Baja Babies!

 

So, we are not really loving the snow after 8 days in the Baja!
This picture was taken in Cabo San Lucas on the Pacific side on Tuesday 2/27/07 right before we left to come home to snowy Colorado! 

My Heroes

Noah - Crowned in Peace

Truly "Crowned in Peace" is Noah Steven Graves.
There is "Nothing Missing, Nothing Broken", not in Noah, anyway...

Noah Steven Graves

In honor of you as you honor our Father
Thank you for your beautiful life.
Jason, Adrienne and Emily,
thank you for sharing with us your son and brother and most of all God's love.
You call me to the side of God and make me a better person.
I am forever grateful.

3 Months Later.....

Here's the email I wrote to the director of the Philippines midwifery school when she wrote to request a final interview before making their acceptance decision. I received her email on Friday night - about 4 hours afer Caleb accepted his new position at NavPress. I applied on September 26th.
It's truly amazing as we walk by faith and not by sight. Our Lord does seem to have it all planned out, doesn't he?

Dear (director),
We have been praying long and hard about this decision, as you can imagine.
We have such a heart for the birth center and have become very emotionally attached over the last couple of months through pictures, blogs, and stories of the people and the work that is being done. We want very much to be a part of this wonderful endeavor but feel that we will have to delay our journey at this time.
This is a much longer conversation than I can contain in an email, but here's a few summarized points.

We have many reasons for making this decision.
One of our desires in coming is that we would be able to have a financial plan that does not include going into debt, as we have just spent the last 4 years getting out of debt with the intention of becoming more mobile. We feel this would be best accomplished if we are able to sustain some of our own living expenses through work that my husband may be able to do at a distance. He has just accepted a Senior Editor position with NavPress here in Colorado whose leadership and employees have a global vision and culture of missions. We have already shared our plans with them and have been told that they will support us in a short term vision trip and intensive skills training opportunity sometime in the next couple of years.

Secondly, I am the co-founder and director of a young non-profit family organization. I am worried for Xylem's success if I were to leave in such an early stage without an adequate replacement. However, I will be working toward transitioning many of my responsibilities by training and mentoring others to allow me to focus more on missionary midwifery in the future.

And the biggest issue is that I'm not quite ready to be away from my little ones for such a length of time each week.

My current plan is to continue on with midwifery training here in the states at a slower pace and reevaluate in a year based on what I have been able to accomplish. At that time, we would like to plan to come sometime the following year (2008) for apprenticeship/intensive skills training. This trip would not only be to fufill NARM requirements (catches, prenatal numbers, etc) but act as a vision trip and aquire training for missionary midwifery. Our heart still aches for missionary midwifery and the idea of learning how to operate a birth center in developing countries. I would love to schedule a time to chat and have you tell us what this might look like if we were to come for an apprenticeship/intensive skills training. What length of an apprenticeship/intensive would be necessary to learn this aspect of the program?

Thanks so much for all of your help and consideration of my application. I would love to hear any feedback or questions you might have.
I look forward to talking with you again soon.

My Husband the New.....

Senior Editor for NavPress!!

Please join me in congratulating Caleb in his new position.
I am very excited for him and can't wait to see how God will work through him and this opportunity.
His last day with Kaiser will be 12/21 and he'll start his new job at NavPress on 1/2/07.
He will be working in Colorado Springs so our next step is to figure out where we're going to live.
Currently, we're considering living in Denver or moving to Castle Rock but don't have any plans to move to the Springs.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support. We have appreciated them and continue to covet them as we embark on the next stage of our journey.

