A simple life?

My thoughts aren't really happy and shiny today. But I need to get them out. For anyone reading this, this isn't meant at anyone directly. Nobody has failed me as a friend. We are who we are, and God directs us all differently. But sometimes I feel really different. I wish I knew someone who was like me, who could encourage me in my path in the ways I didn't know needed encouraging. I think we all have a desire to be known, that somebody out there in the world understands those deep down feelings, the ones that we often can't put into words but so strongly direct us. I have an amazing husband who thankfully is wired very similarly to me....but not exactly. He is a scientist, and his heart beats for getting people clean water and building new infrastructure in developing countries. So, so cool I know - but I wouldn't say he passionately desires to see women be free from morbidities associated from obstetric complications. :)
I am a third culture kid. I have moved countries three times, and have friendships and family flung thousands of miles away. I live far, far away from my family and connected community. I know that heart wrenching pain of saying goodbye, and not knowing when the next hello will be again. My parents were missionaries, as were their parents. I grew up around transient people, whose stories ignited a fire deep within me for the broken, lost and marginalized. I can't fathom living in one place more than ten years - the thought just isn't appealing. I see the world with such different eyes, because I have heard and seen things many people here haven't heard and seen. Life has had really difficult moments for me, in which I have had to deal with decisions and loss alone, as I was far away from loved ones and trusted mentors. I want so much more than to just have a house, a dog and three kids with summers spent at the lake. My dream is to tread into the rural foothills of Nepal, and the jungles of South America, and teach women how to manage labor and deal with complications when they arise. I want to establish programs that encourage breastfeeding, and improve maternal and perinatal health outcomes. I want children too, but I imagine them coming along with me to home visits, and being part of our journey. I see Auckland as our home base, but I know we will be gone frequently as we leave pieces of our hearts in far away corners of the world. These are the dreams I so long to share with a friend who understands. I have lots of beautiful and wonderful girlfriends who encourage me, but none whose hearts beat for the same things. Some just truly want to settle in one place. Go them, I just can't relate. I would love to discuss the WHO's millennium goals with a friend, and brainstorm ways in which we could contribute to their initiatives - or create one's of our own. I am sure once I move more into the area I will meet like-minded people, it would just be nice right now while I am in the decision making process to discuss some of these thoughts!!! Noah has been just amazing...even though I talk about the same things over and over he still listens and asks questions and is willing to discuss everything (even though the outcomes are never different, haha!). I am so glad he understands my heart, and knows how difficult and isolating it can be to be counter-cultural.
So many people I meet are simple...not that that is bad in any way, but our worlds are just so different. I often get, "wow, you have done so much for someone your age...I have never even been outside of Minnesota". During lunch breaks at work, we just talk about what happened during the weekend with the kids, and upcoming vacation plans to Disneyland. These women are amazing and incredible nurses, but this is their life. It is so different to mine. Sometimes its isolating. But, I have a heritage that brings isolation. My parents named me for Amy Carmichael - an English women who spent her life in India, rescuing girls who were given to be temple prostitutes. Her writings talk about feelings of isolation, but she lived a life of fullness. Maybe I will never have a friend exactly like me - thats ok. I have a Father who has placed those dreams in my heart, and He knows. He understands. I can rest in that.

tran·si·tion

"I will give you hidden treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name." Isaiah 45:3 I love this verse because it shows how God has gone before us and in every dark moment or painful circumstance has buried a treasure or stored a secret. The only way we can find the treasure or learn the secret is to pass through that darkness. Some things cannot be learned in the light.


This concept is something I have come to understand more and more in the past few weeks. Moving to Minnesota has been very hard on me, and I have gone through a grieving process....grieving my loss of culture, community, family and familiarity. However, as I have processed this grief and pain, I am grasping the treasures and secrets God has stored for me - treasures I could have only have found after passing through the darkness.

I know there is darkness ahead, and as a result more secrets to be found, but here are a few I have unearthed in this process.


1) Normal


The other day I was talking with a friend and she paused for a moment and said to me, " Amy, you are going through your worst nightmare. You have few who mean anything to you and who care. You are going through a painful journey. That needs to be validated. This is hard, and what you are experiencing is normal of anyone who has done what you are doing." I pretty much just broke down in tears. It was the first time I realized that I wasn't crazy, weak or pathetic. Other people who have had massive transition, had experienced the same thing. Realizing this, and allowing Gods grace to pour over me, really released the following four treasures to be unearthed. I know I am strong, but I can validate that my emotions and grief are real and ok - normal.

