week four

one month. my how this time has flown by! this past week was a great week! the week started with being able to go with Naomi to her church and then just hang out at her house for the afternoon. so nice to be off base and experience some ‘normality’ haha! then right back to it monday, with this week’s topic in prenatal care. (Australians call it antenatal care) our speaker was a lady named Consuelo and she is from Texas. she did her BAS in 2003 (?) and then went back to the states to get her certificate to practice there. she primarily works with Mexicans who come over the border or live around the town she works from and spending lots of time oversea’s as well. in fact last year she was able to visit the BAS on outreach while they were in India, and may be joining us as well when we go on outreach!

so this weeks lectures consisted of learning all the different ways the baby is positioned in its mother. (i won’t get into detail as there are many ways!) how to palpate the stomach to feel where the baby is and where to hear its fetal heartbeat. (which because one of our staff is 26 weeks pregnant we were given the chance to learn first hand and hear the babies heartbeat via a doppler! so neat!) also spending a lot of time learning how to go about the women's first check up, and so on. what questions to ask and what to look for in making sure the women is healthy and the pregnancy is going normally. we did a mock check up friday with our staff pretending to be pregnant... it was a little intimidating not gonna lie! haha! but i really enjoy getting to learn more about each women as each pregnancy is different.

our school as a whole is going very well, we were able to spend our ‘small groups’ at the park this week, and even though it was quite chilly it was a really nice afternoon just to hang out and have tea and scones together! God has been blessing our school immensely, our car wash went wonderful last weekend, bringing in just over $700!!! which goes towards outreach fee’s for those who don’t have enough (which is the majority in our school at this moment) he has also blessed us in unity, we all get along really well and have been able to just enjoy hanging out together and sharing with each other. you’d think with 16 women together there’d be some form of drama but nope, we’ve got none! praise the Lord!

well i realize this is terribly long, and i’m sure some have stopped reading by now, so i’ll wrap it up! i’m not sure which is better, one long on at the end of each week, or two shorter ones? oh well! this works for me! i hope you all at home are enjoying your summers, spend some time at the beach for me!!!!

Team Photo!

week three

Okay so week three... what can i say? it has been an extremely busy week. last weekend was a lot of fun, finally got to see more of Perth! went to Freemantol (a suburb about 30 mins away by train) with a bunch of the BAS girls and got to walk around the old town and dip my toes in the Indian ocean for the first time! then the remainder of the weekend was spent doing homework and projects for class. every week a group has to present a teaching on health issues that we will be teaching about on outreach. me and my partner chose the topic of ‘dehydration in a newborn’ and had to ‘teach’ our class on the subject. it went well, i actually enjoy doing presentations! its so strange to be back in the ‘school’ setting. i’m starting to get used to it more but it can be challenging at times to have homework and sit listening for the lectures.
so my week? basically has been classes, work duties, classes, ministry times and homework! the topics we covered this week had a lot to do with the nutrition and needs in a pregnant women. it is really neat to learn the information from the perspective of a women in a developing nation. to learn what foods are important but not easily accessible to the women because of where they live, their financial standing or just a lack of knowledge that they actually need to be eating certain vitamins and minerals. something very interesting and shocking to me was that was majority of deaths in these areas is related to lack of information and lack of nutrition in the women’s diet. something so simple as a women not getting enough iron in her diet can be life or death. the more we learn the more passionate i am about bring awareness to these area’s and helping save lives!
some other topics covered were, urine analysis, anemia, weaning foods for the newborn and some prenatal check up information. next week we’ll have more on prenatal check ups! i’m pretty excited, our speaker is coming from the states, she apparently did her BAS in 2002 and then went on to get certified in the states and now is a midwife there to many mexicans who come over the border....(not sure all the details i’m sure i’ll find out though!)
this weekend our school is having a car wash to help raise funds for outreach, as most of the girls don’t have enough yet. then sunday i’m going to church with one of the other students (Naomi) who lives here in Perth and hopefully will just be able to relax a bit as i have finished most of my homework for the week!
thats about all i got right now, its late here as i write this, almost 1 am... but every friday night at this time a group of us are in a prayer chain (the base is, as a whole having 24/7 prayer so each person is in a different time slot for one hour) so i suppose i need to go and wake up the other girls in my group!
by for now....:)

photo problems

so i have tried to update you all with a photo's but its not working... for some reason its not acknowledging the albums i have in my folders that i've uploaded since being here. so i am sorry that i can put no picuters up....
if you really are interested you can email me and i can try and email you some photo's!
i8crayons@hotmail.com
once again sorry! if anyone has any suggestions let me know!

