Adventure - An unusual and exciting, typically hazardous experience or activity.

“She heard drawers shutting and opening, doors creaking, and boxes being pulled out from under beds. “What are they doing?” she wondered. “What will happen next?” Very still she lay in her soft little bed with her familiar belongings about her: her postage stamp view of Rio harbor; her silver pig off a charm bracelet; her turquoise ring, which sometimes, for fun, she would wear as a crown, and, dearest of all, her floating ladies with the golden trumpets, tooting above their peaceful town. She did not want to loose these, she realized suddenly, lying there straight and still in bed, but to have all the other things as well, adventure and safety mixed --- that’s what she wanted. And that (the restless banging’s and whisperings told her) is just what you couldn’t do.” -The Borrowers

I’m learning about risks; they involve possibly loosing in some way… but could cause other things to be gained as well. Maybe things unseen? Just maybe. And fear… and what it looks like to give that up and just jump. There are moments where I want, desperately, for adventure and safety to be one in the same. I wish they understood each other and maybe tried to work together. But mostly I just want to live bigger and I see that in order to live to the fullness that I was created for… I must risk. I don’t exactly know what that looks like with some things but I do know that adventure is what I seek. I want to learn from everything I see! I don’t want to shut out what’s right in front of me. Africa, teach me. India, show me. Australia, open my eyes! Help me become a better Lindsay…

I’m so in love with life.

ANC

Antenatal Care.

Took lots of blood pressures, pulses, temperatures and respirations today. Listened to many fetal heartbeats. Practiced my Kiswahili.

I did a palpation (feeling mama’s belly for the position and lie of the baby) on Zelma Selemani and the baby kicked back! I felt the head and it was ballotteable (moved/wiggled back and forth between the pressure of my thumb and fingers guiding it side to side.) Either baby didn’t appreciate being moved around or he just wanted to say ‘Hey Mzungu!’ (white person). Palpating bellies is one of my favorite things about antenatal care. Usually the baby doesn’t kick back – but this little guy was energetic!

Then there was Miriam Saidi. She was PRE-CIOUS. It didn’t seem like she was in labor at all cause she just kept smiling at me so hugely. I think maybe because I was talking to her in Kiswahili. Tanzanians get a kick out of mzungu’s practicing their language. “Jina lango Lindsay, na toka Americani. Wewe na mtoto nzuri sana Miriam!” (My name is Lindsay, I’m from America. You and your baby are doing very well Miriam!)

Nuru Mohamedi was feeling kazungu zungu (dizzy) and she let me massage her lower back… I asked if I could pray for her and knew she didn’t know what I said, but I think she understood when I put my hand on her belly and closed my eyes to speak out life. I saw her yesterday as well. I sat with her for a while and helped her through contractions and filled out her partograph. Hoping for a good delivery and that I wont see her tomorrow because that will mean she’ll have been there for almost four days! Baby come soon!

Salma Juma had some major swelling of the legs and feet going on. She could hardly walk. I wheeled her down to ultra sound so they could get a further look because she wasn’t having labor pains but she was having serious leg pain. The hospital rarely does ultra sounds for pregnant mama’s because it’s expensive so this was my first time going. The ultra sound tech. proposed to me… about a monthly occurrence for your average white girl here. “Um haha, no thanks – haven’t even known you a whole minute. It works a little differently in America, buddy.” Made for some fun conversation. Wheeled Salma back and tried to make her comfortable on a bed she had to share with another woman. Again – praying for a good delivery and recovery for Salma.

These are four women out of the twenty or so that I see every day in the 4 hours of being in the hospital. Sometimes it’s overwhelming with the lack of resources. I don’t know where to find more staff to work or how to get enough oxytocin and cord clamps so the moms don’t have to bring their own… but I do know how to be with one woman at a time and try my best to give her proper care and value in that moment.

Next week I’m in the labor ward where all the action is. But I’m realizing there is so much more to this than simply catching babies…

Works produced by faith.

Labor prompted by love.

Endurance inspired by hope.

