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Updates from Flory and upcoming Rwanda Experience

So this has been a busy week. I was contacted earlier this week by a friend of a friend who was given an opportunity to travel to Rwanda with her husband. Her husband will be doing some teaching, and she was given permission to try to work with the local women to educate them about pregnancy and birth. You see, she just happened to be going to one of the main rural towns that women go to for birth. There is a clinic, and like so many other rural areas of central Africa, the women travel to the clinic weeks before labor because they don't know when to expect the baby.

I have been trying to answer as many questions for her as possible, and connecting her with people actually in the country. Specifically, I want her to be able to meet with Akeysu, the wonderful woman who fought to attend the training desperate to bring information back to the women in her area.

And that is how I received an update from Flory. The good news is that they have been successful at starting a medical school. The midwives are working hard to build a midwifery school as part of the medical school, but they have a problem securing teachers. Isn't that funny, that is one of the big problems here in the US too. Why teach when you can make more money doing.

Anyway, I am going to see if I can help in some way from here in the states. My plan is to set up a volunteer rotation for midwives from the US, Canada and other nations to spend a month or so at the school teaching. Definitely let me know if you are interested, but understand the details take time to work out. I do not know the schedule, the costs or any other information.

In the mean time, let me know if you want to be on the "keep me updated list." And if you want to help send supplies to Akeysu on this trip, I'll be happy to get you connected.

All Moved In

As I type this, my family is all soundly asleep in our new home - a small apartment in Atlanta. It has been a crazy six weeks, but we are here and our things are unpacked. The kids were able to spend a few days at school; Jeff is accustoming himself to work from home and I'm in a sort of waiting.

You see, we are here but classes will not begin until the last day of August. I passed my NCLEX exam and am a nurse, but I can't seem to find a job and am not sure it is the best use of my time to get one. I can get internet on my laptop sometimes from "free wi-fi" places, but I cannot make any updates to the website. So, I'm waiting.

Don't worry, I'm not the type to be bored. It is just that this doesn't feel much like the life I was leaving for.

About a week before the move I was enjoying a long walk thinking about the difference in what people perceive as a life of "missions" work, and the reality of it. Many people become very excited when they learn about what I do and why I am in school. They share about their desire to travel to far off places to do good deeds - it does have a certain romantic ring to it.

The reality of it is a little less exotic and a lot less romantic. We just moved 800 miles away so I could be trained for the job I am about to do. We had to sell a house we were comfortable in; we had to let go of half our possessions, we had to leave everyone we know behind; Jeff had to give up his job. And now we face a very long, lonely summer while we do our best to make new friends and wait for the fall to begin. And all this just to do it again in four years - all to leave everything we have been a part of to pursue the next piece of the puzzle.

I think romanticizing is common in just about every part of life. We see the people who have things we want to have and we don't think about the pain and work it took to get there, we just see what they have. We want to be thin, but don't want to exercise and change our eating habits. We want to understand more, but we don't want to do the research and reading. We want to be a better friend, but we don't want to give up any more of ourselves.

You may or may not be called to serve in Africa - and the truth is it doesn't matter what you are called to. It only matters that you are faithful to that call. Do what you can now, however small it seems. Educate yourself with books or journals. Spend time with the people you feel called to serve. Chose to do one thing differently today that will get you a small step closer to your calling. My journey to serve in Africa began over 11 years ago, and it will take me at least another four before I am able to begin what I am called to do. It doesn't happen in big leaps - it happens in small steps, the small steps you take every day.

Five Semesters to Midwife

I'm pretty sure I had reported that I was accepted into the School of Nursing at Emory University for the Family Nurse Midwife program. It is a five semester program that will prepare me to be a baby-catcher, but will also prepare me to provide primary care to everyone from infant to elderly. Think family physician with a nursing focus.

I may also have mentioned that I will be participating in a dual degree program with the School of Public Health. I will be studying global health with a concentration on community development. This will train me to enter a community, assess the needs and resources, and help the community develop solutions that work for them.

This is tremendously exciting in itself, but the blessings continue to flow.

I traveled to Atlanta for an interview last week. I was one of 16 finalist for a Woodruff Fellowship - four years of tuition and fees for the School of Nursing paid. When my flight touched down in Albany to return home I found a message on my phone from the school. I quickly called back to learn I had been awarded the Fellowship. This is a tremendous blessing, and means I will not have to take out loans for about $70,000 of the education. This means I will be able to start schools and clinics faster.

Moving requires many changes for our family. We have put our house on the market, and it has sold. We leave Albany May 17 for a two bedroom apartment across from campus. We love that I can bike or walk to classes, we love the amenities at the apartment and we anticipate loving the children's schools (yes, we have already looked into them). We will be spending a few days in Atlanta for spring break so we can all begin to feel comfortable in our new home.

So the next few weeks will be filled with packing and moving. In addition to moving our home, we have to move my Birthing Naturally business and Jeff's job. Jeff's job is even more difficult because in addition to changing locations he will be changing roles. I'm sure he will be excited to tell everyone all about that.

So that is life around here for the moment.

Midwifery During Crisis

I wanted to share two recent newscasts with you.

