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...