Heartache

In my last post I asked the question "How much will we really miss or be missed?"
The biggest ache in my heart comes when I think about leaving my family. Maybe it's because I've never lived anywhere but Colorado, within 30 minutes of both of my parents. Or, maybe it's because 2 years in a 33 year old person's life is not a lot of time, but in a growing toddler or parents and grandparents who are getting older, each day is a treasure.
Are we really supposed to leave? Really Lord? When your word says to leave all that we know, which may include our family, in order to come follow you...I don't know if I'm capable. Is this what you are asking of me?
Or, is it as Russ suggested, that there is a reason we are born where we are and placed in the family and town that we find ourselves.
I know my life will be forever changed if we make this journey, for the good. And, sometimes, I feel as though I NEED to go. I need to experience a life that doesn't have access to every creature comfort and in a way I feel I need to be forced to rely more completely on God.
Lord, give me strength and wisdom. Prepare our hearts and the hearts of those we love - I pray for your will and not just my own.

I got an email from the director today and our next step is to schedule a phone meeting with them as soon as possible to discuss some of our questions (especially WHEN will we know the final acceptance decisions?!)

Waiting!*#$!

I hate waiting. Patience is a virtue, and one I don't have.
My application is in to the school and now I just have to wait. I have only had a couple of emails in a month's time from the director. I have so many questions and they have so little time to answer them. They run such a big operation with so few people. They are planning to deliver around 300 babies there this month in a facility that normally does about half that in 6 labor and 2 pospartum rooms.

We have had lots of conversations with people over here and over there - Missions gurus, current and former missionaries, students, family, friends, wise people.

I've found a few current students and 1 who is enrolled for the Sept semester to chat with online. There is 1 student, Heather, who is a current student with a family. I asked her for some of her honest feelings about the program and most of all balancing the workload with family life. She said that Davao is a wonderful place to live and on some days she feels it's a great experience for her family and on others, she would tell me I'm crazy for considering it. She said that the school is sensitive to students with families and allows a lighter load with just 2 birth room shifts (just changed from 12 hour to 8 hour shifts) a week, one 4-hour prenatal day and then there's the homework, sometimes requiring 10 hour days away from the house to complete assignments. So, my goal would be to complete book reports and get ahead as much as possible before going down there. It's encouraging to know of their sensitivity to families as one of my main concerns is not being able to see them enough. Though, as busy as I am here, especially when you add midwifery school to my current responsibilities, it doesn't really look much different, and sometimes even seems like less.
The other person I've been emailing with is Jennifer. She's been an answer to prayer. Her and her family are selling all they own and moving there in May. She's from Alaska and has 7 kids, 2 of which are adopted from Sierra Leone. They've been talking with the school/directors for 3 years and have a bit of inside information that is helping me with the lack of details from the school. She says to be prepared for them to talk us out of coming, as it is difficult with a family. The main issues are usually that dads/husbands struggle with not being the breadwinner as there is really no source of work or income for foreigners. The 2nd is for the moms/wives to not be the sole care provider. I think this is something I would have a harder time adjusting to than Caleb, as he looks forward to the change and can't wait to spend more time with our kids. When I think of how hard it will be for me, I remember that he's had to leave home and be away from us every day for 3 1/2 years and he deserves a turn.
Jennifer's family is going to be meeting with the director in November or December in Portland and suggested we might want to do the same. This is good and bad, as we've been strongly considering visiting the Philippines around that same time, but feel it wouldn't be advantageous to go if the director isn't there. On the other hand, it would be nice to not have to spend the money to go all the way over there. Our concern is not having the first hand experience of Davao, the Philippines and the clinic/school. But, as I said, we wait.
We had a meeting with our pastor and I asked him to just tell us what to do. He just laughed at me. He said, "Angela, you will serve the Lord whether you are here or there and they will both be good. Now you just have to decide which one is best."
Some days I feel as Heather said, this could be a great experience, and on others I think we're crazy for considering it. What I keep coming back to though is that as much as my ministry here is needed and valued, people are not dying here because of lack of care.
I told Caleb last night that what strikes me is that if we go and it is the best thing, we'll know it and we may have a hard time coming back. If it's not the best thing, we come home, and how much will we really miss or be missed for such a short period of time? And, if we don't go, we will always wonder if we should have.
There is still much to consider and in time I know the answer will be made known to us. Meanwhile, all I can think of is how much needs to be done in a window of time that is growing increasingly smaller (selling all we own including our house and cars and raising support, just to name a few).