Midwifery

Some of you may know that my passion is mothers & babies. This has been true for me ever since I was about seventeen in my senior year at high school. It's something that God placed in my heart and has taken root and grown stronger and stronger every day. Honestly? Some days it's all I think about, to be in the delivery room or to be giving a prenatal check up. The time in my life when I was most content and excited to wake up every morning and go to work was the time I spent in India, working LONG days in pretty bad conditions, sometimes going home for a few hours of sleep then coming back to take the night shift until 6 or 7 in the morning. It was hard, and regularly depressing, and terrible, and painful, and beautiful--beautiful because I was following my heart, and working with all my heart, and I was in a place of obedience. I think those two things are linked: obedience and the heart's cry.

Anyway, my trip to India came to an end, I found myself home and working at Staples. At first I was highly motivated, having just purchased my first car (Ji-Heun, my Kia Spectra, GSX, sleek, black beauty!) and needing to make an insurance payment and put gas into her. It was the back-to-school rush, and I worked a lot of nights past midnight, putting the store back together after frantic days of shopping, restocking, counting money. I'd come home dog tired (sometimes as late as 3am), sleep till noon, go back to work at 3 or 4 pm. It was a job. They gave me as many hours as I needed, and I was thankful because they worked with my school schedule as I jumped in that fall with 18 credit hours, and working every Friday night, all day Saturdays, and occasionally for a few hours on Sunday. But I didn't work as hard as I had in the beginning. Why? The hours weren't too demanding, my supers were understanding and flexible, the people I worked with were tolerable............okay, I just got this terrible feeling I'm going tangentile on you, so I'll try to come back to midwifery. I wasn't in a place where I was passionate about my work. I just worked enough hours to put gas in Ji-Heun's tank, rent a few movies, and buy a shake at uni for lunch.

Fast forward to marriage: we entered into this marriage knowing that I wanted to practise midwifery here, and from all signs I'd need to go through four INTENSIVE years of uni to do so. The draw-back is that I have to wait until I have my permanent resident visa in hand before I can apply, and all signs point to this is going to take YEARS. The application deadline is February 1st, and the immigration people tell me that it will be March or April until they are done with their half, at which point they'll be sending my paperwork back to the States for them to confirm everything about me. Bloody! Which is pushing my entry date (provided they like my application, and that I make it through the interview where they select only 20 people per year) back to September 2006, which pushes my completion date to sometime in 2010! if they accept my transfer credits from UNM, which we have no idea if they will. All signs point to no, and I'm crushed. I know God works miracles (Jason & I got married, right? that's miraculous in several ways), and I know that He's led me here and brought us together in this time and that He wants me to live out the passions He's placed within me. And I know that I'm trying to be obedient to all the little things He says, although I don't succeed all the time, and sometimes I stubbornly refuse to obey and sometimes I put off decisions whether to obey or not off so long that by the time I decide to do something He's asked, it's long over and I've been disobedient again. ARGH!

So I'm detirmined not to mess up the newest thing He's placed before me, which is a return to doula work after a three-month stint as a nanny. I liked the whole nannying thing, but it was hard, and some days I didn't want to be there at all, and I came home dead tired every night and didn't get any time to spend cleaning and barely cooked any meals, and neglected all the things I had come to love doing while waiting for employment previously. I know that God's leading me back to what I love, and this time I'll be obedient from the first opportunity instead of waiting to see if things are going to pan out or not. That's the kind of obedience we learned from our parents, wasn't it? You just do it (clean your room, wash the dishes, feed the dog) because they tell you to, not because you always know why they're asking it of you. (As a side note, I'm still wondering why my mom always wanted me to clean my room, because it didn't last for long no matter how well I did it!)

Anyway, I could use everyone's prayers in this realm, if you're willing or feel impressed to pray for me......
For my permanent resident visa to come through speedily
That I will continue to obey God and not drag my feet
For God to bring clients to me, and for volunteer births as well
That He will give me guidence as to which course of midwifery I should pursue
Most of all, that His will would be done in our lives, our marriage, and our ministry here.

Thanks for listening.