Catch me if you can!

OH! Heavens. 

I promise I still know I have a blog. Find comfort in the fact that I wrote four posts in September..

But friends, it has been far too long and I am sorry for that! I have been in India for two months now. However, I never even finished talking about Zambia! Lord help me. So, I think the easiest and most enjoyable for everyone is for me to cover up the lost time in pictures. 

This one time we went to Victoria Falls. In the dry season..Victoria Fall.

We went on a boat ride on the Zambezi rive and saw some fun wildlife! This is for you dad I know you think it's cool when no one else does.

Oh, see here. Exhibit A: I had my hair braided. I'm also wearing a normal shirt which does NOT happen.

An elephant came to drink from the river so we got to see 'im!

See I told you to look. Exhibit B: this happened. And it was awesome.

Hospital staff friends :)

Some of the "Women of Wisdom" that we taught healthcare to twice a week! Awesome ladies.

Me, my favorite ugly dress, and a cute baby. Needless to say more

I was blessed to deliver surprise twins at the clinic where we worked! 

Okay. So this is kind of to assuage you and also remind you that I have a blog. That is all for now but I will be back to talk about India!!

I also have a flight home :).

So much love to you all. 

Grace

Jumping in

Hey everybody! This is probably going to be super short, but I just wanted to say hey, I'm in Zambia, and I delivered my first baby on October 9th! She was wonderfully healthy and beautiful, see here :)

I don't get on the internet very often, but here's a little rundown of what has been going on. Every weekday we cram in a bus and go to The University Training Hospital, about 20 minutes away from the compound where we're staying (but with traffic about an hour). We split up into groups and rotate each day between the labour ward, admissions, and antenatal/postnatal. There are also teams each day that go to a smaller clinic to work with the midwives there, and also to a neighboring village to do teachings for a group of local women! They come out twice a week and are so keen to learn anything and everything healthcare, the basics really, and they in turn go and teach others. It's a beautiful thing! 

Every single day is chalk full of new experiences. Trusting in and relying on an invisible God, whose gentle and capable hands hold all of my questions and doubts and fears and hurts. There have been a lot of those lately, but He is so good. Ive been pondering a lot lately on what it means to be vulnerable, what it means to suffer for His name, and what He wants these next 8 months to look like for me. I'm still asking :).

I'm sorry that's all I can get out for now, but thank you for praying and thinking of me! Bless you!

Grace

No word comes to mind but joy!

Bless the name of the Lord!

I cannot stop thanking God for all He has done for me. He has come through yet again, in an overwhelming way! On Wednesday night our base had "commissioning night" where all the schools who are about to go on outreach are presented and prayed over and commissioned into the nations. Counting in various pledges, I was still in need of $450. My leaders and I had been praying that all of my finances would come in that night. And wouldn't you know it, by the end I was completely covered for outreach fees. God is amazing! What's more, on Friday I discovered I had received an additional $1,613. You know what that means? This girl can get a plane ticket home :). I am so relieved and blessed to not have to fund-raise for that during outreach. God is so good you guys. He has rewarded me beyond measure.

Shout out to that cool guy I know named Derek who sent me a new camera:

Hehe

An Eveleth mother puts twice the amount of chocolates in one box
AND writes in labels identifying what is what.

Some of my lovely house mates on Commissioning Night!

To put a beautiful face to the name:
This is Christa, who I was stuck in Indonesia with for a month!

The past few days have been full of cleaning, packing, checking things off my to-do list (finally), more packing, and writing a bounty of thank you cards to some well-deserving folks -- without whom I wouldn't be writing this celebratory blog post. Thank you so much everyone. Thank you for supporting me and allowing God to work through your obedience to send me off, starting tomorrow! We leave Sunday afternoon. I cannot believe that in just a few days we will be in the hospital. Yesterday we received our paper work for all the births we will be apart of for the next eight months. It's getting a liiitttlle more real now :).

These three months in Perth have been full of growth for me individually, in relationships with others, and with my Creator. There have been times of immense joy and laughter, some heartache, some tears, some intense stretching of my faith, and some seriously incredible breakthrough. Jesus is so amazing. If you don't know Him yet, I really recommend doing that as soon as possible. Because He is awesome and wants to awe you with His love and share some fabulous ideas for your life.

And with that I will sign off for now. Next time you hear from me, I'll be in Zambia. Look forward to those stories, my friends. It's gonna be a good one.

Lots of love,
Grace