My Summer Adventure Part III- Greece

This is WAY overdue!! I have been hoarding pictures of the final part of my summer for quite some time.

For those of you who don't know, last summer, I went on quite an adventure. I was overseas for about 2 months. First I spent 2 weeks visiting my sister in Central Asia- check out these posts here, here, here, here, and here (I posted a lot when I was there haha). Then I went and spent about a month with these wonderful people in India. I didn't post as much in India, but I did put a lot of great pictures on my facebok, so feel free to go look there.

Then after all of that, my parents met my sister and I in Greece and we spent about a week and a half there.

I'm finally going to share some of the pictures from the time with you.

The Accropolis all lit up at night. Its a little blurry cause we were a little far away. 

I continued with my theme of taking pictures of the beautiful flowers that I found there. 

The theatre nerd that is still in me was so excited to be sitting here in the Theatre of Dionysis- where theatre began thousands of years ago. 

I just liked how the sun looked behind the ruins. Also, it took forever to walk up to see the Parthenon, so there was nothing else to do but take pictures. 

We visited a lot of ruins obviously. This is the Parthenon in Athens. This side you could actually see the columns and everything, on the other side, they were doing a lot of preservation so all we could see was was scaffolding and such. 

After Athens, we headed to the Islands for a few days. First, we went to Crete, but I don't have any pictures from there on my computer right now- I have to find them. Then we went to Santorini, where the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed. I had one goal for this trip- to ride a donkey like Alexis Bledel. 

The houses were so cool and pretty built into the side of the cliff of the caldera. 

I got my wish- we rode donkeys, twice!!

A view of the city from the bottom of the cliff. 

Santorini is famous for their beautiful sunsets. 

All the people came out and watched the sun go down. 

I have even more pictures to put up, but that is all I'm going to post for now. I will put the rest up on my Facebook page eventually. 

Midwifery

Yes that is a word, I swear- I've checked because it sounds so silly to say.

What do you think of when you hear midwife?

I think 2 things: crazy hippies who wear long skirts and have crazy long hair (nice stereotype) and I think I want to be one.

This summer has put a lot of thoughts into my head, a lot that I will be gradually sharing with you, this one thought has definitely been the most prevalent.

I think I want to be a midwife.

That thought is a little terrifying to me, to be honest.

I hate science. I'm not good at it and I have only ever taken one science class in college and that was geology and I hated it. If I'm actually going to do this, I will have to take so much science. I will have to get caught up on all those science classes I was so thankful I didn't have to take (chemistry, biology, anatomy, etc, etc). And then on top of that, I will have to take 2-3 years of classes on how to be a midwife.

That's a lot more school than I ever thought I would want to do.

But I think I may want to do this.

Why you ask? I'm so glad that you did.

Because in Afghanistan, 133 babies per 1000 births die (according to UNICEF).

Because in Afghanistan, a woman faces a 1 in 11 chance of dying in childbirth. That means that for every 11 women that give birth, 1 will die. I can easily name 11 women that I know who have given birth in the last year or will be giving birth soon- I'm sure you can too. Imagine one of them dead. 

Because in Ethiopia, 94% of women give birth without any sort of professional help. In the UK, 1% of women give birth without help, and I'm sure that is a problem that they are desperate to fix.

Because in India, a woman died on the road in front of the land where I will one day live, trying to walk to the city that is an hour away by car, so that she could give birth.

Here's a fact that boggles my mind- in the UK there are 749,000 births a year and 26,825 midwives. That is 1 midwife for every 28 births. I don't know if that figure includes OB/GYNs, but I would think that those wouldn't be included, meaning there are even more professionals per birth. In Rwanda, on the other hand, there are 400,000 births a year and there are 40 midwives. In the entire country. That is 1 midwife for every 10,000 births.

Could you let that sink in for a moment.

By the way- most of these facts are coming from this BBC article.

Worldwide, about 1000 women die every day giving birth.

In India, the infant mortality rate is 52 deaths for every 1000 births. 254 women die for every 100,000 births. 

I am not ok with that. I hope that you are not ok with that. This makes me mad.

I am not ok with women dying all around the world from childbirth.

