Koh Lipe, Thailand

Koh Lipe, Thailand
Family vacation to Thailand 2015/2016

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

My Ever Changing Life

I'm at that point in my life again. I don't like change, when things are going just so so in my life I don't want it to be any different. Today as I was sitting on my sofa watching my precious Jasmine sleep in the baby monitor and at the same time thinking of my sweet little two year old Evie sleeping in her bed. I was thinking of how blessed I was!
   
     Tears burned my eyes, as I remembered a Sunday night long ago when I was just a 15 year old teenager. I was on the balcony ledge right outside our house. I was talking to a preacher friend of ours.  As we were talking you could hear the pleasant racket coming from inside, it was full of friends and family from our old Baptist church there in Mexico.They were all laughing, joking, singing off key, playing Nerf ping pong, and drinking chamomile tea, munching on sweet bread while talking about the preaching, the Bible, or just ...life. I was smiling and happy as I looked through the window of our house at the hustle and bustle going on in there, it was a warm and inviting atmosphere. I was happy, and content with my life.
 
This is the patio ledge, and me when I was 15 with my Dad
   
     My friend must have notice the glow on my face and read my mind, because out of the blue he just said: "Andrea, things are going to change. They are not always going to be like this."
     I looked at him sadly and tears started to burn my eyes, I didn't like what he said but I knew it was true. Things always did change, that is the way God planned it. I didn't want it to change, I wanted life to be the same as it was that day.
    And after that, the years rolled by. As I left home to go to college, I thought of that night and those words my friend had said to me. For I left my Mom crying at the top of the stairs saying good by to me as I hopped down two steps at a time I looked longingly back at my Mom. I did not want to leave, I wanted to stay with my parents forever. But I had to go, Dad was waiting for me in the car and it was time. I left, I closed the metal door behind me and got into our old white Suburban. Tears were rolling down my cheeks as I looked longingly back.
 
    When I would wake up in the morning to go to school or work in my early twenties I would think of how my life had changed so much. I missed Mexico, my Mom, my Dad the warm sweet chamomile nights. I'd cry, wishing my life wouldn't have changed so much.
   
    A few more years later when my sister called me to tell me Dad had fallen off a latter and had broken his legs, I cried. I didn't like the way life was changing. Two weeks later and just 2 months before I got married my Daddy passed away unexpectedly. I cried bitterly for a very long time.
    
     Life not only was changing but it also was not going the way I had planned it. As time went by I kept on recalling that day, that night when my preacher friend said to me. "Andrea, things are going to change, they are not always going to be like this." It has stuck in my head and in my heart throughout the years that have flown by. My life is so different now, but God has worked it out. God knows what is best for me, and as I sat on the sofa today with tears stinging my eyes once more, I cried, but this time because I was happy, again I am content that the change in my life has worked out so beautifully, the Lord has blessed me so much with the most thoughtful and kind husband, two precious healthy daughters and even though I know that my little girls are growing and changing as I write this. It will be OK. If the Lord tarries, and I stay in His will, someday I will look at my life and be happy and be content with whatever God has done with it.  I have so much more to learn, I have so much yet to do, I want to be wiser. I want to be a better wife and mother. I want to to be a better friend and witness to others. I just thank the Lord for holding my hand, helping me and always being there as I grow older, as the time changes and my years fly by.  Tears may always come to my eyes when I hear that old sentence again and again in my past, reminding me of my ever changing present, and my unknown future. But now I have learned to trust my Lord with my life.
 
  May my life be a glory to my Lord always. For the Lord is good and His mercies endures FOREVER

My First Experience With a Newborn


  
When I first was considering starting this blog I was thinking about so many memories I have from when I was growing up that I did not want to loose. Also, how so many things that happened to me way back then was preparing me for later on in life, as life’s trials usually do. I wanted to write down my memories and my blessings now before more time passed by and they would become foggier. 
   This has absolutely nothing to do with what I am getting ready to write about, but I just had to squeeze it in.  Just a little while ago I had a blue cup on the dinning room table with just a little bit of Jasmine's food (breast milk) in it and I left it on there for a second to go wash my hands in the restroom. Meantime, Nubun was sitting down at the dinning room table checking his work e-mail and drinking Sprite out of a 'blue cup', well, my sweet little Evie switched cups on him and he got a big sip of Jasmines liquid gold. I could  hear him hollering from the restroom!  I smiled as he told me the warm sweet 'stuff' instantly gave him a headache! Ok ok, now back to my story.
   I have two little ones and in the past 3 years I have been thinking a lot about babies, and the beautiful miracle of birth, and as I look back on my past I remember the first birthing experience I had. (actually, it was right after the birth)
     It was so different down there in Chilpancingo, so far from the comforts, conveniences and luxuries of the American way. The one I have in mind, even so, was still a beautiful time.
  
