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Midwifery student, reflections on Yr One

It’s not been a year yet, but close, so I’m going to start reflections on this process.

I don’t like being a new midwifery student. It’s constantly being incompetent. It’s uncomfortable relationships sometimes.

However, I am very glad that I persevered during this year. It’s nice to see that I have grown and become so much more competent than I was at the beginning. And I’m in the process of getting into harder skills now.

So the early skills were vital signs—learning to count blood pressure–and realizing that there are several different qualities of sounds to be heard, and which ones to count. . . And hearing the baby’s breathing. And being able to count a fast newborn heartbeat for a full minute.

I’ve learned tricks that help me along. Like when I count the newborn heartbeats, I count to 60, then start over. So I usually have 3 numbers at the end of one minute– 60 + 60 + the third number. 60+60 gets me to 120 easily, then I add on what’s over that. As I watch my second-hand on the clock, I know that if in the first 30 seconds I’ve counted less than 60 or more than 80, then my end count will be outside of the norm. And I adjust accordingly. Is the baby in a deep sleep and that’s why the number is too low? Is the baby crying and upset and that’s why the number is too high? Or is the baby truly sick and is that confirmed by other signs? (We’ve transported several for infections.)

Things like that. Palpation, using a Doppler, sometimes a fetoscope. reading lab results, prenatal education, discomforts of pregnancy, monitoring labor, charting (aaaalllll the charting they do here!), filling out birth certificates, recognizing signs of needing to transport, and the transport process. It’s nice being a in a setting where midwives are an integral part of the medical community.

Skills that are higher level, that I’m working on now are vaginal exams (still struggling with this) and the movements to help the baby out (that they do particularly in this clinic and in supine birth in the hospital) and Active Management steps. The Expanded Newborn Screening is also a challenge.

I took CPR and soon we’ll be getting our NRP (neonatal resuscitation) certification. We’ve learned to insert IV, and I’ve successfully inserted IVs on 2 patients with assistance. I’m also looking forward to starting suturing in a few months. Seen things like hemorrhage and shoulder dystocia.

During this time period, I’ve been the assistant under supervision at 33 births, 11 of those where I was the one catching.

42 postpartum exams as an assistant under supervision, 126 prenatal appointments, 11 initial prenatal appointments.

I will be honest, that I’ve realized how committed I am to homebirth through working at a clinic. This clinic is good in that it fits exactly what women want and need in this cultural context and they are kind and helpful and have a good transport situation. We also regularly pray with our patients if they desire that.

It’s been quite a year.

Coming out of this war in Ukraine has been a double struggle. I’ve found the midwifery and birth work to be a good distraction from that heartbreak. Emotionally, mentally and physically I’ve not been myself, and I’ve been trying to be kind and patient with myself and others. I’ve never been through such a devastating situation and those around me haven’t either, so none of us really know what to expect or what this is like.

It’s been a horrible year, a year I’ve disliked intensely, been intensely homesick and heartbroken. But with God’s help, I’m enduring the suffering, and I am gradually re-emerging out of the darkness. I’m learning to integrate the devastation of my past and present life and the future expectations that I had into this current life. God gradually gives small hopes for the future and I trust him when it is a future that only God sees. I feel like we will not be fully healed until we can return to Ukraine and the war is won in a good way. But God also gave me the promise that he restores my soul. When I feel it is smashed and mutilated beyond help, he is the only one capable of restoring my soul, and he will do it, is doing it.

blagodarnost dayot perspektivy

Благодарность дает перспективу

Мы сели с детьми и рассмотрели события года с момента последнего Дня благодарения, и мы благодарили Бога. Оглядываясь назад с благодарностью, с ожиданием увидеть Божье провидение, является прекрасным упражнением. Я хочу записать некоторые пункты здесь:

Но сначала, я хочу сказать, что я могла бы вместе этого, писать список трудностей, проблемы,  и неудовольствии. Но, выбираю благодарность и перспектив того, что Бог добрый, щедрый Господин,