And it makes me mad when we start talking about how bad the US health care is because our infant mortality is 6 for every 1000 births. Obviously, that is not good, but we need to see the rest of the world.

This world is broken, but we can help make it less broken.

We know things about how our bodies work that women living in remote villages in Afghanistan, India and Rwanda have no way of knowing.

We have access to education and health care that these women couldn't even dream of.

So what are we going to do with it?

I don't know what all this means for you. I don't know what all this means for me. I desperately want to be in India. Adding this schooling could add 3 more years onto my time here. Could I wait 5 years?

I'm sitting in my bed and just looked up at a picture of sweet Heena and thought, can I wait 5 years to be with you? 2 is hard enough.

And so I'm thinking through all this. I will be praying through it. Is this really what God wants for me?

I'm asking that you think through this with me. All my friends out there in the nursing school/ heading to med school, could this be where God wants you to serve?

We need people in health care here, but I think we can safely say that they need them more.

Will you think about this with me?

And also- this is totally part of orphan care also. how many of those 1,000 women that died today in childbirth do you think had 1, 2, or 3 kids already at home. Who is going to care for them now?

Maybe we can stop orphans from being made. Wouldn't that be amazing?!

Leaving India

Hi friends, sorry that I haven't posted anything real for a long time. It's been really busy here. We had 25 high school and college guests for the past 2 weeks, so we have been going and going with them. They left on Wednesday morning and are now on a plane back to the US.

I leave India tomorrow morning and will be heading to Dubai to meet my sister and then from there we are flying to Greece for vacation with our parents.

I definitely have very mixed feelings about leaving India. This summer has been wonderful and hard and confusing and reassuring all at the same time. I will be putting up more pictures and writing more about my time here when I get back to the States, have no fear. I just haven't had time and want to continue to process what I've seen and experienced this summer.

Thank you for remembering me and thinking about me while I have been here. It has been a constant comfort to know that I have so many wonderful friends and family thinking about me while I have been away.

As hard as saying good-bye always is, I am looking forward to time with my family (even more time with my sister!) and seeing all of my friends again. It is going to be a whirlwind of activity when I get back. I get in late on August 10th and start moving into my apartment on the 15th. So needless to say, I will be busy, but I do want to see those of you who I can and share with you about my time here. I also will be returning with a bag full of purses and scarves that I will be selling to raise money for the orphanage here, I'm thinking another purse/chai party will be in order (I can also make chai a lot better now).

Bittersweet, that's what I'm feeling right now and what I will continue to feel. But I'm excited about this next year at school. I think that it will be really great and I'm excited for all that is to come and the ways that I am going to grow and be stretched as I enter the last half of my time in college.

Oh yah, I also get to see the new Harry Potter movie tomorrow night, so that gives me something to look forward to ;)

Thank you, sweet friends, for all your love and support. Thank you for making this trip possible. Thank you for buying scarves, having me babysit and just giving generously to my work here. This summer would not have been possible without each one of you. 

The blog will probably be quiet for the next week and a half, but then I will be back with lots of beautiful pictures!!

India pictures!!

Hi Everybody!! sorry I haven't put up pictures recently! We've been pretty busy and there were other girls here so I couldn't hog the internet to blog.

I'm having a wonderful time in India. Coming back gets sweeter every time.

Here are some pictures from my first week here. I'll just put up a few and then when I get back to the States I'll probably do some more posts about my entire summer.

I'm so happy to be back with these precious girls. I'm also very happy that I don't have to leave them again for a while. 

I can't believe how much they have grown in the past year. Girls that seemed so young the first time I met them are now beautiful teenagers. 

I have so many pictures of my girls already and its only been a week, so I'll be putting them up for a while!! The first night we with the kids, a couple of the girls came up to me after and were saying "Laura Didi (sister), don't go back to America, stay, stay." I was laughing and crying at the same time. Oh I love these girls so much! I was very happy to at least be able to tell them that I would be staying for the whole month. 

Camels, just chilling behind the vegetable market. Gotta love this place. 

Ever had to avoid a herd of cattle while driving down the road? Typical day here.

The tractor clearing the land where the new campus for LCH will be. What an answer to prayer! If you look closely you can see 2 little boys helping the driver.