   I was 18 years old and I had no experience with a newborn, no knowledge on birth. I was soon to learn. It was August of 1998 Mom was up here in the States, Dad and Nathan were in Acapulco at the mission there. That day I was alone with my 10 month old little sister. Moises and Lulu, missionaries from our church were at the General Hospital in town having their first baby. He called me at my house to tell me she was about ready to have the baby.
 
    It was early in the morning, I quickly got myself and Sarah dressed and headed on down there through public transportation. I had to walk several blocks holding a chubby, bouncy baby along with our lunch and diaper bag. When I got there I found Brother Moises walking the halls. She was in labor but down there they wouldn’t let anybody, including the husband in the room with her. So we waited, and waited and waited for ten long hours. I would sneak in every once in a while, to the nurses station to try to find out how she was doing because they were not informative at all.  The nurses would get on to me every time they’d see me sneak in, and most of the time they were so angry at me for asking that they wouldn’t give me information about Lulu at all. It was a very long day.
        Finally I went home, put Sarah to bed and waited for Dad and Nathan to come back from Acapulco . ( Acapulco is only about an hour away, but I had no way of getting a hold of them).  About the same time they got back, Moises called and said Lulu had their little baby boy, he was healthy and a tad bit over 3 kilos. And they needed my help. It was late, after 11pm, but I went back down there. They wouldn’t let a man stay in the recovery room with Lulu because it was a shared room, and she was very weak and needed help. Moises asked me to stay with her. 
     As I walked into the hot dark room I was heart broken when I saw her. She was pale and tired and could barely hold her eyes open. The hospital did not supply a nursery for the babies so she had to keep the baby with her, even though she was too weak to even lift him up. She was in labor for over 24 hours and they wouldn’t let her eat or DRINK anything during labor! No ice chips down there! So she was also very dehydrated.  She had already fainted once trying to sit up so they wouldn’t let her get up after that.
  I was talking to Lulu and holding the baby when he started choking on his own mucus, he was trying to cough. Lulu panicked, and so did I. I didn’t know what to do.
    “LIFT HIM UP!! LIFT HIS HEAD UP!!” She yelled weakly at me. I quickly tilted his head up and put him on my shoulder and patted his little back. I walked quickly down the hall looking for a nurse. I saw one and blurted out “He’s choking!!”
  The sour faced woman gave me a disgusted impatient look. “Why do you say that he is choking?”
  “Well…”
  “Go take him back to his Mom!” And before I could open my mouth to explain she yelled at me. “GO TAKE HIM BACK TO HIS MOM” 
    I was confused, she didn’t help me but went about her business and so I took little Joshua back to his Mom. He quit choking and was OK but I was upset. Minutes later the sour faced nurse came in and pumped his nose and mouth out with the pear shaped rubber bulb. Then she looked at Lulu with the same impatient look she had given me. “Why did you say that he was choking?”  Lulu said that that was how he was acting. I made up my mind there I didn’t like that nurse! Little did I know what was going to come up next!!
   I changed his first diaper, and down there they don’t supply squat for the babies needs, you better bring them yourself or do without. I had bought some diapers, but that was all we had.  It was a poopy diaper; I had just taken his dirty diaper off and was getting ready to put a new one on when he started going again. There was no diaper on him yet so I quickly shoved my hand under there. It was a weird sort of poop (At the time I had never even heard of meconium) it was like an odorless molasses, and I was wondering what was the matter with the kid. We had no baby wipes, no water so I used what I had, some tissue paper and lotion (out of my purse) to wash my hands. Some Purel would have come in handy….
  It was around 2am and I had just searched the hospital for some water to drink. There was only one plastic cup, and four ladies to share it with, myself, Lulu, and two other ladies in the room that had just had their babies also, and no friend or family member to help them. I would give one a drink then walk back down the hall to get some more for the next. Every time I would fill up the cup I would drink some then fill it up again and give another a drink. They were all thirsty, there was no ventilation at all in that room so we were also all hot.
  One of the ladies had just delivered a still born baby, he came out with half of his face missing, it had never developed. Poor poor lady! She slept some but cried quietly most of the night. I helped her all I could but wouldn’t talk much to her because I knew she wanted to be left alone. Once she woke up hot, trembling and sweaty trying desperately to fan herself with a sorry excuse for a sheet. I asked her if she wanted me to wash her face with some water and she eagerly accepted. I had absolutely no rags or anything to wet so I just poured a little water in my hand and patted her with the tips of my fingers, and fanned her with my hands until she fell back to sleep.  The same I did for Lulu and I also did her feet. She not only was hot but also had a fever.