The first is a PBS segment on the need for midwifery post earthquake in Haiti. It can be viewed at the PBS website here: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/605/index.html

The second is a BBC documentary on the efforts to reduce maternal mortality in Afghanistan. It can be viewed at the BBC News website here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8326102.stm

To Give, or Not to Give

Before I left for the trip to Congo, Jeff was gathering as much information as possible about the do's and don'ts of international missions work. He has so many missionary contacts it was easy. One story shared with him was a heartbreaking reality check on the unintended impact of every thing you do on a mission trip.

The friend explained his organization has a policy that nothing is to be given to the local people from participants on trips. They understood that when Americans witness the poverty of developing countries the first response is almost always guilt for the abundant life lived in the United States. This guilt causes the traveler to give away nearly everything they brought with them on their trip or even hand out money to the local people.

While the organization will accept items for donations which they can then distribute through the local churches, they do not want personal gifts to become the norm. Not only does this set up a culture where the visiting missionaries are seen as a source of material items, it can actually leave the locals worse off than before the missionary came.

At one of their locations, travelers are encouraged to employ the services of a laundress - an act which provides an additional customer to one of the local women. "Consider the traveler who hires a local woman to do his laundry. He can easily pay the set fee, and because he wants to feel he's made a difference he overpays her. $20 USD is nothing to him, and he can leave the country feeling like he had done a good thing. But what he doesn't realize is that $20 USD is an enormous amount for this woman -- she can live on that for two weeks or more, which she does."



"But when the money is spent, she must return to work. But by this time her regular customers have had to find a new laundress. She now has no money, and no regular customers. Her situation is worse than before the traveler hired her."

Asking why she doesn't save the money -- continue working and use the money to improve her situation -- is to ask her why she is not American. She lives her life working for the money she needs to live every day. If she does not need money she does not need to work.

This concept is so foreign to Americans, but explains in painful detail why culture will change the impact of what you do. Your generous gift may not be helpful at all. To be truly effective at meeting the needs of families in developing countries, you need to be able to look beyond your cultural norms to understand the potential consequences of your actions.

Finding Your Path

I've shared a bit about the heavier topics on my mind during the trip so decided to share something I found very funny - so amusing I was laughing at it while it was happening. What you are looking at is aloe, or its Guatemalan cousin. The plants have very sharp points, which make them perfect for keeping people and animals off your land.

Every time we drove to the mountains we saw aloe lined up as fences framing yards. This may seem excessive protection for families in extreme poverty, but makes perfect sense when you realize the cattle, chickens, goats and pigs run around pretty free during the day. So if you want to protect your garden-- or banana trees, or the palm leaves that make up your home-- from the teeth of your neighbors future dinner, you build an aloe fence.

With that background, onto my story.

Our group had been split in two one afternoon, and while the other half were diligently repairing a house we were sitting at the van waiting. After about an hour of waiting, I decided we could wait no more and convinced the pastor's 10 year old son to take me to the home (he had been there less than an hour ago to tell the group we had finished our job and that we could come to help). Off we went down the path.

At the first fork he started on the lower trail. I was a bit suspicious as I counted the cows munching weeds around the trail and the waist high cement block wall about 100 yards ahead.

"This isn't the trail we took yesterday."
"No, this is the way to the house."
"But they got to the house from the other trail yesterday"
"This is the way."

So off we went down the trail, shooing the cows out of our way. When we got to the wall he looked around and noticed the upper trail. He decided that was where we were supposed to be and so back to the fork we went.

He hesitated on the upper trail. This didn't look right to him either. Scanning through the trees he saw the blue of the tarp our team was using. The house was in that direction.

"This is the trail." He started into the trees.
"I don't think that is the trail"
"Yes, see the house. We need to get down there. This is the trail."
"But there isn't a path here."
"Yes, they had to use the machete to get here, remember."

I did remember we purchased a machete the day before and could accept that they had said something of cutting a new trail. But I could not see any evidence of a trail actually having been cut.

"I don't think this is the right way, we need to stay on the trail."
"No, they used the machete."

We headed into the trees, doing our best to avoid getting scratched by branches and the sharp weeds on the ground. A few feet into the trees I saw the aloe that meant we were at a fence.

"You cannot go through that, it is a fence. We need to go back and get on the trail."

He called out to the team. They heard him and replied, "Come this way, toward our voice."

"See, this is the way."

We started to walk along the fence being even more careful not to get cut. I glanced up and saw rope stretched between trees ahead. The team had talked about finding a way to make the steep path to the house safer, this must have been what they came up with.

"See the rope, this is the way."
"No, the rope starts up there at the trail. We should have stayed on the trail and we could have come down that way."

We were close enough to hear the team, but the fence and trees meant we were still far away.

"Stay there, we'll send the boy who lives here to lead the way."

They had heard us talking. The boy emerged from the trees ahead of us and waved us to come to him. We traveled slowly, though it felt faster now that we had a purpose.

When we got to the rope I showed him how we could have stayed on the path.

"Oh. Well, I didn't know where they were working. Our path worked too."

The team finished their work, and as we headed back to the van we asked the family if there was a different path to the road. They pointed down the hill/cliff to a trail. It was less steep than the one we used to get there, so we went that way. About a 100 yards from the house we came to a waist high cement wall with some makeshift steps. We climbed over and followed the lower path right past the cows and to the van.