Oh my heart is bursting with things that I can't manage to express in typed or spoken word. The deepest places are bubbling with things that language just doesn't seem to express adequately. To tell you a story is only the beginning. It's a little like living through a shipwreck and telling you I got wet on a boat ride. Somewhere in the middle, things got a little dicey!
Several months ago I was working with a mama, perhaps 30 weeks along, who was induced to deliver her baby whom she hadn't felt move weeks prior. When she delivered her son, he came breech in an explosion of fluid. I am not kidding. It sounded like someone tipped a full bucket of water onto the floor from the top of a ladder and amniotic fluid was flung all the way across the room. The baby boy had been dead long enough that he was beginning to decompose and the skin was peeling off of his little body. The midwife wrapped him in a thin nappy and set him on a metal cart next to the plastic bag that held his mama's belongings. I went around to that side of the bed to get something out of her bag and when I closed it up again, a portion of the bag stuck to the baby's exposed head, pulling off a piece of scalp covered in dark hair. For a moment, I just stared at the skin with the tuft of hair and then turned my back and walked away. I couldn't bring myself to remove it and I couldn't imagine what good would come of pointing it out.
A few weeks later, another child was born. The story is very similar, only the pregnancy was full term. When the woman came to the prenatal clinic to find out why she hadn't felt her baby move, the staff told her that it had died and rather than inducing labor, it would be better for her to wait until she went into labor naturally.
When I arrived in the ward that morning, she was the first thing that caught my eye. Maybe it was because there were four aid work students clustered around her bed. None of them touching her - just watching. Maybe it was the male midwife that was shouting at her to push harder, maintain the "proper position" for pushing, push longer, push stronger... Each time he barked an instruction, the students echoed it, their words staggered behind his, making the noise of their voices more disconcerting.
After a short time, a baby girl was born. Beautiful and limp. Her incredibly long umbilical cord was broken about two inches from her belly and just like the other baby, her skin was peeling away. The crowd around the bed clucked their tongues and shook their heads.
I've just returned from a short visit to my home country. It was positively wonderful to visit with family and friends and enjoy some first world conveniences, but mamas and babies filled my thoughts. As I shared my stories and the Lord's evident heart for the people of this far-off place, my heart yearned to create a passion in others; to ignite a desire to care deeply and give freely. I wanted listeners to not just go away a little sad and only slightly more educated but to GO themselves where the needs are - to see them, smell them, touch them! I wanted to engage others and grip them with the reality and the beauty of life and work with Christ!
Now, I get that you may have no interest in labour and delivery at all (read me: bodily fluids) and I also realize that it's a bit of a stretch to expect you to jump aboard a plane and travel the three days to get to my second home, but consider this: Do you take comfort in assuming there are others meeting the needs of those around the world? Do bold requests for help make you feel uncomfortable? Not requests for money, but requests for people. What are your skills? What gifts and passions has the Lord given you? Seek to know more. Be discontented and go searching for information!
Please, please, please!! do not close your eyes and ears to pain; what the world deems ugly and untouchable simply because it makes you uncomfortable.
Don't purposefully remain unacquainted with the griefs and needs of so many men, women, and children around the world. Prayerfully wade into those deep waters and give where you're able. Allow yourself to be stretched. You'll be surprised at just how stretchy you are. :)
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