A FULL WEEK... I am not sure I can recap all that has happened since last Monday. The week started with lectures on gender in justice. A week that blew my mind, broke my heart, and angered my soul. We talked about gendercide, sex-selected abortions, child marriages, human trafficking, prostitution, honour killings, widow killings, witch hunts, female genital mutilation. All of which will be a part of my life in some way or another during the next year. I cried everyday, realizing the actual state of the world. The brokenness, the sorrow, the cruelty, the injustice, the emptiness. All of which would have taken me out, packing my bags to come home defeated if I hadn't remembered the beautiful cross. We talked about honour killings. How Muslims use blood to be free from shame. Wither it's killing a woman because of her sexual immorality, (by her choice, or by rape) or taking the life of an enemy who killed someone in your family, or even holding up the blood spilled from a wedding night simply to prove the valid virginity of the girl... Blood brings honour. The cross did as well. The blood of Jesus brought honour by taking shame. Restoring what was lost. But the beauty of the cross was that the blood only had to be shed once. The beauty of the cross is that blood doesn't need to be shed any more. It really was finished when He said it was. Muslims, almost, have a deeper revelation about the power of the blood of the lamb than I do. It's just so severely misguided. So severely perverted. What a gift that I can be God's hands and feet to these women who God so desperately longs to hold and comfort. To sit with them, and tell them, this is not okay. It doesn't need to be this way. There is joy and peace in life. It was not intended to be this way. There is life. There is joy. There is peace.
Thank you Lord. Thank you for life. Thank you for midwifery. That I can be the voice of the voiceless. And HANDS OF PEACE.

PICTURES... A boy on the Discipleship Training School has taken loads of pictures from around the base and Perth.

http://www.thomasona.com/

If you go to the top of the page and look at "PICTURES (AUSTRALIA)" you can see where I live. And alot of pictures of DTS students.

GARDENING... Monday through Friday I work from 1:30- 3:30 gardening around the base. I love love love pulling weeds. I work with the most amazing people. Shannon is from Oregon. She's doing the School of Frontier Missions. She and her husband will be moving to China for TWO YEARS! I admire her. I love gardening. It's amazing. So is Australia.

ST JOHN OF GOD...

On Tuesday we went to St John of God hospital here in Perth. We learned how to resuscitate newborns. It was really amazing. And we got to see a real placenta. A mother had birthed it earlier that morning. I was blown away by the detail of it. The veins, the color, the intricacy. It's so incredible. Our God is an awesome God.

MY BUNKMATE... This is Teegan from Sasachuan, Canada. She is amazing. She majored in Indiginous Studies. Which really just shows her heart for people facing injustice. She amazes me. I love her passion for people, for women, for native people, and for God. I am absolutly blown away by the way she worships. I admire her, love her, and thank God I get to spend the next 10 months with her. And... she makes me laugh... hard, and often. I am blessed.

NEWBORN CARE


We are studying newborn care this week. It was really fun. This morning we did a skit of a birth, what to do, how to manuver... it was wild to get a feel of what it actually may be like. Minus the mother, baby, blood, hospital, doctors...
Tomorrow we are going to take a field trip to a hospital here in Perth to learn how to resesitate babies. Amazing. Wild. This blows my mind. It really does.

"PERFECT PAIRS"... Last weekend the DTS students hosted a dance party. The theme was "perfect pairs". And since I am blessed with a "forever friend" that is queen pun... I immediately thought, "LET'S BE PAIRS!"
I thought it a perfect opportunity to introduce Acacia. She is amazing. She is on the Foundations of Community Development School here in Perth. From Santa Cruz, California. Praise the Lord. She blesses my heart. I love her. And we made a "perfect pair" being "perfect pairs".

REVELATION... So it's been a little while since I last posted anything about life here in Western Australia. It's been wild, busy, and amazing. Last week we studied the biblical perspective of birth. It was powerful. All this time we've been really focasing in on all of the technical things, and last week it was just really amazing, overwhelming really, to get into all of the spiritual aspects of birth. The responsibility we have as midwives to pray over these babies. Destinies, and life. It blows my mind that I could deliver a baby, and thirty years later, that same baby is capable of affecting the world. That is amazing. And really intense at the same time. I don't think I'll understand the depth of what I'm actually getting myself into. But how thankful I am.
This week we have a wonderful Australian midwife with an outrageous knowledge of midwifery as well as a corky personality, and incredible sense of humor. We've been rolling all week. It's been really fun. I've learned alot from her. Even though at times, her 25 some odd years of nursing catches up with her and information goes straight over my head. This morning we watched a video birth. I've seen them before, but it's really different watching it thinking, "okay, I'm about ready to go and actually do this..." I watched in awe, the excitment rising up in my belly, then when it was over, I just started to cry. I am so amazed by our bodies, by Jesus, by my calling, by this grace I've been shown... I'm so unworthy of such a task. I am so unable of such a task. But how greatful I am to have been asked to do it.
We read Isaiah 53 last week. I could hardly breathe. Since then, I have been overwhelmed and blessed by this tremendous revelation of who Jesus was, and who Jesus still is today. He is real. It's funny how sometimes I water down His realness. But He is straight up, no joke, REAL. And He's changed me, loved me, made me who I am. If you don't believe in Jesus, just look at my life. Who I used to be, and who I am now. That's Jesus. An amazing, intimate, beautiful, forgiving, empowering, loving, God. I am simply undone.
I love babies. I love babies. I love babies.