Ноябрь 2017 года – ноябрь 2018 года

  • Мы провели прошлий День благодарения в Грузии с моей дорогой подругой. Это было волшебным (в смысле Господа 😉 ).
  • Моя новая кухня. Мне кажется, что я не могла бы даже мечтать о том, что это будет реальное место, мое собственное место, чтобы вкладывать свои ценности и эмоции в каждую каплю. Это приводит меня в красоту, организацию, чистоту, проведение время со семью. И тоже в мокрую, сухую, горячую, холодную, грязную, убирающую, восхитительную работу по “строительству” семьи.
  • Мой личный, рабочий стол на кухне. Все еще в процессе. Но это мой уголок, полно книг, бумаг, свечей, кофейных чашек
  • Виталий получил Грин Кард визу–чудо.
  • Мы отправились в Дисней на один день
  • Мы отпраздновали 50-летняя годовщина моих родителей, и они, конечно же, вернулись в Того, чтобы служить еще больше как миссионеры.
  • Девочки закончили свои книги АВАНА в Штатах, когда за полгода мы были там. И Виктория собирается закончить все свои книги АВАНА здесь, в Украине, и стать лидером. Скайла уже является помощником. У нее есть еще 2 книги. И Андре и Юна также начали АВАНА в этом году и сегодня получили свои футболки. АВАНА была огромной частью жизни моих детей. АВАНА — это что-то я вообще не планировала никогда, но Бог так сильно это использует в нашей жизни!
  • Мы успели сделать много фондрейзинга в США в течение 6 месяцев. Это было хорошо, хотя это чуть не убил меня. Я еще восстанавливаюсь 🙂  Но я готова сделать еще лучшую работу в следующий раз. Тоже в этом году, мы с Виталием учились вместе курс о партнерстве и фондрейзинге, и это тоже дал нам общее видение.
  • В этом году у нас было две операции – оба довольно незначительные, и мы благодарны, что все хорошо.
  • Наша церковь снова стала для меня эмоционально безопасным местом. Бог укрепляет мою связь, как обычно, через молитву, пожертвование, служение.
  • Мы начали ежемесячно поддерживать миссионерскую пару из нашей церкви.
  • В этом году Андре начал первый класс. Он учится читать и он летает через математику.
  • Скайла сказала, что хотела бы принимать крещения – у нее и у Виктории теперь есть наставники, с которыми они встречаются и проходят 24 доктринальных урока.
  • Бог начинает некоторые движение во мне относительно будущего служения, но я пока не вижу Его план или идеи. Жду во вере.

Благодарю Тебе, Бог!

 

giving thanks gives perspective

So we sat down with the kids and reviewed the year’s events since last Thanksgiving, and we gave thanks.

Looking back with thanks, with expectation of seeing God’s providence, is a wonderful exercise. I want to record some items here:

November 2017-November 2018

  • We spent last Thanksgiving in the country of Georgia with a dear and many-year friend of mine. It was magical, in the Lord’s sense.
  • My new kitchen. I don’t think I could even dream that this would be a real place, my own place, to invest my values and emotions in every drop of it. It leads me into beauty, organizing, cleanliness, togetherness, and the wet, dry, hot, cold messy, cleaning, delicious work of building a family.
  • My desk in my kitchen. Still a work in progress. But it’s my corner, full of books, papers, candles, coffee cups …
  • We went to Disney for a day
  • We celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and they, of course, went back to Togo to serve even more.
  • The girls finished their AWANA books in the States that half a year we were there. And Victoria is about to finish all her AWANA books here in Ukraine and become a leader. Skyla is already also a helper. She has 2 books to go. And Andre and Una also started AWANA this year and got their T-shirts today. AWANA has been a huge part of my kids’ lives. It’s nothing I planned either, just the goodness of God.
  • We did a whole-hog lot of fundraising the US for 6 months. It was good, it almost kilt me. I’m recovering. I’m ready to do an even better job next time 🙂 Vitaliy and I also took a class together about fundraising, and it was totally awesome to get on the same page with that. God’s been making this a ‘thing’ of prayer and providence in my life especially about 4-5 years now.
  • We had two operations this year–both fairly minor, and we’re thankful all are fine.
  • Our church in Ukraine has become a more emotionally-safe place for me again, pretty much. I am becoming emotionally attached in a good way, through prayer, giving, staying involved, etc.
  • We started supporting a missionary couple from our church monthly.
  • Andre started first grade this year. He’s learning to read and flies through his math book.
  • Skyla said she’d like to be baptized– she and Victoria now have mentors (disciplers?) with whom them meet and go through 24 doctrinal lessons.
  • God is starting some moves in me for future ministry, but I don’t see the idea yet. Waiting in faith.

Thank you, God!

New Year is coming!!!