.....I have realized too that what I am learning enables me to one day have the capacity, compassion and insight to encourage someone going through a similar time. I have had loving and well-meant words of 'advice' from people, that has really wounded me. Not that they meant it at all, but their lack of experience and understanding further enforced my false beliefs that we were not in Gods will, that I was failing/weak that I was changing into a worse person. I am changing, but for the better. I will be a different person after this, and I hope to be!


2) Strength comes in the strive


Oswald Chambers wrote, "God does not give us overcoming life: He give us LIFE as we OVERCOME. The strain is the strength. If there is no strain, there is no strength. Are you asking God to give you life and liberty and joy? He cannot unless you accept the strain. Immediately when you face the strain you will get the strength!!"


Some days asking God for life and joy seems dumb. However, I realize when I ask for this I get strength to face the day (strain) which results in new found life and joy. I am discovering that contests like these are the ones that yield much fruit of character, and bring a deep sense that God can sustain us. I am working hard at gaining peace, I hope one day God will show me how to be at peace with myself, with him and with my role in the divine order of things. I tend to strive, and trust my own ability before God's.


3) Focusing on the day at hand


Anybody who knows me well knows I have dreams - lots of them! Dreams about where God is taking Noah and I, what my future holds, the difference I want to make in the world. However, some of these dreams (being in NZ, community, study etc) I was holding on to so tightly that it made my grief even harder to bear. All I could think about was that the next two years being here was going to be miserable. Something I have (and am) learning is to focus on THIS day.God gives us one day, and we follow the journey of that day. I may be missing the diamonds and treasures that God has in the day - through Noah, the staff I work with and the patients I care for on a daily basis. Being in tune to this helps give me purpose and meaning, in a time that feels meaningless. Noah reminded me the other day that I literally care for widows at my work. I would say that is purposeful :)

I may not be running my own NGO, saving babies in Africa, speaking in lectures and training up local midwives but I have realized even the smallest blessings to my patients - a five minute hand massage, listening to their concerns, crying with them and loving them - is meaningful and matters. I don't think Jesus measures us by the greatness of our actions, but by the ( ) of our hearts. And how we use the time and opportunities we are given (Thanks Monica).


4) Its hard, but that doesn't mean its wrong


My cousin Brennan shared this message with me from Dr. Michael Youssef (paraphrased.) Sometimes when God moves you through a door there is much adversity and so you think you are no longer in His will. You then pray for a door to be opened and He does and you move through and there is joy and order and so you now think you are in the middle of His will because things are going well.

However, God had to get your through the first door before the second, and that first door was His will. I do not know where this 'first door' will take me, but I know that it is preparing me for the second door - a different season. We are in Gods will for us, even though it is painful, heart wrenching and messy at times.


5) Marriage


Even though these past eight months have been hard, oh so hard, they have been fabulous for our marriage. Noah and I have seen each other in our worst, most vulnerable moments. Times of ugliness, flesh and selfishness. But that is the privilege and intimacy of marriage - I know Noah has seen me as raw as raw can be, and yet he has loved me, accepted me and encouraged me (and we are still married!) And I have done likewise for him. How beautiful is that? To be known, in all of ones weakness, by another and be loved. What a wonderful picture of Christs love and forgiveness for us. Nobody else in the world has seen me like Noah, and that has bonded us together in a special way. Moving to Minnesota, and my grief, has placed us in a pressure cooker of emotions and stress. By all means, we have not processed this perfectly and its been really stinking hard, but I am grateful for it. Noah has learned that he is not responsible for my happiness - my grief is not at him and he can't control it. All he can do is help me on my journey towards 'happiness.'


**Even if all I come out with is the ability to better relate to others in times of pain and transition, then I will be enormously better off. Its like our walks with Christ - We can believe so many things about God, that he loves us and forgives us. But the transformation comes in EXPERIENCING these things. If we do not truly know what it is to be loved and forgiven, we can never truly love and forgive others - in a way that is transformational. So it is with experiencing suffering, pain and huge transition.

A wounded heart

Not many people know this about me, you kind of have to be on the inner circle of my life to recognize it, but I have a secret love for infectious disease. Ever since I can remember I've loved learning about the plague, cholera, and yellow fever. The first time I was in a hospital when I was 6 I was hooked - to me it was a huge playground, filled with the promise of adventure. I loved taking the elevator to different floors, watching all the different kinds of people that were in them. My interest in medicine has never left me, however I am still surprised that I am lucky enough to be studying within the medical field. I have such a love for helping people, getting to love on them and take their pain away. Every day I step into the hospital I am filled with such joy that I get to learn and do the thing that I love. None of my fellow students know this, but on my lunch break I walk through the hallways were the hospice patients are, and I pray over each of the dying with a well of tears in my eyes (I'm surprised one of the nurses there hasn't called me in for a psych consult). I love to go and just sit with them and hold their hands. Each week one is gone, and the bed has been filled by another, but I am thankful that I was able to whisper a prayer for them and hold their hand before they left this earth.

