waiting for their children to be born..

this is where i work.

Welcome to the world baby!

Last week I had the privilege of welcoming life into the world with my own two hands!!

Hello.

I've been in Africa for six weeks now with the birth attendant school. We are fully engaged in the applied lecture phase - volunteering as midwives at a busy referall hospital in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam.

Life on the base where we live in Mwandege is simple. Very different from home - like meals being cooked everyday over firewood. The people on the YWAM base work hard and sing beautifully! I have noticed one woman, named Martha, who is YWAM staff at our base --

Martha works hard all day and into the night too. Everytime I see her she is smiling and it's obvious she does her work to please God and not men. I am thankful for the daily living example I see in her.

The songs they sing in Africa! Oh my! Often in their worship songs, they will repeat a few verses over and over and over. Songs about the character and nature of God. It's awesome!!

To see the nations of the earth coming together in unity and loving Jesus as one body is beautiful and powerful.

In my team alone we come from all over the world -- U.S. ,Canada, New Zealand, Germany, South Korea, Denmark, Australia, Holland, and Belize. It's awesome to meditate and reflect on God's character as you sing. Over and over and over.

Every Friday we stay home at the YWAM base to worship in the morning together as a class and afterward we have midwifery lectures from our WHO ( World Health Org. skills books ) -

One morning during worship, we split up into five groups and each of us wrote a little song choosing one characteristic of God as the theme. Then we came together and taught each other the simple songs and spent time worshipping God with these new songs!!It was so cool!!

I wish you could hear them!! We sang about God being the King, Healer, Anchor, Protector, and Holy. Since then we've had opportunities to keep singing those songs -- at the base where we live, in Churches here in Tanzania, and even as we drive to work - we sing.

TEMEKE HOSPITAL

Monday through Thursday,

8am - 3pm every week my team volunteers at Temeke Hospital.

The first week I was in the antenatal and postnatal ward with three other girls from my school and one staff member. Our ward is before the women go into the active stage of labour and after the women give birth. Second week I was in the ICU. Alot of time was spent cooling off babies with high fevers and teaching new mothers how to breastfeed. Some of them need help because they are recovering from C-sections. Next week I will go to the labour room --

I want to communicate the need.

There is a great need here at Temeke Hospital for more trained birth attendants.

It is a need I see every day I go in to work at the hospital.

This morning out on the street of the city I picked up a local newspaper. The front page caught my attention...

It was a picture of the antenatal and postnatal ward where I worked my first week in the hospital.

- From this article I will quote a statement made by WRATZ coordinator Rose Mlay, stressing that "the single proven approach that has reduced MMR ( maternal mortality rate ) and NMR ( newborn mortality rate ) worldwide is the presence of skilled birth attendants or health professional at every child birth. "

According to WRATZ, every single hour in Tanzania a woman dies needlessly in childbirth or from complications in pregnancy. For this reason, the organizations nationwide stragety focuses on encouraging policy makers and society as a whole to train, employ, deploy and retain adequate numbers of qualified health workers in a bid to reduce maternal and newborn deaths.

an E-MAIL that I wrote to a friend that I will share with you all.

Because I wanted to write more, but I am running out of time today..

I'm going to include an e-mail that I sent to a friend of mine with a little more information.

Enjoy!

"Oh dear Liz!!
SO happy to get an email from you :)
I'm in the city today with my team, it's our day off so we're all busy writing emails in the internet cafes. I miss you too!!
I saw a picture of zach and juli's wedding. they look so happy and beautiful together!!

I am learning so much. And not only growing in my skills as a midwife, but also growing spiritually in my relationship with God. There are challenges here, and we see hard things sometimes.. but the joy we have is so big too. and seeing the hope that jesus can bring to women in labour and the comfort he can give is awesome.

Pray for my heart liz, I want it to remain soft and hopeful. To keep joy even when the pain we see is so great. To be able to weep with the women who lose their child. Comfort and hold and pray over the baby whose mom died after labour. and keep trusting God with all my heart. Deeper and deeper I want my trust in God to go; and I want to be a midwife who makes Jesus known to the women in labour and the child that is born. Pray for more labourers to be sent into this harvest!! There is such a great need here in our hospital for trained birth attendants. The need is so great liz. The hospital is so crowded. with 4 -5 women on ONE bed, and even lying on the hospital floor. We have seen life here and we have seen death here too.

We have seen babies live that were pronounced stillborn, praise the lord!! He is able to give life again!!

I love you so much liz, my sister in Christ. Keep strong, and follow the leading of God wholeheartedly. I know God will use you in mighty ways with the deaf people. You've got such a passion and it's beautiful. I can't wait to hear YOUR stories too!! I have to go now.

Love ya' "

In Closing.

Thank you all for all your prayers and support. It means so much to me.

Perhaps God will call some of you into this harvest field. Wherever you are, remember there is HOPE. God is the author and giver of life.