"and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head..." Matthew 27:29 Seeing these thorn bushes definitely gives new meaning to this verse.

This picture may not look like much, but this is where, one day, I will be teaching the children of LCH.

And to continue with the theme of flower pictures. There are fewer flowers to take pictures of here, but they are still so beautiful. 

That's all for now folks!! I'll post again soon hopefully. In a few days, we begin shopping for books!!

I'm in India!!

Hi from India!!

I arrived in India this evening and have just been hanging out for a bit before going back to the airport to pick up my friends.

Let me tell you-- it is hot!! and humid! As soon as I stepped out of the airport I started sweating. But whatever!! I'm so happy to be back here it doesn't even matter!


I wanted to let you all know that on Tuesday at 7 there is going to be an Orphan Care meeting at Summit. I'm sure if you were at Summit this weekend, you heard about it, especially with Dr. Moore there (can't wait for that podcast). But I wanted to mention it because they are going to be sharing some ways for people besides those adopting to be involved, specifically, how you can be involved with the work that I am now doing and the orphanage that I work with.

Everyone in the area should go, because it the responsibility of every believer to care for the orphaned and the fatherless, not just those who can foster or adopt. The Bible is extremely clear about this. No excuses. "whatever you did to the least of these my brothers, you did unto me."

Bandamir, CA part 5

yah, I'll go ahead and put up some pictures now. Why not?

We also visited some lakes while we were away.

I know that doesn't sound exciting, but picture with me. You are in the middle of the desert, surrounded by mountains made of rock (sandstone- thanks for ruining my life, Geol 101) and dust when all of the sudden, you come across this-

 

 Seriously, the bluest, most pure lake I have ever seen. All we wanted to do was dive in (except that all the water comes from underground and was freezing!!)

 Look at that aqua color water behind the reeds. Gorgeous!

And my lovely sister, kindly posing for my camera (again). We joked that this is my revenge for her using me as her photography model when she was in high school. Seriously though, the photography teacher at RHS still uses pictures of me that K took in her class. 

That's all for now folks! (for real this time)

Also-- I just signed up for pinterest to find cool crafts and photography ideas, can someone explain to me how to use it?? I am severely technologically challenged!

Trip to B-city, CA Part 4

K and I went up to another city in her country. We took the smallest plane I have ever been on-- holds a total of 9 people (including pilot and co-pilot). The cabin wasn't even pressurized so we had to fly really low around the mountains, it felt like I could reach out and touch them. It was a little scary, but really fun. New experiences right!!

That tiny shadow, looks like a teeny tiny bird-- that is the shadow of our plane.

We visited the site where two giant Buddhas were until they were destroyed in 2001. (Know where we went yet?) It was really cool to climb to the top and see the view of the city. It's a beautiful part of the country, but it was also really sad to think about how history more than 1500 years old had been destroyed for no reason. 

This was the larger of the Buddhas. 

The foot of the smaller Buddha. It was taller than K, that's how big these things were!

Yah, we went back there anyway. Rules?? What? That's craziness?

Also, its harder to get used to not putting on seatbelt than it normally has been I feel like. I keep reaching to put in on. K thought I was crazy the first time.

Our guide kept wanting to take our picture. He would stop us and volunteer. It was really cool to see someone so interested about their history and really excited to show it off to us. It was also sad because he was probably in his 40s and illiterate. Not because he's not able to learn but because he never has the chance. A large portion of the population here is illiterate because they never were able to go to school. They would love to, but its not an option for a lot of them. Knowing this makes me even more irritated with the high schoolers in America who still can't read even thought they have been in school their entire lives. Let's stop complaining about the crappy school systems in America and just be thankful that they are there at all. Be thankful that our children are in school and not out harvesting potatoes by hand. 

Sorry, getting off my soapbox now. I have more pictures but our trip to B-city, but I will put them up tomorrow. We're leaving bright and early to go visit one of the staff's village so I need to go to bed.