   At around 3:00, I sat down on the cool cement floor Indian style and leaned my head up against the wall, I was exhausted.  I started to doze off a bit when in the quiet of the night I heard a loud, bone chilling scream. I stood up and walked over to the door. They were wheeling in somebody in and they were in a rush. I couldn’t see much, and I was very frightened because the animal type screams kept coming and coming. It was a teenage girl that had been severely burned, by landing on the electric lines on top of the roof of her house. I got a glance of what hell would sound like; my heart was breaking for more reasons then one. For the poor girl, and for all the lost souls going to hell without hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She screamed for many hours.
    Nobody in that room, nobody in that hospital could sleep, I was pretty sure. I was miserable and yet I wanted to be there, I wanted to help, instead of being in my quiet comfortable room at home. The time crept by and the sour faced nurse came in to check on the ladies. I wondered if she had been chewing on sour pickles all day. She didn’t take any vital signs she just asked how they were doing.
   I got up the nerve and asked her about the girl that had been electrocuted. And she told me about her then started talking to me, needless to say I was a little surprised because I didn’t think she liked me.  I immediately realized she wanted somebody to talk to so I pulled up a couple of chairs and we sat down. So we talked, I was glad at first to have a time passer but after talking to her for a while I noticed she was just a young lady who needed Jesus. She talked about her daughter for a while, about her husband abandoning her, and then she told me all her life problems. She laid her burdens down, and cried. Finally she told me she would do anything to have peace with God, and I got my golden ticket to witness to her.  Her name was Sixta and she listened to me hungrily, she even prayed, but did not pray the sinner’s prayer. Sixta promised to go to church and asked me to go visit her. We exchanged addresses and she brought me a pallet to lie on and an extra robe to use as a pillow. Bless her!
   I looked at my watch when she was gone and we had been talking over an hour! And I had said I didn’t like her…
    Lulu could not sleep because she was so hot, so we talked quietly as I kept on bathing her face and feet with water. Around 4am she told me she needed to go to the bathroom. I helped her get up, and she walked to the bathroom herself. I walked beside her. We passed Sixta in the hallway and she told me to ‘Be Careful’.
  I thought I was. Lulu and I chatted like long lost friends as she was in the bathroom stall I was primping in front of the bathroom mirror. 
   “ANDREA!! COME HERE!!”
  I walked over to the stall. “What is the matter?”
  “COME HERE!!” She yelled again. I quickly opened the stall and grabbed her arm but I could not get a better grip of her because she was straddling the toilet and the stall was so small the door hit the middle of the toilet.
   She fainted.                             
   I grabbed her desperately but I had to get a better grip! She was going down and I could not hold her with one hand. I was afraid to pull on her that I would hurt her.  I wouldn’t let her fall! I wouldn’t! Finally I managed to get her close enough to me that her limp weight was up against my body and I hugged her for dear life. She was as limp as a rag doll. I tried to drag her out of there but she was heavy and she was bleeding. So I stopped.  I resorted to screaming for help.
  “Nurse!! Nurse!! Somebody help! HEEEEEEEEELP!!” But there was no one around. I kept hollering for help. “Somebody please! She fainted!! Help!!”
  A lady passed by and heard me and got help. Three nurses and a male doctor came in and helped put her in a wheel chair and wheeled her back to her room. One nurse looked at me and said:
    “Did you get scared?”
Huh? WAS I SCARED???! What kind of a question was that! I was scared out of my mind. I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see how pale I was. I had always read in books about people getting so scared their face turned white as a ghost. Well, I always thought it was just a saying, or exaggeration. I found out right then that it WAS TRUE. I had lost all color.  White as a spring ghost.
    Later on Lulu was better and I helped her nurse the baby, she knew nothing about nursing a baby. Obviously, neither did I. So I had to timidly ask the lady in the bed on the other side of Lulu how, she had been nursing her baby off and on all night. She showed me how and I told Lulu. She was still so weak that I had to hold the baby up to her to get her started. He latched on right away and ate like he was starved. Little Joshua nursed and it was a beautiful moment. God’s miracle of life, and the sweet bonding of a Mother and her new born baby is comparable to nothing else.
   I went home the next morning having slept nothing at all, yet I felt refreshed and alive. It wasn’t an easy night that night but it was a blessing to me. I learned so much, and it seemed like I had lived a lifetime in the short 11 hours I was in that hospital.
   That was 12 years ago, Moises and Lulu have four sons now and they are still missionaries to Atoyac in Mexico . Their ministry is growing and lives are being changed.  I got to see them again three years ago, it was a wonderful and tearful reunion. Neither one of us will forget that night.
Here is a picture of Moises and Lulu around 3 years ago with three of their four kids. They are standing in front of their church.
 
  I never saw Sixta again. I went to the address that she had given me, several times, hoping to see her but never did. Sometimes I wonder about her ‘Did she ever get saved?’ and I pray for her.  I was saddened that she didn’t at the time. I was not in the delivery room when Lulu had her baby, and I was hoping to be in the Heavenly delivery room as Sixta would be born again but she wasn’t, and I wondered if she ever would. Then I would remember a Scripture verse God placed in my heart that night and I would have peace in my heart: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Isaiah 55:11 KJV