Living and learning, Orissa

Miji FINALLY posts that update.... (;

So, heylo people. I am very sorry for not posting this update sooner. But, here I am, at long last, posting it! Hurray(:

So, my dear sweet Ori has been in Tanzania with the rest of the Birthing Attendant School for over three weeks! They have been waiting on their work visas all this time.........and finally were able to work their first day in the clinic on Monday! Yay(:

Well...I'm not quite sure what else to say at the moment, so I'll just post parts of Orissa's email to us when she first arrived in Tanzania. (:

Orissa's email:

We are in the country on 81 acres. They have a farm and grow food. There are a lot of mango trees here and the season for them is December. They also have pineapples and coconuts. ( Miji, how did you make haupia in Hawaii? ) We are very blessed here to have clean water. They have a well and have tested their water, it tastes good and it’s a relief to be able to drink from the tap without worries.

Today is our first day free and some of us are taking a trip to the city; to get out money, send our emails and buy fruit. By the way, it is Saturday.

Breakfast here is usually a piece of bread with peanut butter or sugar and to drink we have tea and coffee. For lunch we eat Ugali ( look it up ) it’s a staple food here. With the Ugali we have beans and sometimes a little vegetable or boiled potato. Last night the meal was delicious! For two days we have seen someone scraping the white meat out of coconuts and then they put water over that and squeeze it to extract the milk. They took that coconut milk and cooked our rice for last night in it. With red beans and a little salad of tomato and onion.

I had a hard day yesterday, and cried a little but I finally talked with someone and felt better. We shared testimonies with each other yesterday.

I am typing up this email in my room at the base and then I’m putting it on a stick to take and send quickly in town.

We wash our clothes by hand here and dry them on a line. We have a classroom with a concrete floor, windows and desks that seat two. In my room there are three bunk beds. We have one shelf that we’ve divided among the six of us. We keep our books in the windows and we have two chairs in here. I am the daily storyteller here and we have been reading ‘Little Women’. We hear the call to prayer here; the first one is at 5 a.m. The village surrounding this base is mainly Muslim.

If you want to pray for the base, you can pray for rain because they really need rain.

PS. UPDATE!! I bought a cell phone today!! I bet you’re smiling about this news as you read it!! My cell phone number is 011-2557-5-846-4573.

(NOTE: Tanzania is 8 hours ahead pf Central US Time)

I can’t wait to get a call from YOU!! I love you. (Mom's note: if you have at&t mobile you can add global world for $3.99 month, and then calls to Tanzania are only 55 cents a minute. You can cancel the plan form at&t at any time)

· We might get internet here on the base. But we could ONLY use it for sending emails and no pictures.


I want to write more Mom, but we’re leaving soon and I need to finish this e-mail before we go. Please give my love to the family. I love you soooo much. Thanks again for the wonderful box you sent. And for the card. I brought it with me to read in Tanzania. And I have the ‘Oh the places you’ll go’ book here with me too.


Love, Orissa

I'm in Africa now :)

Hello to all!

I'm sorry there haven't been any updates in awhile...

I am in Tanzania now. We are going to start working in a hospital in Dar es Salaam next week.

On the bus today into the city I met a woman who is an assistant pastor. I was singing a song in Spanish about having faith like a grain of a mustard seed that can move mountains and she heard me and initiated a conversation. She is a born again Christian and we had a nice talk as we drove along. She said their Church is going to be praying for us midwives who are here to bring healthcare and God's kingdom.

If you want to hear testimonies from our team, check out the website we have ( http://www.ywamperth.org.au/ and look under the BAS birth attendant school and read our outreach testimonies each week! )

Keep praying for us!

Lovin' Jesus,
Orissa

My friend and I went to a park last Saturday and we saw kangaroos. We were there that day celebrating two wedding;

Marchien's friends were getting married in Holland and my friends were getting married in America. Since we are both in Australia and couldn't be with them on their special day we decided to have a little party here in thought of them.

These pictures are from that day.

" Congratulation Luke and Katie!! " Love, Ori

Yesterday we went on a little field trip to a local private hospital. We were given a lecture and we got to examine a placenta that had been delivered earlier that morning. So cool!

I hope none of you mind the sight of a little blood.

We leave for outreach in 11 days! Peace out.

HI :)

Dear family and friends,

I am really sorry that my updates have been few and far between. I think about you all alot and wonder how everyone is doing... Mom says you all wonder about me too and that's why I really need to write more when I update this blog and write more frequently. So, .. yes - I'll keep trying. Sometimes there's so much happening here I'm just not sure what to say.

I'd love to hear updates from you too, about your lives.

The sausage sizzle fundraiser went really well. I'll have to check again on the exact figures and then I'll post how much we raised!

My school leaves in one month for Tanzania.

It's late here and I don't have much time for this update because the skype callI made to my family lasted for almost two hours! That is a good thing - it was wonderful to see them ( video ) and talk to my mom and sisters.

I'm going to bed now - Goodnight ( really goodmorning to most of you! )

Sincerely, and thanks for checking in.. come back soon, love...

Orissa