One Good Day

Today was a blast! Spent the afternoon paint-balling with the guys from work (old work, with the pipeline). It was purdy good, I've got a nice collection of welts, and I gave my share too!
From there we moved over to one of the guy's farms, had BBQ steak (oh yeah), I got to go quadding (aka 4 x 4) - and I've never been before - but Dakota and I went wild rounding up horses, then Dakota rode the horses, and then we went shooting (not the horses)!
What a good day.

Boise Summer Fun!

Rosie-Around-The-World

So I was at work today - did I tell you that I'm working? I have a job at a cute shop called Valhalla Pure, its like a mini-MEC or REI, we sell outdoor sports equipment and clothing, and it looks like it will be fun!

Anyway I was at work when this women came in and it turns out that she's the woman who is running around the world to raise awareness and funds for Cancer research and some childrens charities. I'm serious she's actually running around-the-world! Her name's Rosie Swale-Pope, she's a rale-thin 60-year-old and she has been runnning now for 3 years and is expecting for it to take about one more. She's made it from Wales, across Europe, Russia, the Himalayas, Siberia, down through Alaska and today she's in Grande Prairie!! This woman is hard core! (if you see on the map - you can see her route, she's moving to the east, wrap around the edge..., but obviously she's made it further then even the map shows, cause she's currently at the little yellow dot.)

So she was a lot of fun, and we got to outfit her with a few essentials, like a Thermarest for the cart/tent that she carries behind as she runs, she sleeps in this thing, and keeps warm with big animal hides! She decided she needed to replace her Thermarest. Anyway it was one very neat experience to meet this courageous, and determined woman. Her personal motivation is that she lost her own husband to prostate cancer, and she wants people to get regular check-ups and not wait too long. (So she's running AROUND THE WORLD!). Okay, as you can see I'm in complete shock over this enormous feat. She said she went through times in Siberia where she would go 6 weeks without seeing other human beings!

Wow, wow, wow! So check out her website by clicking on her name or on her picture. Go, Rosie, Go!!

Update

Well friends - in my effort to keep you updates I want to share with you some info I just got from a friend (currently in the Philippines with MIA). Heres is the 4-1-1 on what is happening there right now.

We are moving out of Manila on September 25th, as Mercy in Action is officially relocating to Mindoro, an island about an hour south of Manila. We will be living in a resort town, right by pristine white sandy beaches with the mountains overlooking, and make note friends-there are numerous gorgeous (and inexpensive!) resorts in the area. The women there, particularly in the mountain villages, are in desperate need of proper maternity care, as most of the nationals in the area are extremely poor. We will be working with a doctor at a clinic he has set up there.

It is both good and sad. Sad because the women of Welfareville are in my heart, maybe yours, and it feels like we are abandoning them, no one else is caring for them. At this time our program cannot offer help to them. I guess they have to thank they're own government for that. I'm so sorry. I wish I could apologize to each one of them. Because they deserve to be loved, to have a safe place. Oh my heart is really, really sad for them.
But Puerto Galera is an equally needy place (don't be fooled by the beaches/resorts), the local, rural women - really need help. And help is coming with the hands of a local doctor and midwives who are following the lead of Jesus, and sacrificing their personal wealth and security to love the poorest of the poor. And now we get to join them, an honor, and a pleasure. Please keep the clinic, Dr. Francis, school staff and the women of Welfareville in your prayers.
Click on the quote above, or check out the pull down menu - to visit Jes & Steve's page and keep up-to-date on everything that goes on this fall!

Two of my Three Roomies

This is me with my little Grayson!

I get to see and snuggle him everyday.

Today while I was wearing him in the sling

he even fell asleep for me,

I'm a proud Auntie!

Me and my new roomie Jenn (Gray's mom)!

Hidden Tragedy - Fistulas

I just finished reading The Hospital by the River - by Dr. Catherine Hamlin, which is one of many books I'm reading for school. And this book is just amazing, I mean it isn't going to win great literary awards, but the story, the facts, the truth that it unveils are all just enormously important. And to most people probably just shocking!
Dr. Catherine Hamlin and her husband Reg are two Ob/Gyn doctors who moved to Ethiopia in 1959 to start a midwifery school. And soon after arriving begin to see an enormous tragedy going almost completely unnoticed - the lives of women with fistulas.
For thousands of women every year a fistula is the result of a prolonged labour and birth without medical care. The woman (or girl) may come away from 4-7 days of labour with a stillborn child and and hole from her bladder and sometimes from her rectum, into her birth canal. This makes the women completely incontinent and means that she is always wet, dirty and smelly. Her husband leaves her and her community ostracizes her. She is alone.
This is the horrible truth for some 2 million women around the world - mostly in Africa. In North America, medical care is such that fistulas are virtually unheard of, and if one did arise it would be quickly cured by surgery. But for these poor and forgotten women it becomes their reality, defining their lives, or lack there of. And most of them are never cured.
I realize that this might be shocking or even uncomfortable for some of you, but I won't apologize. I've tried to be as discrete and polite as I could given the subject matter. But I want you to know that this is real, its a modern day tragedy, and it is vastly ignored! If you are shocked - let that emotion quide you to prayer and to action!
Fistulas are 100% curable in more than 90% of all cases. That means that almost all women who have this conditon can be given back their lives, if only they could get treatment. Dr. Hamlin and her husband started a Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa which today treats some 1400 women a year, serving them out of Christ's deep love. And for the sad few that can not be cured, they still receive as much care as possible and are welcomed in to help within the hospital or become a part of a new village full of similar women, where they can learn agriculture, farming and handcrafts.
But there are thousands of women who can not afford or manage the trip the Addis Ababa, there are women in other countries, all of them are in need and the fact is that they can be cured! And they deserve to be cured, and loved and accepted! Then there is the Hamlin's fistula hospital that offers care completely free, and needs to fundraise all fo its expenses every year. Could you get involved and begin to help meet these needs?
Alan was speaking on Sunday about getting the info and then praying. Well folks I hope that you will apply that lesson to this news as well. What you've just read is a start - hopefully enough to make you aware, or give you a kick in the pants if you needed it! But I hope that you take the time to become fully educated - there is the book I mentioned above, there are many websites. There is lots more you can know, there is lots that you can do. Please - DO SOMETHING!

