Feet in Two Worlds

So here we are in an unreal place - the Shangri La Resort in Cebu. We're here because some visitors (staff and supporters of the work my husband does) are treating us to two nights here.

(photo taken from Shangri La Cebu website)

Now, don't get me wrong because I am very thankful to be here, I just feel the need to reflect on my experiences this past week and how the disparity between two worlds makes me feel.

It's as if the other world, the world known by the poor, is the reality. And this, here, is just contrived and made up to anesthetize one's self to the true reality that exists just beyond this estate.*

In the past week,

• I went with two women to the hospital for a check up to have IUDs removed. One woman was found to have extremely high blood pressure. We were sent to the ER and I was able to help with some meds to try to get her BP down (not effective). The woman eventually signed out of the hospital against medical advice with dangerously high blood pressure because she has no money for the recommended admission and lab tests. I was unable to convince her to check in at a less expensive hospital where we could assist in the cost. She said she felt fine. We prayed together and I took her home.

• I walked around a slum area alone, a little lost when I didn't have a way to meet up with friends I had meant to connect with. Friends meet in this community several times a week to get to know people there and disciple new believers. I've been joining lately and have been able to help with some medical needs of some of the women there. I felt insecure and embarrassed as I walked around and asked for directions. People stared and smiled and said something like, "Look! There's an Americana." I was concerned about the mud created from the last rain getting on my jeans. I almost lost my rubber flip flop to the mud that attempted to swallow it. I eventually found someone I knew and she took me to a shack of a home where the woman with high B/P lived, who I had taken to the hospital the day before. We visited for a while and we prayed together for healing. Then I went home feeling pleased with myself for not giving up and trying to find my way for the first time by myself in an unfamiliar place and was happy it at least resulted in something small.

• I visited a woman who lives near some fish ponds in a place that regularly gets flooded during rainy season. I got to give my first depo shot as a certified professional midwife. She told me I could post the following photo (It felt significant that I was administering family planning for the first time as an autonomous midwife). To get there, we walked on raised bamboo paths that were built over muddy, stagnant, garbage-filled water. I walked carefully for fear that I'd fall in.

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

• I joined in a bible study with new believers who live in either a neighborhood like the photos below or on the street. We read together from Psalm 107 and asked them to share what part they could relate to. Two women in particular said they could relate to this: "Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress." I heard stories how these women and their children hadn't eaten all day and how they cried out to God and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, they had food. One of the women shared how her 9-month-old son had become extremely ill. His eyes were rolling in the back of his head, he wouldn't eat, and was vomiting. She prayed. A friend of mine from our church community happened to be in the area at an unusual time and suddenly ran into this woman and her child. They were able to admit the child at the public hospital where he received treatment for potassium deficiency. For this woman, this was a clear answer to her prayer for help. Thank you, Jesus!

• 
  

• I toured the public hospital with 30 American teenaged volunteers from Texas. I walked around the hospital feeling disgusted like I sometimes do when I walk through other parts of the city that feel spiritually oppressive and dark. We spent much time in the pediatric ward, praying for families and children. I met a young man in a stairwell whose girlfriend just lost their baby at only 6 months gestation. I saw an old woman in the ER on whom the staff was performing CPR and nobody seemed to make the effort to cover her body clothed only in undergarments. There was a crowd that gathered to watch and I couldn't bear to take in the show or know what may eventually happen. The whole scene just felt so undignified. I felt totally unprepared to walk around and minister to people so I just translated for the volunteers. I struggled with a strong desire to leave as soon as possible and not think about this place.

• On my last night shift I assisted the delivery of a growth-restricted baby who weighed only 2.1 kg (4 lbs, 10 oz) and watched his young parents look utterly hopeless because they only had 200 pesos and they were going to need money to pay for meds/supplies/care for their baby. I knew they already had a special needs child who was also growth-restricted in the womb. I noticed during delivery that the corners of the mom's mouth were bleeding possibly due to vitamin B and/or vitamin C deficiency while she had to forcefully and quickly push her baby out because his heart slowed down to 50 as his cord was trapped between his head and the mother's pelvis and then was born completely white and floppy with a heart rate of only 70 (normal is 120-160) and us resuscitating him with an ambu bag. He survived and we stayed up all night monitoring him.

So these are some of the places and events that filled my week and now I'm here at the Shangri La and it feels like a fantasy land - so not real! Life just goes on satisfying one's need for pleasure, perhaps to pacify the need for something greater, while the reality for the poor carries on with no end in sight. I recognize my own feelings of inadequacy and selfishness. I can not be satisfied any longer with such pleasures in excess - for in the darkness of the night lately I wake and sense the struggles of the poor and suffering and I can do nothing but carry their burdens to the Father and pray for wisdom regarding my role in it all.

*I am not judging those who take time to rest in a beautiful place, as we often do. I am speaking against the portion of the world that seems to carry on with a fantasy life oblivious to the plight of the poor, which is also a life I have tasted.

Lately and Some Venting

I've grown remiss once again with the blogging. Sorry about that. I just have more than enough on my plate lately and I'm trying to prioritize accordingly. I still haven't even posted about Thanksgiving! I still plan to share the recipes that worked out so well this year. I will get to that... For now I just have time for a quick update on what's going on lately.

