the latest adventure!

Hello friends!!

I hope this note finds you quite well this balmy July eve! I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity to let you know about the fun adventures that abound in and around my life right now!

The Lord is so good and has allowed me to thoroughly enjoy a rather circuitous route to a dream that is one step closer to coming true. My adventures in nursing have been many and varied over the past five years: from artificial hearts to newborn babies, from school-nursing to clinic nursing on rural Honduran mountaintops, from geriatric patients to ones who have yet to draw their first breath...and everywhere in-between. What a joyous and intrepid journey it has been! This August, yet another “next step” will come about! I am incredibly excited to tell you that I will be commencing graduate school, pursuing my Master's of Science in Nursing in order to become a Certified Nurse-Midwife through the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing. A few of my friends say they have seen this coming for years and are glad that I am finally convinced that it is the both the Lord's will and the Lord's timing to pursue this venture. I am thrilled to pieces to be part of the rich history of midwifery around the world and to be trained through the oldest Nurse-Midwifery program in the United States. The heritage of this program, which is based in the mountains of Kentucky, is rich and honors the normalcy of birth despite the political pulls of today which regard pregnancy and birth as a pathologic entity. It is my prayer that through the education I receive over the next two years from a program that emphasizes care for the under-served around the world I will become more equipped to serve the under-served both here in the States and abroad. Where the Lord will direct me after becoming a CNM, I know not, but I'm excited to see what He reveals in time.

I could go on for pages and pages enumerating the reasons I am so stoked to take this next step but I will spare you. I am emblazoned with excitement as I consider getting to spend my days helping women care for themselves properly, encouraging and aiding families in their prenatal care, serving them during their labor, and having the honor of catching their babies. An absolutely momentous component of any family's life, it is a precious opportunity as a practitioner to reflect the love and care of Jesus during a pregnancy and birth. I have been part of approximately 250 births in the past year and a half as an L&D RN and believe that the Lord, through His mercy and grace alone, has been able to use me as a light to many families overflowing with both joy and grief depending on their situations. It is incredibly humbling to be invited into such an intimate time in the life of a family – to be forever linked with a day they will never forget, a day made up of smiles, sorrow, or both. I pray that He will continue to use me in powerful ways...and I pray that He will allow me to continue having an absolute blast doing it, as He has allowed me thus far.

I write also to petition for your prayers. The next couple of months will be a time of great transition for me. I am intending on continuing to work full-time as well as commencing my schooling full-time. I will also be losing my dear roommate, Elise, next week as she follows the Lord's lead to move to Tacoma, Washington for a travel nursing assignment near her brother who is stationed there serving our nation as a Captain in our Air Force. I am excited for both Elise and Luke but am grieved at having a dear friend and amazing roommate move clear across the nation. I am prayerful for finding a new roommate to join Kristen and I to fill Elise's room (though no one will ever fill her shoes!!). I am currently pursuing what seems like an exciting possibility for that roommate slot. All these transitions have the potential to either strengthen my faith or broadside me and I know I need the protection of the Lord to see me through. I appreciate your prayers for a deepened walk with Jesus as a result of all these transitions, for diligence in hard work and time-management, for deep fellowship and accountability despite a potentially nutsy schedule, for guidance regarding my ministry roles this year, and for grace to be able to fulfill my responsibilities as a home-owner and roomie with excellence. Please also pray for others to rise up, with excitement, to help administrate our much-beloved trip to Honduras next May and the fundraising efforts that we hope to commence in the next couple of months.

Now that I've given you the latest scoop on what's up in my corner of the world, i'd love to hear how things are in yours!! I'd also love to know how I can be praying for you specifically...feel free to email me with your prayer requests!

Oh, one last thing! We thankfully had only one true casualty in Honduras this year, that being my cell phone. I still have only a meager collection of numbers and would love to make sure I have yours tucked away safely in my new phone. Feel free to email me with your number...or give me a call and give it to me then :)

Hugs to all!!