I love when I make a crack into a patients stone heart. I had one older gentleman who was most disgruntled about being in the hospital and was most assuredly sceptical about what I was assessing on him. He tested me with questions, but I prevailed, and by the end of the day he didn't want any one else to care for him. I have to admit, I was proud of my accomplishment.

Although I don't have nearly the amount of years behind me as most nurses and doctors, I'm already starting to struggle with having a wounded heart. I am admittedly thin skinned, and those who know me well remind me I need to get a tougher skin if I'm going to survive. But I don't want to lose my ability to feel, and I DON'T want lose my tenderness. I'm reading a book called, " The woman with the worm in her head & other true stories of infectious disease" By Pamela Nagami, M.D. Its a book filled with clinical infectious disease cases, but Dr. Nagami paints these patients' stories with elegance and respect. Entwined among the stories is the story of Dr. Nagami herself, and her journey with a wounded heart. I've cried throughout this book - moved by the courage of the patients that she treated. I can't imagine how she must have felt actually working with them. This is a paragraph that she wrote that rang true for me. It is in regards to when she had to watch an abortion, and how it was then she discovered her wounded heart -

" Rabbi Yoshua ben Levi came upon Elijah the prophet.. He asked Elijah, "When will the messiah come?" Elijah replied, "Go and ask him yourself." "Where is he?" "Sitting at the gates of the city." "How shall I know him?" " He is sitting with the poor covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at the same time and them bind them up again. But he unbinds one at a time and binds it up again, saying to himself, 'Perhaps I shall be needed: if so I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment."

I still don't understand the purpose of the suffering I've seen, but I have come to believe that I'm supposed to witness it so I can help the next patient. When I was very young I fled the city gates but I didn't find the Messiah. I came back and learned and healed by wounding, which wounded me. Then one day, all alone in a room full of people, and under glaring lights, I caught a glimpse of God. And God, I saw, was suffering, too."

If you don't understand what she is saying, that's fine. Maybe it will mean something to you in the future, it touches me though and gives me hope.

For those of you who are still searching for direction, and your place in this world, I've come to discover that that information is already inside of you - part of who you are. I've discovered that we as sinful humans don't have the emotional capacity to be passionate about every injustice, to have our hearts break over every sadness and so God places specific passions in us. I started to pay attention to what made me really angry, really sad, really passionate. Some stories would cause my eyes to well up in tears, and others I would just walk away shaking my head. Why was that? What made those stories that made me cry special? Once I started to do that God started to reveal to me in specific ways my direction. Also, often times the things that we love and are good at are part of our "calling" ( I don't really like using that word, but for lack of another it will have to do) because we know that God is a GOOD God. I walk each day with hope for the future, excited at what is ahead of me. I pray that you do also. May you discover the passion within, and journey with your wounded heart.

Mexico...where my soul thrives, my heart aches, and my arms are full of orphans.

I have so many more photos. I posted two albums on facebook. These are a few of my favorite portraits of some of the girls. I had such an incredible time in Mexico, I really do leave my heart there every time. We put a new roof on a soup kitchen, painted a school, and did lots of jobs around the orphanage. I organized a girls event for the older orphan girls, where I rallied some friends and we washed these girls feet and gave them goody bags of hair stuff/chapstick/nail polish etc. I did health check ups on a few of the kids (mostly listened to lungs for asthma issues), spoke at the local church, learned how to make tamales from scratch (my favorite!), and most of all got to love on precious orphans. We had lots of crafts organized - beading, drawing, play dough aswell as flying RC planes, finding stars with telescopes, and dancing. I am looking forward to going on a medical trip in October, aswell as again next year. I am never more at peace than when I am sitting on the ground, holding orphans in my lap, whispering prayers over them as they sleep.

This is Olivia and Elijah. I get to babysit them every friday. I get to wake them up, make dinner for them, buckle them into their car seats and sing with them as we drive to church. And I love it. I love it so much that right now it is the highlight of my week. Getting to rock Eli to sleep, or hear Olivia (she is two) repeat Jon 3:16 to me are some of the most precious moments of my week. I'm going to sound so pathetic saying this and I NEVER thought I would, but I've recently discovered that more than being a Doctor, working with Project Rescue, doing MercyShips, helping Women and Children, owning a house where people can come stay whenever they need, and figuring out how to get clean water for the world...I want my own family! I want to be a mum and get to have lots of my own kids. Eeek, I hope I don't sound super pathetic - I've met other women my age who don't want anything else for their life and just hide in being a soccer mom and I think to myself,'Man I am so glad I have passions, dreams, aspirations and courage to make them happen!" but in a way I understand their desire. Its this crazy feeling getting to speak truth and love into two little lives. I I'm quickly falling in love with it! certainly drive a lot more carefully when they are sitting in my back seat!
...Please don't judge me! :)

