Invitation to Education  When we began the work of the Sarobidy Maternity Center 8+ years ago, we reached out to a well-respected local physician who has her own full-scope clinic and asked if she would consider being the back-up consulting physician for our program. She agreed and in these past 8+ years, she’s been an incredible gift– sharing her knowledge and wisdom, receiving our patients when we need to refer them to her...

A Grim Reality…  In Madagascar, like many developing countries throughout the world, women die all too frequently due to preventable complications in pregnancy, labor and delivery, and the immediate postpartum period– globally 800 girls and women die everyday in pregnancy and childbirth (Unicef).  In January, a young family came to the Sarobidy Maternity Center, the mother holding the hand of her 2-year...

Continuing medical education for doctors, nurses, midwives or any other health professional is not a requirement in Madagascar. Once a diploma is granted, learning can essentially cease. This lack of continuing medical education, coupled with rogue memorization only heightens the deep fractures that are found in both the educational system and medical system here on the red island.  Though our midwives at the Sarobidy Maternity Center have...

Thin line between life and death… We thank you for your prayers this last month for the women that were due in October. 14 babies entered the world… and by God’s grace, all 14 babies and mamas are alive today. It was the busiest month to date for deliveries at the Sarobidy Maternity Center and it was also the most intense month to date for emergency complications. One baby needed resuscitation at birth, three women experienced...

Of God’s goodness… Two weeks ago we left our beloved home in Madagascar… it was a hard and tearful goodbye. Leaving all that is known and loved… home, friends, routines, our work and going to a new country where everything is unknown. We stopped off in Kenya for four days to visit Rift Valley Academy (RVA), the boarding school for missionary kids where Jamie spent his junior high and high school years– he would...

In recent months we’ve been growing our program at the Sarobidy Maternity Center in order to provide safe and compassionate care to more moms and babies in our community. In fact, we’ve doubled our numbers. In the upcoming months we’ll be serving nearly 140 women on a weekly basis through our prenatal and postpartum programs. This is in addition to the women that come to our weekly family planning program. We’ve made...

An image an hour on the 10th of the month to capture the gift that is daily life. Homemade bows and arrows, second to the last week of English homeschooling, market day, whittling wood, haircuts, a helper in the kitchen, Canadian friends, and sweet, sweet sleep.    

Bonjour… Change on the horizon Born to missionary parents 41 years ago, Jamie entered the world in a hospital in the capital city of Madagascar. 19 years ago, I stepped foot for the first time on the red soil of Madagascar with a team that Jamie led. Both of these events have undoubtedly changed the course of our lives. Seven+ years ago, we moved our little family of five back to Madagascar to live and serve the Lord full-time. These past...

It’s 3:04am. I typically keep my nighttime festivities to a bit earlier but jet lag is keeping me and our 10-year old awake after arriving back from our whirlwind trip to America just last night. We’ve already had 2am munchies of salami, cheese and crackers, played mad libs, lathered ourselves with essential oils and taken meds to help us get into a sleepy state. Still nothing. Knowing that I’ll likely never get around to...

Thank you for your prayers as we traveled back to the great red island earlier this month! It was the most seamless travel from the USA to Madagascar to date! We know this was God’s grace to us as the first two weeks of our return were perhaps some of the harder weeks of transition that we’ve endured in past years– or at least it felt so.   Airing the Dirty Laundry…   Madagascar consistently ranks in the top 10...

The Sarobidy Maternity Center opened in May 2013– to be honest, it was a completely unconventional wild-whirlwind-not-the-most-strategically-planned opening. Six months before opening day, we didn’t have any money, didn’t have any staff, had an entire house to renovate to become a functioning maternity center, didn’t have any charts or educational material, didn’t have any supplies and certainly didn’t have a...

Goodbyes… Thank you for your prayers for the three families– the Bright’s, Gough’s, and Jensen’s that left Madagascar earlier this month. The last year has been a gift in so many ways for us personally, as a field, ministry-wise and for each of the families and those they interacted with daily. Goodbyes are never easy but the sadness and tears are truly a testimony to the intensity of the life shared together over...

I’ve been thinking a lot about TCK’s lately… third culture kids.  You may or may not be familiar with that terminology or what in the world it means.  Essentially TCK’s are those kids that grow up in a culture other than their parents home culture (or first culture).  Therefore they typically don’t truly identify themselves with their parents culture but they don’t truly identify themselves with their host...

Today we celebrated the 1-year anniversary since opening the Sarobidy Maternity Center.  As a staff team, we celebrated by giving each other high-fives, hootin’ and hollerin’ and conducting prenatal visits.  It’s been a joy to watch this dream become a reality, to watch how God moves, to experience His provision and His grace.  It’s been a gift to enter into women’s lives here, to come closer to the depths of their...

It’s been really good to be back to work at the Sarobidy Maternity Center. To be with these women, to build relationships with them, to hear their stories of triumph and defeat, to rejoice with them and mourn with them, to laugh with them, sing with them and pray with them.  To marvel with them over their babies and to giggle together when their baby smiles, rolls over and begins to crawl.  It’s been good and it’s been totally...