So, I really like New Year life reviews and direction taking. It’s a double-whammy for me because my birthday is December 30, so I feel like it’s a new year in date and in age at the same time.

Around Oct-Nov, I start getting a clear vision of what the next year’s foci will be, and I start my new practices right away, I don’t wait ’til the new year. So I have already warmed up and see what’s working.

2019 is looking pretty simple. I think God is leading me to go back to praying for at least one hour a day. I may make this more with shorter prayer times in afternoon and evening. But we’ll see what God is wanting with all that as I go along.

In 2017 when I did this one hour of prayer/day, I studied several books about prayer in conjunction with this. This year, I may study The Lord’s Prayer in conjunction with praying.

I will show my new prayer journals soon. But I had another goal come up this morning. It just suddenly clarified in my head– a lot of things from the last YEARS came together to release me into a new thing. I also think one special “older woman” is specifically praying for me, and she contributed to this, too.

It suddenly dawned upon me how satan was/is using my old dreams and desires in times of weakness to make me even more weak. I’m going through the 40s change– my dreams of childhood are having to die and resurrect into reality. And this has been some process for me.

Here is a New Year/New Life resolution for 2019: This year, I want to receive from God joy and contentment. I will refuse to entertain “what if,” “could have,” “might have” … I will live with thoughts of thankfulness for each aspect of my life and God’s leading, will, and blessing.

So, at least for a year, I will put away these ramblings of weirdness into my past desires. It might make my future clearer 🙂 And with prayer, I think God is going to do His transforming work!

So, that’s my 2019 so far 🙂

“Attitudes, Attributes, and Emotions of our family”

Proverbs 31, and praying over today’s events


Praying Daily for your Husband –downloaded from Inspired to Action

the kids’ Education– general, specific


Praying over our marriage vows

 

when old questions resurface

I’m very thankful God doesn’t tire of my questions. I go through cyclical phases of questioning the value of my life, and God takes me cyclically deeper and deeper into His ways.

(I’ve had to become OK with my cyclical questioning, too. I think it’s an essential part of my personality.)

So a few days back, I started feeling all my familiar poopiness about my life–why am I here? why am I alive? what is the value of what I do and am?

This time, God led me to delve into Sally Clarkson’s teachings. She’s a great vision-caster for moms, and I need vision. And I listened to several of her podcasts and lectures, and one was about leadership.

And as I read through the verses she attached, I was very struck by Proverbs 4:18, “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.”

And I realized that my life, as a righteous person, is not dimming out because I’ve buried several dreams and stopped doing some ministries I love. I feel as though my life’s gotten dimmer the last few years, like my reasons for being excited about life have slowly been put out. And I’ve become an un-excited person. A person who doens’t really look forward to waking up another day, a person who’s enduring years not understanding their value.

In this new apartment we bought, we’re up very high– the 23rd and 24th floors! And one window looks out on the sunrise and other windows look out on the sunset.

And this verse that “the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn” has special meaning for me now that I’ve watched a few sunrises. They are gorgeous.

And God says my life is like that. It’s ilke that NOW. This is another answer to my cyclical questions about the value and meaning of my life.

And I will accept this by faith. And I ask God that I would experience this reality in the complete unity of my person—the reality of my life becoming brighter and brighter.

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

 

moy 42 rozhdeniya: net nachala, net kontsa

Итак, сегодня мой 42-й день рождения.

Я чувствую, что я в таком жизненом ситуации как описана Дональдом Миллером в его книге «Миллион миль за тысячу лет». Он описывает поездку на бардарке в темноте, и он рассказывает о том, как в каждом жизненом поездке, вы добираетесь до трудной середины – волнение и радость начала, когда с ожиданием отталкивали с берега– эти чувства рассеялись. И великое предназначение, к которому вы пливете еще не видно.

И вы находитесь в этом трудном среднем месте, где вам просто нужно грести веслами по вере.

И в последнее время я чувствую это место. Подобно тому, как Бог призывает меня к тому времени, когда дисциплины сложнее, потому, что нет особые волнения или радости от начала или конца. Это просто верный гребля.

Брак, воспитание детей, домашная школа, служение, отношение с Богом …

Это хорошее место. Место, где нужно идти глубже в другом, более сложном, более зрелом способом. Держать огонь живым и ярким, когда нет ни начала, ни конца.

Дорогой Бог, пожалуйста, встреть меня и благослови меня в этом месте. Хочу быть полностью верным до захватывающего конца!

