Call the midwife.

My daughter took this picture. 

 " A midwife is a health professional trained to support and care for women during pregnancy, labour, and birth. They help you to stay healthy in pregnancy and, if no complications arise, to give birth with little intervention.  Midwives also care for Mom and baby in the first few weeks following the birth." (www.pregnancybirthbaby.org)

There is such a need for prenatal care, as well as help and assistance for pregnant Mommas, in this area of Kenya. This is mostly because the local women have Female Genital Mutilation done to them when they are children. Until this pracrice ceases to exist females suffer all throughout their lives. My neighbor has told me she has had so many urinary tract infections that antibiotics no longer work. During her time of the month pain is excruciating and she can only lie on the bed until those days are over. My neighbor was very young when she got married, just a babe herself, a teenager. This story is the exact same for so many. My neighbors husband divorced her after they had their first child together, so she only has that one son. But for most women they will have one baby after another without any time for their bodies to recover. Families are so large even though there is not enough money to get food. This cycle runs over and over. That is the way it is here and how things have always been done. My deep desire is for Jesus to bring change into these families lives and the evil practices of FGM and forced child marriages to come to end. For now, as a believer, we can bring love and support to our neighbors who show up at medical clinics.

 We can remember when the people who live around the farm agreed to give land to our friends and partners Amos and Grace. Their specific request was that a clinic be the first thing built on this land. This is so that their women's lives would be saved during child labour. Every Thursday the clinic building at the farm is open and assists an average of 75 people each week. There has been a remarkable decrease in infant deaths and this praise goes to the Lord for providing the resources to make this difference.

Right now Leigha Brewster is here on a survey trip. She is here to get a feel for this place and see if God will call her to Gtown to use her gifts and knowledge as a midwife. My daughters got to sit in the room with her on Thursday and watch her in action. Leigha helped a pregnant Momma hear the sound of her babies heartbeat, which such a foreign concept. Most pregnant women never make any plans for their baby entering the world because of their fatalistic mindset. There are no guarantees and death is more common than not. So hearing the heartbeat was extremely powerful. There is life in that womb and it cannot be denied. The Lord may bring Leigha here and He may not. Either way I know He will use her mightily to stick up for women who need to know they are valuable and fight for a healthy pregnancy and delivery for expectant Mommas.

"The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the King had told them to do, they let the boys live.

Then the King of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, 'Why have you done This? Why have you let the boys live?'

The midwives answered Pharaoh, 'Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before midwives arrive.'

So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own." Exodus 1:17-21

Families at the clinic waiting to see the doctor.

Leigha and her Dad-we call him best friend Kyle.