On Monday, Jamie and I are traveling, sans kiddos, to Haiti for 5 days! You may wonder, Haiti– why Haiti?  In truth… it’s a good excuse to have some much needed time away from our tribe of little crazies, er… kids.  The first time ever actually…in over 7 years!  But really, there’s an even better reason why we’re traveling to Haiti– to visit the Heartline Maternity Center.  This awesome maternity...

On Monday, May 13th, just 1 day after American Mother’s Day (Malagasy Mother’s Day is actually the 26 of May), we officially opened the doors of the Sarobidy Maternity Center.  What a feeling!  We received the first 5 pregnant women that day and the joy in the air was palpable. The second week, we added the education component to the prenatal program.  As you can see from the picture… we started with the basics…. On...

It’s the eve of opening day… not the eve of the opening day of baseball season… though I have desperately missed the last few years of these. Not the eve of a summer break or the eve of a beautiful relaxing vacation, though both of those would be great too.  Rather, it’s the eve of the opening day of the Sarobidy Maternity Center. It’s CRAZY to think back to summer 2007 when God whispered this plan to me, the way...

When 1+1+1= 42… Forty-two is the number of boys and girls that are now receiving a preschool and early elementary school education after a father and his two adult daughters each took out a $95 loan and then combined them to open the Glory School.   Forty-two kids who no longer need to walk 2 hours to go to school in town.  Their favorite subjects?  Math, reading, writing and of course PE… which includes playing soccer and using a...

I’m not sure of the number of traditional midwives here in Madagascar but I know there’s a good number of them.  These women have no formal training but rather their knowledge has been passed down from older generations.  Dadan’i Sisy, pictured here with her youngest grandson, Jedi in 2002, was a traditional midwife in Mahabana for several years.  She has since moved to our city of Mahajanga where she cares for Jedi and his...

I have so many blog posts swirling around in my head that I may start to get dizzy.  I’m always inspired to write when I’m here but don’t always get the time to do so.  I’ve got some fun things to share, some stories to share, some people to introduce you to, and unfortunately  some sad things to share about life and so many of the injustices around us. This time though I’m going to share with you about the...

That’s right… I passed my NARM midwifery board exams!  How ’bout a little “woohoo!” with me!?!  I’m absolutely thrilled and so incredibly relieved!  To be quite honest, in the last two weeks since my test, I haven’t spent too much time thinking about my results.  I think there was just too many other things to accomplish.  The morning after the exam when I returned from Sacramento, we hit full-board the...

The last 3 years of my life have been forever shifted.  It all started one day when I was vacuuming our house…. which really is a miracle in itself because I loathe vacuuming.  It’s one of the jobs I leave for my incredibly awesome husband.  Fortunately, in Madagascar we don’t have carpet so Jamie gets out of vacuuming but we do have tile floors and lots of dirt and mud and grass and bugs, pick your poison I guess.  Alas, I digress. Like I was...

Yesterday I did something that I’ve only done one other time in my life as a parent for the last 6+ years… I left all my kids and husband and boarded an airplane and flew to another state.  The last time this occurred I went to a Midwifery Volunteerism in Developing Countries seminar in Taos, NM.  This time, I’m in Boise, Idaho for a 6-day intensive midwifery study retreat just prior to my all-encompassing-I-really-pray-I-pass...

Ok, so I think I just totally made up that word…. the busies but nonetheless, that’s what life is these days. Full of the busies, with studying for my midwifery board exams, writing thank you notes, partnership development, purchasing plane tickets, organizing events, developing a website, teaching our kids to read, being a mom and a wife and daughter and trying to find some sanity in it all with exercise and quiet time and...

Part of the goal of our work here in Madagascar is to see the health of the Malagasy people restored.  Nutrition is a huge part of the restoration of health.  There is a tree here in Madagascar, called felomorongo, in English, it’s the Moringa tree.  It’s also known as the “Miracle Tree” and “Mother’s Best Friend”.  And for good reason… check this out… (taken from the TreesForLife website)   While in Mahabana two weeks ago, we...

Two weeks ago, Jamie wrapped up Sekoly (preschool) with the kids, Isabella (5), Eliana (3), and Oliver (3).  We celebrated this milestone for all of them with a little graduation ceremony.  They sang their favorite songs, showed us how they know their letters and the sounds they make, showed us the world map and where their hometowns are as well as Madagascar, and presented their parents with the last 6 months of their artwork and letters...

Yesterday our Malagasy class took a field trip to a school for visually impaired children.  The purpose of such field trips is to not only to be able to listen and speak in Malagasy but also to raise our cultural awareness.  I love these field trips and find them absolutely fascinating.  This school is the largest center on the island of Madagascar.  It was started in 1924 and moved to it’s current location in the town of Antsirabe in 1995. ...