Red Light

A lot has been going on here in Cebu. Firstly, thank you for your prayers; baby Kyle went to meet the Lord on Saturday night despite the intensive care he was receiving. They found that he had congenital abnormalities that were just too much for his little heart to overcome. Once again, please continue to keep the young mom in your prayers as she grieves. Also, due to the emergency c-section and NICU monitoring, the hospital bill came out to 130,000 pesos, which is a little more than $2700. Needless to say, this amount is not exactly covered in the budget, so if God puts it on your heart to give this month to Glory Reborn, it would be much appreciated!

As far as clinic work, I started with the Red Team this week. Red team consists of gram staining (Pap smears, vaccines, and lots of education). However, I've mainly been doing pre-natals and initial interviews because we've had free labs the past two days. Tomorrow I work the night shift with Red Team, and then Saturday morning is the family planning workshop. So i've been doing a lot of prenatal check ups, which consists of fundal height, fetal heart tones, BP, and baby position. I'm getting better at feel what position the baby is and also finding the cervix! (which we learned can be a little difficult). We also had another delivery on Monday morning. Another girl! :) Her delivery was sooo quick! She was 9cm and then all of a sudden here comes baby before they could even rupture the water bag. She's a precious little baby who has a very calm temperament. I got to hold her for quite awhile today while her mom got a ligation. She seemed to enjoy the Taylor Swift songs as I rocked her :)

Tonight we went to the red light district here in Cebu City, and boy, what an experience! We went with a man named Father Hines who has been serving this city for 29 years! Praise God for his perseverance in reaching out to the people of Cebu. He's part of many different aspects of outreach including helping people the live at the dumpsite, aid for the homeless elderly, and the red light ministry. The red light district is a breeding ground for sex trafficking. There are very, very young women who are being sold as prostitutes, and they hardly have a clue of the consequences. Not only that, but the red light district is also "home" to many orphans. Their moms just abandon them and they grow up there. We went and passed out stickers for the children and biscuits & condoms for the prostitutes. The kids loved talking to us and following us the whole way through, mostly begging for more stickers and asking our names. They all love Father Hines; he goes there EVERY day to give out things, including medicine. I found out that it took a long time and a lot of work for him to even be able to visit. Some of the women we talked with were pregnant or had babies, so Hilary would encourage them to come to the clinic for their care. I can't even imagine someone trying to deliver a baby there in those conditions. There are so many things to pray for in this area, but really, they need God the most; He's their only hope of a Redeemer. There's too much for one man or a hundred men to take on, only God can bring restoration to this part of the city. Please continue to keep Cebu in your prayers and pray that many of the women take the opportunity to come to the clinic to receive proper care for them and their babies.

Love,
Melissa

Prayer Request

One of the mom's had to be transported to the hospital yesterday because the baby was having decelerations. She had to have a c-section, but the baby has a pneumothorax, basically a collapsed lung, and he's not doing too well. We saw him today at the NICU, but the situation doesn't look good. Please keep the mom and the precious baby in your prayers. His name is Kyle.

Another eventful day in Cebu

Yesterday started out with Molly and I visiting a nearby neighborhood to handout flyers promoting the clinic. On the way, we stopped out my new favorite bakery. They have delicious bread, and I LOVE bread! :) Even better than that, the bread costs like 2.00 or 5.00 pesos, which is only about 4 to 10 cents. It's wonderful. Walking through the neighborhood we saw A LOT of poverty, but the people we're very kind and most of them just stared at Molly and I. The kids were very friendly with us too :)

Later that day, we got to see our first birth! It was amazing! First off, I gotta say, the Filipino women handle the pain extremely well, I don't know if I'll see that so much in America. Hilary said part of the reason is they don't know any other way; meaning, they haven't heard of an epidural. Anyways, the baby came out with the umbilical chord wrapped around her neck twice, so they quickly untangled her and placed her on her mommy's belly where another nurse and I got to pat her dry. Then I got to clamp the chord and cut it :) After that, they handed me the baby, and another nurse walked me through the assessment and initial check up. Listening to the precious baby's heartbeat for the first time outside her mommy's tummy was unreal. I'm just in awe of God's handiwork and all of the intricacies that goes into the human body and human life in general. The little baby girl was very blue at first so I hooked her up to oxygen and she pinkened up quickly. The Filipino babies are beautiful! They come out with soft hair and great color! I had to give the baby her first shot, which she didn't like too much but after that I got to swaddle and hold her until they were done fixing up her mommy. Molly, was on the other side of the delivery with the mom, where she got to deliver the placenta and suture the mom up! How cool! So next time we're going to switch it up :) We got lots of pictures with the baby and the mom. She wants to add us on Facebook! haha. I'll post some on Facebook because I've had difficult getting the pictures on here. There was another mom in labor so we stayed at the clinic and waited for the next one. But the labor was going very slow (it's her first baby). So after putting in 13 hours, we called it a day and headed home.

So for the most part it was an exciting day with the new life entering the world. But on a sadder note, one of the mom's came in, and they couldn't find a heartbeat :( After an ultrasound, they confirmed that the baby had died. Please keep this young mommy in your prayers that God would comfort her and draw her near to Him.