week two

So here we are, two weeks in.... life is extremely busy! to give you an idea of what it is i do all day here what a day here for a BAS student looks like. breakfast is a ‘fed for yourself’ kinda deal, and at 8 am the entire base is split into different work groups for ‘family chores’ for this week and the next 2 i am cleaning one of the houses that YWAM owns and students and staff live in. then at 830, depending on the day of the week, we either will have, worship, intercession, or lectures. that goes till 945 ish when we pause for ‘morning tea’ or ‘eat bread and have a cuppa (tea/coffee)’ after a short break we go strait into lectures till lunch (2 hours) after lunch everyday is ‘work duties’ where all the students are split up into different groups and assigned jobs around base, and because the Lord loves to teach me about his joy, i was placed in the kitchen doing the lunch clean up! woo hoo! hahaha! it actually is not that bad, the group i work with are a lot of fun and we work really well together. then at 330 we usually have two hours off (with the exception of mondays where we have our weekly ‘assessment’ or ‘test’) and then dinner is at 530. as for the evenings they vary depending on day of the week, Mondays are a small group (just hanging out with other BAS students and staff in a smaller setting) Tuesdays we have a night lecture, Wednesday is our study night, Thursday we have evangelism as an entire base and on friday we have our friday night meeting, which is basically a church service. weekends are usually free but we may be doing some fundraisers for those who do not have there outreach fee’s yet, but that is TBA.
so as you can see our schedule is extremely busy, and so my 2 hours (most days) off that i get is always a challenge to work on homework, go on-line to keep people in touch, go into town to run errands or rest and take nap! so i’m sorry if it seems i am not replying back to some of your messages i will always try to reply it just may take awhile! thanks for your patience!

so that is an outline of the week, every week is a different topic in lectures, this week was ‘the nature and character of God’ we shared lectures times with the DTS (disciple training school) and spent the time learning more about different characteristics of our amazing God that we serve! it was a time of revelation for me of how great he is and where he is taking my life. i am so thankful to serve such a loving God.

okay so also, (i’m almost done) some BIG news that i know many of you have asked me numerous times, ‘where am i going for outreach?’
well we were finally told today our locations for outreach, we are going to two differnet countries over the span of 8 months. the first 6 months will be spent in (drumroll please!) Tanzania!!!!!! (which as a side note i am EXTREMELY excited for, ever since i was young i have wanted to deliver babies in Africa!) and for the remainder 2 months we will be in India!!!!!! (again really excited!!) so that is my exciting news! please continue to pray for our school as outreach preperations begin, and our learning continues on so we are equipped for what lies ahead! as of the date of me leaving Perth, i believe that date is September 25 (yes i will be celebrating my 22nd birthday in Africa!) and returning at the end of May/beginning of June.

well thats all for now! talk to you later!

week one

so it has been a full week. i can't really put into words what this week has been, it has been challenging, encouraging, a little overwhelming but completely amazing! its so neat to know that i'm right where i'm supposed to be. we have had orientation, and lectures and much more. i will try and get up some pictures soon of a day to day kinda life to give you all a better idea of what we do here! this week lectures were on medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, midwifery in developing nations, what a Godly midwife looks like and learning how to take someones vitals! its quite neat to see how much knowledge they can fit into one week, but it has been really neat to hear testimonies of staff that have gone before us and can share us there experiences. the thing i'm super excited about is i learnt how to take someones blood pressure! haha! i never could understand how they know what to look/listen for and now i do! i soon have to purchase my own equipment, i already bought a thermometer so i'll have to get the rest shortly... so crazy i always feel like, 'what? how am i doing this?' but it is here, five years in the making and now the Lord has lead me to this place! i am so grateful! now we head into the weekend with a BAS breakfast tomorrow and then finishing up homework and hopefully getting to see more of Perth!

(i know a few of you are trying to comment and not being able to as you don't have a blog, you should be able to by selecting 'anonymous' as who is sending it)

made it!

hello, so i have made it to the land downunder..... it was a very long over 30 hour journey but i managed to get some sleep and make it here, only missing one flight and have to run through only one airport! (seriously Sydney airport) but yes i'm here! Praise the Lord! we start today, after lunch, which i'm excited for. we were given our 'welcome books' and it seems daunting about how much we will be learning but i'm exited! its very cold here, today i could see my breath on the walk over to mc donalds to take advantage of the free internet! not much else to share at this time, i suppose there will be lots to say once things get underway!