My 42nd birthday: No beginning, no end

So today is my 42nd birthday.

I feel like the situation described by Donald Miller in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He describes a boat trip in the dark, and he talks about how you get to the hard middle– the excitement of pushing off from shore has dissipated and the great destination to which you’re going is also not yet visible.

And you’re in this hard middle place where you just have to paddle by faith.

And lately I feel this place. Like God’s calling me to a time where disciplines are harder because there’s no excitement of the beginning or the end. It’s just faithful paddling.

Marriage, child rearing, home schooling, ministry.

It’s a good place. A place where one has to go deeper in a different, harder, more mature way. To keep the fires alive and bright when there’s no beginning or end in sight.

Dear God, please meet me and bless me in this place. May I be completely faithful to the exciting end!

two things I really like about American Christianity

Two things I want to touch on that I like about American Christianity, that I’ve noticed might be somewhat “American,” but I really appreciate what they’ve added to my life. (And it might be the same in other western cutures, I just don’t have a deep experience with other western cultures as I’ve had with non-western cultures. So I don’t know if these two things are characteristic of “Western Christianity” or if they’re “American,” so I may be mis-labeling).

One is the focus on having a personal relationship with God. Perhaps we miss some things because we don’t so much emphasize our collective relationship with God, but I really appreciate the emphasis on the personal.

Second, I appreaciate the American wealth of information and books for intellectual growth. While information doesn’t equal a growing relationship with God, when one is in a relationship with God, fellowshipping with all these other Christians through their books and knowledge adds a lot to my life.

I may enjoy these two things because I’m American and I don’t know differently, but I’ve seen alternatives to this— lack of personal emphasis and lack of knowledge– and it’s made me appreciate these things.

 

trying to figure out Jesus, Social Justice, Suffering, Serving

I’m sure reams and reams have been written about this already, but I’m going through this process of exploration and discovery myself right now, and I’m not really ready to “read all the answers” in some book. I want God to give me answers through the process. I discover so many things in these processes, I almost dislike the end, when resolution comes. (Though that’s good, too.)

Word to the wise: I like questions. I like open, exploratory, many-answers questions, and leaving some things indefinite. Some people hate this, and if you are like that, I appreciate you, and you might just want to step away now. 😀

I’m trying to work into this topic, but as you can see, I keep circling and circling without really starting. Let me try to start.

Title:

Social Justice Jesus vs. Suffering Jesus

I’m not writing criticism; I’m trying simply to write my observations and experiences and then try to make sense of it to incorporate it into my life.

I grew up with what I kind of understand now to be a Social Justice Jesus. Jesus sees wrong, He rights the wrong. He may suffer doing it, but at the end, He’s the hero, and right wins.

I’m shocked now at how much this sounds like Superman, or any number of American films.

I was with a Georgian (the country) woman last night, talking about hard it is for Vitaliy and I to watch any movies together. Ukrainian (Soviet) movies are so depressing—war, the hero dies, the lovers are parted—it’s just … so pitiful. He says they are written this way because this is what really happened.

Whereas, I love American films—Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington, you know …. Action, good/bad, justice, ethics-loving heroics. Resolution for the heart and head.

And she said, yes, Georgians joke about that, too, how American films have “perfect” endings. And she talked about the Georgian expression—something like, when something good happens, something bad is not far behind. And how they live with an expectation of bad things happening and good things are only momentary and easily dissolved.

Which brings me to suffering Jesus. As an American I don’t think I would have listened to or accepted anyone teaching me about suffering Jesus. I mean, a Jesus who sees people suffering and doesn’t try to Save! them from that social/physical suffering. How can one see social injustice and NOT take (political? physical?) action to correct it? It didn’t fit into my picture of Christ.

The suffering Jesus who was killed at the hands of the Pharisees & co. and the Romans. All His life, He saw many social/religious injustices that they were doing, and He didn’t try to fight or change them really. He suffered them.

Living in a post-Soviet country for 15 years has messed with my brain, messed with my Social Justice Jesus image. I was the Social Justice Jesus follower when I came to Ukraine, and I eventually realized why Ukrainians weren’t fighters—because if you fight for justice, you get killed and justice doesn’t end up happening; things could just get worse. I was just in a conversation with a Russian pastor, and he was also talking about this—that revolutions don’t work; they just bring so much suffering, and then politically, things get even worse.

That’s their experience, and it becomes their expression of Jesus. Just like Americans’ experience becomes their experession.