• Fistula Hospital - Addia Ababa, Ethiopia
• Fistula Foundation
• Amazon - Buy the Book!

Broken Bodies

It's been a while - but here I am again, recommending some reading for your day. I was thinking this morning that it had been a really long time since I'd done this, and I hope there'd be something worth sharing with you, maybe even this morning. And what do you know but that a beautiful article appeared on Relevant!
So don't let the somewhat dull title block fool you. Beyond that basketball are 3 beautiful vignettes, well worth your time.
I love good writing.

Life Goes On

Home life.
I'm settling into my new digs - I have the pleasure of staying with my dear friends Jenn and Jeremy and their lovely Grayson. And for the first time in what seems like forever I have my own room - a giant one, in which there is plenty of room for my things, and a desk for all my texts. I have a permanent place to study my little heart out! Today I was walking across my room when it hit me that I was still in my room, and I thought, if I've been walking for this long, surely I must be in another room! OK, now you're thinking its obnoxiously large, its not, its pefect.
And I'm hoping to hook up with a part-time job. Actually I have one if I want it. The only catch is that pesky little need for a vehicle. I'm naively hoping I can make it on a bike. But really I know it won't happen - winter is coming, dark comes early. Not good. Hoping for that car.
I'm also hoping to sign up for a ballroom dance class too. Actually I'm pretty set on it, but it too is hinging on the whole car thing.
As for now, once again I have my little bro for a week - as my folks vacay. So I'm playing "mommy". I'm sure something picture worthy will occur this week. I promise you some then. And for now enjoy a handful of pictures I have from this summer, click here.

Arrival!

After a long, rather ardous day, I arrived home last night, pretty late. But home, in one peice, with my luggage. Besides the fact that I had to be at the airport at 5am, everything about my flights was going to smoothly, through to waiting at the gate for my Edmonton-GP flight. And then without warning they hit to the loadspeakers to inform us that ALL Jazz flights have been cancelled for the entire day! ALL of them!
That leaves a lot of people not very impressed, and bunch of people very frantic. So getting our luggage back was a process of 2 hours, which really didn't help those trying tpo fly out on other airlines! Arghh.
But I was not one of those trying to fly out on an other line. I actually had no idea what to do with myself. I was pretty set on getting home, but there didn't seem to be many options. And the airline wasn't offering to give us any help, no hotels, food or transfers! But amazingly as I was talking with my fam, Ben realized that he had a friend driving back from Edmo. And with a quick call he had secured for me a ride home! I just had to get myself into Edmo - so one $60 cab ride later I was loading my stuff into Kos's car and on my way home!
It really sucked that they canceled our flights, and that I now have to be on the phone for hours on end to try and sort out my ticket. But in my hour of need - God provided at just the right time! I really couldn't believe how well, how timely everything worked out. I'm home now!!
Praise God!

Melancholy

Oh Friends, today is a hard day, yesterday too. School is over, and all my dear classmates are going, going, gone. The hard thing about being involved in short-term communities (ie: DTS, or this summer), is that you put your whole heart into people - because you can't put only a bit, you just can't. But when the community moves on, as with these things it really should. Well, your heart goes with everyone who leaves. So my heart is a little tender today, sore, and melancholy.
But Lord I am grateful for this summer, for this community that shaped me, and loved me and and danced with me (literally)! This has been an incredible gift, and it is you my friends at home that have helped get here, to be apart of this life that God is calling me into, giving me, and leading me on.
I'm coming home to you friends. In a few short days I will be home. For the short term atleast, as it most always seems to be. But none-the-less I will be back in your community, loving and changing with you.
This summer has been wonderful, inexplicably good. And I look forward to the time when I will meet these friends again on distant shores, whether that be in a few months in the Philippines, or Heaven. But as for today, today I am sad. And quiet.
Bye.