Love,
Melissa

First Day at Clinic

Today, Molly and I got to go down to the clinic for the morning. They had worship for the moms, and we were able to follow along since they were familiar songs in English. Then Molly and I partnered up with a nurse/midwife and followed them during the prenatal check ups. We got to do all the assessment things like listening to the baby's heart beat, feeling the baby's position, measure the fundal height, checking for edema, and we even got to do an IE (if you don't know what that is, you probably don't want to! haha). I got to practice a little of the Cebuano I've been learning, that's the native language here. Most of them know English, but they are more comfortable speaking Cebuano. So far I've mastered "I am Melissa," "Thank you," "Can I listen to your baby's heartbeat?" and a couple others. Some of the words are the same in Spanish but some are very different... also "puerta" does not mean door. One of the ladies that came in was 39 weeks so I got to see how dilated she was and I could feel the baby's head! What a great experience :) We also hooked her up to the CTG machine, which measures the baby's heartbeat, movement and contraction strength. It's used to determine whether the mom is in active labor or not. She wasn't quite there, but I got to learn how the machine worked. At the end of her check-up, the nurse I was following asked her a few questions and it turned out that she was going through a lot so we had the opportunity to pray with her and tell her more about God's love for her. It was really great and you could just see the big smile on her face at the end.

After the morning at the clinic, we went to lunch with David and Hilary at a huge mall. I finally was able to get some Filipino money. And boy does my bank account look better in pesos! At first I was trying to withdraw money in dollars, and when it wouldn't let me Hilary explained that it had to be in pesos, my bad :) We've been having such a great time so far. I even got myself some yummy, sugary cereal at the store. Although the food has been delicious so far! Well that's it for today. We're having company over for dinner tonight so that should be fun, bye! :)

Love,
Melissa

We are here, we are here, we are here!

We arrived in Cebu this morning at around 11:30, June 1st. We didn't have any troubles with customs and David and Hilary were right there to pick us up. We came back to their house and then headed down to the clinic to see the place. We also got to meet some of the other nurses and midwives that work there, and we were able to join in on their Bible study that Molly and I will start doing each day. So far it's been very... HOT. The power was out when we first got here so it's been very warm and sticky, but now it's back on :) Molly and I are going to be picking out our schedules for the next couple of weeks and then we'll be down at the clinic tomorrow morning to start seeing some prenatal check ups :) Oh ya! We already got to see one precious little baby boy that was delivered last night. Can't wait to see more! Here's where Molly and I are staying. I'll post more pictures from our trip too!



Love,
Melissa

LAX

Molly and I are waiting in the LAX airport now for our flight to Hong Kong. We don't leave for another 5 hours, so we're passing the time with our last American meal at McDonald's and watching a couple of episodes of Lost. So far so good, we can't decide if we're more excited or tired... probably still more excited than anything! :) Please continue to keep us in your prayers!

5/4/2010 Update

It's Mayyyyyyyyyyyy!!!! :) At the end of this month Molly and I will be flying out to the Philippines. Wooohooo!

This last week, Hilary and David Overton (the founders of Glory Reborn) were in the States meeting with people and sharing what's going on in Cebu. I had a chance to attend one of their meetings in El Paso, which was really neat and great for my mom to meet them as well. We watched a slideshow, heard stories, prayed for them, and ate some delicious food. It was awesome to meet Hilary and talk to her in person before I got there. I'm so excited for what God has planned for us this summer. Can't wait!

Love,
Melissa

Stethoscopes for Glory Reborn

Hello all!

Since I've been very blessed by all of you and have raised some extra money for this trip, I wanted to be able to bless Glory Reborn by purchasing some supplies for them. I spoke with Hilary, who heads up Glory Reborn, and she said they needed stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs. I just wanted to share that with you all and again thank you for continuing to keep me in your prayers! We sent in our application for our visas, but apparently we need to have them notarized first. Oops! So they're mailing it back, but don't worry, they said we still have plenty of time. So all in all, good news. As the days keep coming, Molly and I continue to get even more excited! Yayy! Hilary will be in the El Paso area this month, so it'll be nice to meet her before I fly out there for the summer.

Hope you all are doing well!

Love,
Melissa

Ding ding ding ding!!!

God is so good!!

I've already received all the money I need for my trip to the Philippines! Thank you all again for being so generous and offering to keep me in your prayers. It has been a true blessing, and I'm very grateful.

In addition, I'm posting this in hopes that people who may have not replied yet will look before they mail me back.

I don't believe I have posted when I'll be gone and such. So, we drive to Phoenix on May 30th and fly to LA that evening, leave LA early on the 31st and go to Hong Kong and then Cebu. We'll be returning to Phoenix on July 28th and probably drive back to Cruces the 30th or so depending on how jet lagged we are.

Thank you all again! And please continue to keep me in your prayers.

Love,
Melissa

Grateful

Thanks to everyone who has been supportive and encouraging towards my trip! I'm so blessed to have wonderful family and friends. I'm almost to my goal amount, so thank you all so much. I've really enjoyed reading the responses and the sweet notes. You all are amazing!

Just a little update on where we are concerning the trip. Molly and I bought our tickets to Cebu this last week, and it was very exciting. Next on the list is our visa application! Praise God, we haven't ran into any huge obstacles yet :)

So again, thank you all so much, and I hope you continue to keep me in your prayers as we continue preparing for our trip!

Love,
Melissa