Babur's Garden

Today, we went and visited the grave of the Mughal emperor Babur. A quick history lesson of Central and South Asia. The Mughal's were a dynasty of emperors out of Central Asia that took over a lot of India in the 16th century and had control of the majority of the subcontinent until the British took over and kicked them out in the 18th century. A lot of the famous architecture from India is from this era. Babur's great something grandson built the Taj Mahal. Babur was the first to come to India. He really wanted to take over Central Asia, but was unable to and so he settled for India. But, man did he not like it there. He was one of the first to keep a diary/journal so we have record of his personal thoughts as his empire expanded. He writes a lot about how the Indian people were so uncivilized and mainly, their lack of melons. He really missed the melons from Central Asia. When he died, he asked to be brought back here to be buried. Around the grave, a huge garden was planted and was well-maintained until fighting in the past decades, but since 2002 has been fixed up again.

 This is Babur's grave. All around were other graves of his family members.

 I love these flowers that are everywhere. There were a lot around the garden and there are some outside K's gate, they are in this deep purple and also a really pretty white/cream-yellow. K thinks that they may just be weeds, but I think that makes them even better. How cool that even the weeds are so beautiful?

There were a lot of pomegranate trees all over the garden too. This is one of the fruits growing out of the blossom. Pretty cool.

My very beautiful sister in front of the garden and mountain. I loved the mountain behind it- so gorgeous! 

Easily my favorite of the flower pictures I took today. So pretty. Also- I love taking pictures of flowers cause I feel like its pretty easy to get a cool shot. Nothing moves haha. 

This man is weaving the floor rugs that are sold everywhere here. He ties individual knots in the different colors to make a pattern. It will take him about 3 months to make 1 rug that is then sold for around $1000.

Cute kids and pretty flowers, CA part 2

I got a new, fancy camera for Christmas and I'm just now trying to figure out ways to take cute pictures. Yesterday, I read these posts by the Pioneer Woman about using aperture and shutter speed and have been experimenting. We've had a little bit of down time here and so I was just messing around. I told you that I have been feeling crafty recently and I guess this is part of that haha. And I think I'm catching the photography bug a little bit-- meaning, Erika, you need to teach me!

Here are some of the flowers near K's house.

This is the look I have been experimenting with, focused in the front with the background blurry-- I don't know any terms yet either, I'm a beginner!!

I love the pretty flowers that they have planted around the buildings here. I'm sure the guards thought I was crazy sitting there taking pictures of a broken fence post, but I loved it. 

 Not quite what I wanted in my head, but I'm learning. 

Then we went to a friends house and played with the cutest girls I have ever seen (Don't worry V and other mothers whose children I love-- I say that about every child I see). We gave them a couple bows, courtesy of Caroline G.

1 of the 3 sweet girls. 

And their very sweet brother, sitting on a shelf- his dad put him there. 

the mom didn't like this picture very much, but I loved her laugh and her happiness with her baby- so sweet. 

Lots of playing- lots of spinning. 

I'm having a great time here and have some pictures from today that I will post in a bit, this post is a little heavy on the pictures. My heart is definitely in India, but I think I'm going to need to come back here at some point.

Central Asia, part 1

Sorry guys, my post titles are not going to be very interesting.

K and I spent a few days up in a city where she used to live visiting old friends. We had a really great time. I love this country. Its very beautiful with mountains on all sides. The view coming in the first morning was amazing. All around just these giant mountains that don't have trees on them so you can see the sharp points and deep valleys. Gorgeous. It was also very hot! But I just keep reminding myself that its not as hot as India's going to be-- which is not as encouraging as you might think ;)

The kids here are super cute. One day while visiting friends, I got to hang out with their kids and play games. It was a lot of fun. And just like the kids in India, they could not grasp the fact that I couldn't understand what they said to me and so they would just talk and talk and I would have to grab K and say "Help! He's talking to me!!"

This was my buddy for the day. Her parents jokingly asked if I was going to take her back to America with me. 

We played a lot of Uno.

We stayed with some American friends and brought a new pool for their little girls and got to spend some time watching them cool off in the water. Emphasis on watching them, we did not get the pleasure of getting in the water.

I'm having a great time! Keep checking for more posts and pictures!!

I'm leaving tomorrow!!

I can't believe it!!

I'm finally heading out tomorrow!!

It feels like I have been looking forward to this for so long and now I'm actually going!! If you can't tell, I'm really excited!!

