If I know little of His pitifulness
(the Lord turned and looked at Peter),
if I know little of His courage of
hopefulness for the truly humble and penitent
(He saith unto him, "feed My lambs"),
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
The fast I choose
Last week I posted this verse from Isaiah--
Is not this the fast that I choose;
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Today, I watched this video and was convicted pretty quickly.
1.4 billion people in the world live on less than $1.25 a day.
I spent $1.50 on a Diet Dr. Pepper today and I do on a lot of days.
How can I so easily spend what someone lives off of? And its nothing to me. I didn't even think about it.
But I am now.
And so, to take Isaiah's words, this is the fast that I am choosing. No more Diet Dr. Pepper, no more Diet Coke. No more dropping a person's entire earnings so that I can get a drink.
At church on Sunday, JD talked about giving generously. Sometimes it is hard to think about giving. But it is easy to buy a drink? Something isn't right there. I was listening to one of David Platt's sermons (he's one of my favorite pastors, I listen to him on my way to class) and he said that in America, we spend more on dog food than we do foreign missions. Dog food.
I'm not saying give up the dog and he wasn't either, but we need to seriously look at what we are spending our money on and whether or not it is crucial to our lives and whether or not it is stopping us from giving.
I'll say it again, 1.4 billion people live on less than the amount that we spend on soda.
I'm done. I'm done throwing away that money that would be so precious to them.
What fast will you choose?
Saturday, September 24, 2011
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?!
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?!
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