Just yesterday I finally got word that I have permission to take the North American Registry of Midwives exam. Yeah! Today I will submit my written intent with my chosen test site. Once I get confirmation, which is expected by the first week of January, I can then make travel plans. On the intent form there was an additional test sight - Portland, Oregon. I had planned to travel to Eugene but Portland would be even better (closer to Seattle where I'll be driving from) and a really cool city to hang out in. Hopefully enough people sign up to test in Portland. For now I have to wait and see. I've been struggling to find time for studying but with this new development I'm starting to feel like I really must get serious. I've requested to only work one shift per week next month so that will really help.

I'm on call these days for my first home birth. Have I mentioned that? Our pastor's wife is due any day now (she's 39+ weeks) and I'll be assisting at her birth with a midwife friend who used to work at Glory Reborn and now lives in Hong Kong. She is in Cebu just to attend this birth. She delivered this woman's first baby five years ago. I'm really looking forward to it!

Tomorrow I'm teaching the second class in my series on Women's Health to young women and girls recovering from some really tough challenges in their lives. I have learned that most of them have already had a baby and one is pregnant. Tomorrow's topic is the female reproductive system and well-woman care. I continue to be shocked at how little young women know about their bodies in this country.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to pray with an 18-year-old girl who tried to abort her baby (unsuccessfully) after finding she was pregnant. She's in her 3rd year of college and the father is also a student who may or may not even know she's pregnant, as they are no longer in contact. She had absolutely no intention of getting pregnant. So why did she choose to have unprotected sex? Is it because she didn't know? Or did she know but didn't have access to ways to protect herself? I really wonder if she knew that getting pregnant was what happens when you have unprotected sex (among other things!).

Also this week we sent a 19-year-old woman for an ultrasound because the size of her belly did not correlate with how many weeks pregnant she thought she was. As it turned out she wasn't even pregnant. I saw this as an opportunity to discuss whether she had planned this pregnancy and if so, why would wanted a baby. She's single, only reached high school level education, and has no job. When I asked her she said that she wasn't planning to get pregnant but was happy about the idea of having a baby. Why? I asked her. With a childlike grin she shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't know why, she just want to. I noticed on her intake form that she had no history of using any contraceptives. I informed her of what she was exposing herself to every time she had unprotected sex and I'm telling you her face was as if she had never heard that you could get an infection or God-forbid HIV from having unprotected sex, not to mention get pregnant. I encouraged her to not have sex because men tend to use women in this way but if she were going to have sex, at least protect herself!

I also discussed what having a baby would be like. How much is costs and asked her how she would care for a child when she has no job. I told her how hard it is to raise a child without a partner and that God's plan for family is such because it is hard work! Babies need a father and a mother who have work to provide for them in the context of a loving committed marriage relationship. That is God's design and it is that way for a reason. As I shared she started to cry and told me that this guy she had temporarily hooked up with had talked her into having sex and she didn't really want to do it.

After you live in the Philippines and work with pregnant women for a while it becomes clear that men here just don't like to use condoms. Not single men. Not married men. They don't like it and so they refuse to use them. I mean, why would they? It's not their problem if their woman gets pregnant. It's not their problem if the asymptomatic chlamydia they are carrying is spread to god knows how many other women. And besides women will still have sex with them even without a condom so why would they use one?

One of the guards at the clinic the other day was wearing shirt that had a picture of a condom on a yellow traffic yield sign and a big X over it. Below it read, "Protection. What every man is afraid to see."

Back to the 19-year-old.... Trying to hold back my emotions I tried to explain to her how she has a right to make her own choices based on how she wants to live her life and that any guy that will be with her only if she's having sex with him is no guy she should be with!

I entreated her to take care of herself, to protect herself and to make good choices by thinking about consequences. Honestly, I told her, do you really think having a baby is a good idea? She agreed that it was not.

I get so worked up about these things! These young, ignorant girls living in a culture where men seem to have so much power! It's so frustrating because if only the women would step up and exert their own power, men wouldn't be able to take advantage of them as much. This all starts, I believe, with education. Education is power. How can we expect people to make good choices if they don't have information!?

And here is where I may get offensive to anyone who is Catholic or anyone who is against sexual education and information on family planning and contraception. I just get so pissed off that these issues are ignored in an attempt to not give approval to anyone having sex outside of marriage but the fact is EVERYONE IS HAVING SEX ANYWAY!!! Hello! And they are doing it without the knowledge of the consequences and are subsequently not protecting themselves and it is the women especially who suffer here as they are the ones who have to put their lives at risk to keep having babies and who's infections actually potentially damage their reproductive systems and can wreak havoc in their unborn baby's developing body. It is the men who can spread their seeds and infections without any apparent harmful effect. Argh!!!

Another t-shirt I saw on a man in the Philippines sums this up pretty well. It read, "Who are all these kids? And why are they calling me Daddy?"

So what do we end up with? Young, single girls trying to dangerously abort their babies. Unwanted pregnancies. Impoverished children who grow up malnourished and ignorant and uneducated who end up in the same situation as their mothers - young and pregnant. And the cycle of poverty goes on and on and on. I just want to scream!

There is this reproductive health bill in the Philippines that is very controversial and of course, the catholic church staunchly opposes it. Meanwhile the maternal mortality rate is not improving. Rates of STDs and HIV are creeping up and the population is growing very fast. If I remember this correctly, nearly half of the population are urban poor and living on less than $2 a day. Young girls are pressured to provide for their poor, struggling families and end up in sex work and eventually get pregnant. Mothers leave their children to work overseas, desperate for a way to climb out of poverty by being able to afford an education for their children. Broken families. And the entire nation suffers.