was not only in God.  I know that my joy and my peace were lost because of hope that was in other things than God and obviously they had failed and it was really wearing me down... only through forgiveness, letting go and moving on and putting all my hope back in God am I able to be in this situation and know that it’s all going to be OK because if God is for me, who can be against me...

I want to live not just knowing that I can make a difference... but I want to live making the biggest difference that I could ever make ... doing what God  created me for... sharing His love in anyway that I feel I should even when it seems like foolishness rather than common sense...

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot loose.''
- Jim Elliot

Next Step...

Hello!!

Well it's been a few months since I have communicated.. Thought I should give a short little update.
Since a little before I left Sri Lanka a friend of mine told me about a 2nd Level Iris School, in Micronesia.  This brought quite a bit of excitement to me that grew and I felt it was something to pursue.  Since then I have moved back to Wales and am just trying to make some money to fund this trip.
 As many of you know,  I went to an Iris School in Mozambique in 2008 and it totally transformed my life and shortly after I set of to Sri Lanka.  So I have high hopes for this next one. At the moment I feel like I need a recharge, refreshing and a godly atmosphere to dream again and re-vision and Micronesia may be the place for it.  The school is in August and as usual this is a step of faith as as usual it is far away and  in the middle of nowhere but if all goes well I hope to get there.

  Even though I am having a physical break from being in Sri Lanka , I am still in frequent contact with the people and team there and what they are doing and how they are carrying on in God and with the work that was started there.  It is always a very positive time and very encouraging to hear what is going on. I hope to post some of the things that are happening there soon.

 My 'mission' life is not over.. I don't think that it will ever be over nor do I hope that it does... but  there are different seasons to it and this one feels like just preparing for this new step, raising money for it and just trusting God that He knows what is happening and what is coming next!.

So there we are, if you were wondering, yes, I am still on the map and still trying to press on!!