Break my heart Lord for the things that break yours

(Photographs by James Newachty)


A mother burying her son in a mass grave

Refugees were plauged with Cholera and buried in mass graves

A victim of famine at a feeding center

An "incurable" in an orphanage in Romania

We live in a very visual age - television, internet, cell phones, advertising, film and photography all grab our senses nearly every hour of our waking day. I believe in the power of photography. I believe in revealing truth, in uncovering lies and manipulation. A photograph reveals truth. It can't be negated (I'm not talking about photoshopped ones).
James Nachtwey is a documentary photographer - considered one of the greatest of the past three decades. I invite you to follow the link below to spend twenty minutes watching what James Nachtwey has had a front row seat to the past thirty years. I hope you feel God break your heart as he does when I watch this. Please take the time. The link is below:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/84



In case you don't know, God is very concerned about the poor. If you love Him like you say you do, you should to.
By the way, the pictures above may be of the poor overseas, but the poor live in your own backyard. If you can't love those in your back yard, good luck thinking you will love those when you go on a overseas missions trip. You have the homeless, single mothers, the bruised and battered, the sick and dying, those in prison and people in need just down your street. Open your door and go to them.

Deuteronomy 15:7 “If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.”

Deuteronomy 26:12 “When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.”

Leviticus 19:9-10 “'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.”

Nehemiah 5

Proverbs 31:8 “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

Isaiah 1:16-17 “Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”

Isaiah 58:6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”

Jeremiah 22:3 “This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.”

Jeremiah 22:13-17 "Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his countrymen work for nothing, not paying them for their labor. He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace with spacious upper rooms.’ So he makes large windows in it, panels it with cedar and decorates it in red. Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the LORD. But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion."

Matthew 5:42 “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

Luke 3:11 “John answered, ‘the man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.’"

Luke 12:33 "Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys."

2 Corinthians 9:6-9 “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: ‘He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.’"

1 Timothy 6:18 “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”

James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Doubting in the dark

Do not doubt in the dark what God has shown you to be true in the light.

Ahhh...no other quote has been so influential in my life as of late. It pretty much comes back to haunt me on a regular basis. Why? because I defiently doubt in the dark what God has shown me to be true in the light. And I do it often. Waaaaay too often. My head is so sore at the moment because I feel like God has had to hit me over the head with a two-by-four to get my attention (figuratively speaking ofcourse). Actually, my heart is more sore than anything.
I don't trust God.
eeek.
I do, but in a luke-warm way. So to God I pretty much don't. He is kind of an all-or-nothing guy in case you didn't know.
I've been at a pretty scary place the past few days. I am so scared about my future. I am scared I'm not going to get married and all the wonderful things I want to do will not happen. I feel weak and pathetic. Where is my strength? where is faith? I am swimming in deep deep dark water knowing that a lifeboat is nearby but I'm too scared to get in. What kind of weary, tired soul chooses to stay in the water instead of getting in the boat? The trouble is I know that once I'm in the boat (Jesus is the boat, just so I don't lose you here) I will peer into the water and marvel at how blessed I am that I'm not barely staying afloat. But I am still not able to get into the boat. Maybe its because I'm scared that the boat will take me somewhere I don't want to go, so staying in the water is safer to some extent because at least I know where I am. Whatever it is, I know it is rooted in fear. Fear that God's way will turn out to not actually be the best way, fear that losing control will mean I lose everything I hold dear. I know that is what God asks of us, and that I won't find true freedom untill I do, but man I'm afraid.
But I'm going to do it.
I am going to step out and test the promises God makes. His word says that He has a plan and a purpose for me, that His ways are best, that He will make my paths straight, that He alone I can stand on, that He is my rock and firm foundation, that He has good things in store for me, that He will meet all my needs. I am going to choose to believe, even when I feel lost in the dark and don't feel like God wants those things for me. I so desperatley want them to be true. I so desperatley want to know Him, to walk each and every day in his presence, to hear him so clearly, to be a mover and shaker for him. I yearn for Him and delight in Him so. I want an intimate relationship. I want him to be all I need. I want to be so rooted in His love that I am free of all fear. I don't want to fear the future, and most of all, loneliness.

Jesus, please come through for me. Please.
I am brokenhearted. I know you are close by.
Thankyou for dying for me, you gave up everything you loved to gain my love.
Forgive my constant failure and sin.
I want to know you more.
Allow me to be your bride and be content in it.
I love you.