1 Thess. Ch.1 v.3

one week.

a cold week.

a scarf and winter coat week.

a wedding week.

one whole week that i slept in a big fluffy bed and ate lots of delicious things and saw my people. and then on one of the days, the thursday actually, my best friend got married. and that is really the whole point of the cold, scarf, winter coat, wedding week. i loved it. congratulations sarah and cub! best friend weddings are the greatest kind of weddings. it went entirely too fast and a week is rarely enough but sometimes it's all that's there. im thankful for it.

my nights and days are basically back to normal... cept i leave tomorrow and they'll get all out of order again. but it's totally worth it. staying up late with tons of energy makes me feel... super-human. like a vampire or something. hah. i thought of twilight... how sick.

today i went to walmart for some last minute stuff before my flight tomorrow. i needed tooth paste; so i went to the tooth paste aisle. i've been there so many times before but this time i seriously despised it. why does there have to be so many? i was so overwhelmed! i didn't even know where to start... i was lost in a sea of tooth paste. in that moment i had a really hard time with the fact that my culture lives and moves and breathes surrounded by excess and plenty and often times too much. i mean... having a choice between which tooth paste you want is fine, nothing wrong with that. but think about it - it's someone's job to come up with a cooler more attractive toothpaste that you and i will buy. how does that help the world? seriously people TOOTH PASTE! if you're in the tooth paste business you should feel shame right now...

just kidding. thats not my point. maybe when i come home to America and her ways ill see the art in getting to chose the right most perfect tooth paste... but right now it just seems a little unnecessary.

i'm ready for the simplicity of Tanzania. and i anticipate the newness of india. six months is about to happen. its just me and my back pack again; if it doesn't fit it doesn't come. and we shall begin anew...

more to come soon.

Beginnings.

To my left cockroach crawling on wall. To my right clothing hanging on line strung from window bars. In front two classmates doing Pilates. Nothing worth mentioning from the back.

My world has become consumed with babies. And I find that I like it. But Tanzania has taught me this time, not America. What will happen when I return to America and her ways? I wonder what she’ll think of me.

Hospital.

Beginnings.

Could this be right?

It is right.

There were two infant deaths today. When I walked into the hospital there was a little girl wrapped up. Later there was a tiny, tiny baby boy who was came very early. Too early. It has been an odd processing journey. My first reaction is why? But I know that will never get answered so I move on to how? If that doesn’t get answered it’s on to what do I do? Where do I fit into this equation?

There is rarely proper time to do anything at the hospital, but mourning the death of a precious baby is important. I try to make space. I imagine I’m in an empty room where it’s me, Jesus and the baby. He’s holding her and tears are just coming… he can’t finish her story. He had it all planned out and only got to just finish the cover page. The inside pages will be blank. His creative father heart is denied. It’s a crude reality… this thing. Death. We were never created to handle it. We weren’t made to loose in that way. My mind can’t comprehend any of it. I hate it. But I can’t get rid of it… some days it’s all around me. Confrontation of the worst sort. Stemming from lack of… what? Prayer? Medical supplies? Timing? But that’s not fair. I just don’t understand.

And life at the same time. Healthy, breathing, thriving babies. Why this one and not that one? How can this be reality? My job is to commit little tiny brand new beings to Jesus… and now I realize that that means breathing or not breathing. Heart beat or no heart beat. God grants grace… and I cling to the hope that he hears my prayers and will breath life into the lifeless little ones. And when control is stripped away from me he grants the grace to walk into that hospital tomorrow and face another day.

“Hope is not a ball and chain that we drag around, but it is of utmost value because it carries us through the darkness and tells us that a brighter day is coming. It tells us that a brighter day is coming, not because we deserve it (we don’t!), and not because we’ve earned it (we can’t!) but because God loves us, and desires to give us that brighter day. “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,” Jesus said. I don’t for a moment pretend to understand the darkness, or to know why the valley’s can seem so incredibly low. But this I do know. The valley is not where we are meant to stay. It is a part of the journey, but it is never our destination. And the key to getting through the valley is not to abandon hope, but to hold to it with all that we have, with prayer and fasting, with tears and crying out to God because it is God Himself that we need to encounter, it is God Himself that is our hope. Our hope is really not that our prayer will be answered, though God does that too, but our hope is that we would in clinging to hope, cling to God.” -Jerry Ireland

Scribblings from the traveling journal.

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

My mind didn’t stop after the baby was born. True, everything seemed golden and wonderful and that moment… that moment when I saw Joshua was coming… I’m quite speechless, actually. His first minute on this earth, his first breath, his first gaze at his mamma, his life. Fresh and new and perfect. I wish my mind would have stopped there but it didn’t.

Today I saw more than a baby be born. I saw into the reality of a 15 year old girl. I held her hand and propped her up when she couldn’t do it alone. I locked eyes with her scared face and saw something equally as beautiful as her precious little one. I saw Jesus. I felt his love for her as I stood there wishing so badly to do anything to help take her pain away.

Who is Joshua going to be?

How long will his innocence be kept sacred?

Will he know the Lord?

Will his Mum know how to raise him?

Will she still love him even though someday he won’t seem as precious as a newborn baby?

Will Joshua ever be able to call a man father?

There is so much more to this than I thought. I was just coming to simply deliver babies right?