Now, I’m going to switch tracts and try to outline some problems I’ve seen and personally experienced with the Fight-for-Justice Jesus paradigm:

First: I experienced anger. Ungodly anger, directed towards A. those directly doing harmful things B. those in the higher “systems” that created the system where this injustice was perpetrated C. towards the victims because they continue to walk into it when they really had other, however-non-socially-acceptable options. D. Those who weren’t as upset about it as I was.

This anger began to deform me. And I finally realized that my anger was simply harming me, limiting interaction with those on all sides that I hoped to help, and that my anger would change basically nothing about the situation. Plus, I realized my own anger was the same type of anger that was in the hearts of those perpetrating injustice! I was no better than they were!

Second: I realized that God had not put me in a position to influence the whole system of injustice. Well, not in a leadership position. I could pray. I could put a bandaid on things here or there. But I wasn’t the one God would use to enact systemic change.

I think many of us flounder with this. Because we want to do something. But our “arms,” so to speak, don’t really reach into the realm of actually changing the systems. Nor into the hearts of those perpetrating all this.

I also realized that “victim” is a relative terms. The victim might be a perpetrator when occupying a different place in the system.

Some answers to all this I’ve found so far:: We … maybe have to become content with the smallness of our lives. That we can “only” reach the individuals God puts in our paths. Or we can “only” send money. Or we can “only” write a letter or make a phone call here or there. We will not be Superman changing the entire fabric and direction of a place.

Second:: I had to forgive. And I had to start acting out towards all sides with love. And is this not the cornerstone of justice and reconciliation in Christianity? I had to forgive and open my heart for God’s love to come for all the people in these situations. And to humble myself, to not use my rightness to injure everyone, in all my big desire to “help.” For rightness without love stops being right. It’s not Jesus’ rightness. It’s rightness in the service of our flesh and satan; a rightness that destroys very people rather than destroying the dark spiritual forces around those people.

And sometimes I have to counsel victims, and … I can’t counsel them to fight for social justice for themselves. I have to counsel them with that God has counseled me– to be the suffering Jesus, to know Jesus experientially in injustice.

I guess I’m trying to find how to express in my own life Serving Jesus. Because Jesus set Himself against the systems of the scribes and Pharisees. But Jesus also suffered it; He suffered great injustice and disrespect without demanding that it be righted. He did both in service to us.

So I’m searching for the expression of the Serving Jesus, pondering, thinking about this.

Vitaliy priyehal domoy i moi zhizneni uroki

Виталий приехал вчера– он неделю был далеко от нас, в Монголии.

Вечер был веселым– встретили, разобрались подарками, пили монголский чай (он же находиться на границу Китая).

Когда я вышла замуж за Виталия, я конечно не поняла все “последствия” нашего союза. И Виталий тоже не знал 🙂 Никто не знает! Кроме Бог.

И это хорошо.

Иногда, мне кажется, что я должна жертвовать слишком много из своих мечтов ради детей, и ради того, что я имею муж-евангелист. Он часто в разъездах, жизнь бывает очень спонтанно– трудно планировать.И еще и еще…..

Раньше, мои жертвы ради брака оказались для меня большие, тяжелие.

Но с годами, некоторые мыслил, факты, и истина мне утешают и направляют:

  1. Виталий очень много и для нас жертвует тоже. Это не только я. Он во многих тоже ограничивает себя.
  2. Вообще, я выбрала жизнь, которую я хотела. Мы миссионеры; я рада, что у нас 4 детей; я рада их обучать дома. И конечно, в этих решеньи есть то, что приносить мне неудобство. Это и везде.И с этими решениями, я должна отказывать от других вещей.
  3. У меня есть друзьи, которые работают, развывают себя не в рамке семьи. Им конечно легче, ни так ли? …. Кажется, что им тоже сложно– переживают о детях, имеют неудобство и жалоби с работой, чувствую что спешят слишком, что жизнь не такая, какая они представляли. Итог: Когда есть дети, получается по-любому, что надо много жертвовать.
  4. Служение и работа Виталия мне наполняет. Он часто мне говорит, что все его плода–это и мои плода тоже. Я очень рада для того, что он делает.
  5. Я учусь сосредоточивать на благословении и радости в этом моменте, на этот день, и не думать о том, что не имею и не делаю.
  6. Я очень рада, что я развиваю в сферах, которых я некогда раньше не думала. Это мне очень ценно