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 :)