Meeting with Mercy

Thursday was an amazing day. I spent 2 ½ hours with Vicki Penwell The co-founder of Mercy in Action. What an amazing time with her. She has such an abundantly overflowing love for midwifery and the women and children of third world nations who cant afford and don’t have access to basic health care.
We spent time talking about the Philippines, Mercy in Action, our life experiences, my upcoming mission trip, and the midwifery class that I have been considering enrolling in with them.
As I discussed previously, the class is a huge commitment in time. It is 4-5 hours of class time 5 days per week and will also require multiple hours of study and research time at home too. I will not be able to do my college courses during this time so I would have to take the spring quarter off from college in addition to the summer quarter. Vicki was able to offer me some insight about how to go about getting my clinical time done as well. I asked her about the availability of clinical hours here in the Treasure Valley as opposed to doing the 3 months in the Philippines. She told me that because midwives will be required to have state licensing in Idaho very soon there are very few midwives here that are qualified to act as preceptors and most if not all of them already have students that they are working with. She gave me the option of doing my clinical in the Philippines one month each summer for the next three summers as opposed to getting it all done in the one three month session that they typically offer.
Jes and I are also kicking around the idea of he and the kids meeting me there and spending a couple of weeks in the Philippines together as a family. This will ultimately be God’s decision so lots of prayer is needed for guidance in this. Spending time in the mission field as a family and spending so much time away from home will, I think, enable us to better understand the path that I feel called to.
Please pray for continued guidance and for our financial needs in this.