Thank you all so much for your love and support as I prepared to go. All of you who gave so generously to my support and to my book project, you have overwhelmed me completely!

So you know, I have send $600 to the Crosspoint office to sponsor 1 Bible student for the year and I will be taking over $1000 to India to spend on books for the orphans!!

You all have been way too good to me, which points my focus straight to our God who has been way too good to me and to all of us!!

Thank you for reminding me of His goodness through your generosity!

I love you all and I can't wait to get my next post up!! Coming at you from CA or India!!!

And to leave you with a picture-- this is what my packing looks like. I'm actually done earlier than I would have expected. With enough time to blog. Last year I was up till like 2 in the morning packing.

Absolutely amazed!!!

I want to share some really exciting news with you all!!

I am absolutely astounded and blown away by the way that God has provided for my trip this summer and the way that all of you have responded with such amazing generosity.

When I started this journey earlier in the semester, I knew that I wanted to sacrifice to make this trip possible. I knew that God would provide the means for me to go, but I also know that He works through us and felt like before I could ask any of you to sacrifice so that I could go, I needed to be sacrificing myself.

So I cut back and started babysitting like crazy! I am so thankful for all of you who had me babysit over the past few months and who gave my name out to other people. It was great to be able to share my heart for India with people and see other people become excited for me.

I also was able to save a lot of money!

Then, I received a very sizable tax rebate. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, but Obama gave mem $1000 that all went to my trip! Thanks, Obama! I'm sure sending me to India was exactly what you had in mind!

Then I began selling scarves and again, people were so generous to buy from me. It was really great to be able to get my friends involved in supporting my trip and to get a chance to share even more with them about what I will be doing. (I still have a few left, by the way...)

Finally, I sent out support letters to a lot of people from the church and my parent's friends and have been excitedly watching the last bit of money that I need come in.

All that is to say this-- as of yesterday, I have $500 more than I need for my trip!!!

And there are still letters waiting at my house that I haven't opened yet!

I am absolutely overwhelmed by all of your generosity and willingness to be involved in my journey!

Thank you for all your prayers and your support.

Because of your generosity, I am going to be able to give all the money that comes in from now on to the children at the orphanage.

The extra $500 that I already have and any more will be used to buy books for the kids and who knows what else!

We are going to be able to bless these children so much!

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who are supporting me and if you were thinking about sending money, please still do.  I would love to raise enough not only buy a whole bunch of books, but also to support one of the children or students for a year.

Thank you so much for buying into the vision that we have for India and being willing to be a part of the work going on there. I could not be doing any of this without your prayers and support.

I appreciate it so much!!

God is so great!

Love you all!!

Love Love Love!!!

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. 
~ Galations 6: 9-10

Love this verse that my friend sent for me!! I know that it will be encouraging this summer!!

Speaking of this summer-- I want to ask you all to send me your favorite Bible verses. I want to gather enough verses that I have one specific verse to read every morning and focus on throughout the day!! So please send me your favorites!!


 

Support Letters

Monday 4-4-11

I've been working on getting all these support letters sent out for my trip. Please be praying that I will raise all the money that I need! 

Please donate!!

I am spreading the word about my book fundraiser far and wide!! And I will continue!!

I've even been featured on some awesome mommy blogs!! Thanks Courtney and Amy!! If you don't read Amy's blog than you should!! They are so awesome!! Crazy for Jesus and crazy for orphans!! Love it!!

Anyway, I have started a PayPal account and put a button on the right side of my blog. If you would like to make a donation to the book fund or for my trip this summer, you can do it through PayPal. Just designate what it is for!!

Of course, if I see you or you could mail a check, that would be preferable haha. PayPal does take a cut!!

Thanks!! You all are the best!!

Much love!!

Bought my first ticket!!

Tuesday 3-29-11

I bought my first set of tickets!! So if nothing else I'm going to Dubai this summer!! The hard thing about planning all this stuff is that I'm planning a lot with my sister, who does not live here. So on Tuesday, I was skyping with K while talking to my parents on the phone trying to get everything figured out.

Oh flights...

Saturday 3-26-11

Trying to get all my flights sorted out and ordered. Sort of stressful- I have a lot of different flights to take.