Steady On

Slow and steady wins the race, right?  That's what it feels like for us, we have been walking on, slow and steady and now we are coming to the end; the end of school for Steve that is.  He is now in his last semester of classes with midterms behind him and only 8 weeks of classes left.  In some ways it seems to have flown by and in other ways I don't remember what it was like to not be out here with him in school.  The last requirement for his graduation will be for him to do his field education (practicum) in the winter semester.  He was hoping to work with the Arabic Alliance church that meets out of Airdrie Alliance, but unfortunately that didn't work out and now he is trying to figure out how to best meet his field education requirements.  It will be a big change for all of us to have him finished with his classes, but we are excited for what will be in store for us next.

As for my schooling, I am just waiting on a telephone interview for both Steve and I, and then that's the last step on my part. 

We will keep you posted when anything new and exciting happens from this end!

Kerri

Application is complete

Well, my application to Newlife International School of Midwifery is complete and I was ready to email it in, when I realized that I needed to include a recent picture of myself.  When I went to find one I found out that no one has taken any recent pictures of me by myself!  I have tons of pictures of me with the kids doing all kinds of goofy things even some nice ones of me and the kids, and me and Steve, but not one of just me, unless you count a side view of me rock climbing.  Not exactly a good picture to send in with an application form.  So needless to say I now have to wait until Steve comes home and takes a picture of me, which I hopefully will like, and then I can send in my application.  I also have to mail in the application fee and a copy of my high school and college diplomas and transcripts which is turning out to be much more complicated than I thought.  I realize it's been a long time since high school, but it's kind of crazy;  I first had to request my Alberta Education ID number which was fairly easy to get, then I did an online request to have my transcripts mailed to me, however the address that they have on file for me and the one which they would mail the transcript to is one from 14 years ago, not quite current.  So I called them and found out that I needed to fill in a request for change of address form and fax it into them which I did with both my maiden and married name on it, and when I phoned them today to see if I could go ahead with the transcript request, I found out that I now need to fax them a copy of my marriage certificate because somehow they have two different student ID numbers for me, one under Sutton and one under Oishi.  So although I put both last names on the form and although my high school transcripts are under my maiden name and not my married name, they cannot make the changes without proof that I was Kerri Sutton and am now Kerri Oishi!  AHHHHHHH!!!  Needless to say, I am hoping that once I fax this in today, I will be able to request my high school transcript and mail the rest of the paperwork to them early next week.  Then I will have to wait until my references email in their forms and the director will have to look over my application and proceed with an interview.  So it's a lot of hurry up and wait, which seems to be what I have been doing over the last little while anyway.  But at least after this, my part will be done and it will be out of my hands.

For those of you who are going "midwifery school, huh"? let me back up a little.  The medical field has always been a passion of mine although I did move it to the back burner and wondered if it would go away, but it didn't.  Over the last couple of years the desire to be in the medical field has come back stronger and I have been trying to figure out what that looked like for me.  In about December of last year I began to think about midwifery, partly because I was looking into becoming a birth doula, which I did in April, and I found many different schools.  Canada has two midwifery programs in Ontario, through McMaster and Ryerson University, Quebec has one through Laval and BC has a new program through UBC.  I looked at all of these programs and at some offered in the US and none of them really grabbed me.  Then in January I came across the school at which I am applying, Newlife International School of Midwifery, and it simply grabbed my heart.  It is a Christian run school which offers an Associate Degree of Science in Midwifery through a two and a half year program.  The degree is actually awarded through the States and at the end I will be able to write my North American Registry of Midwives exam, enabling me to work as a midwife.  After nine months of praying about it and many conversations around midiwfery, we have decided that I should go ahead and pursue this desire to become a midwife.  We are aware that God could close this door at any time, however we feel that we should walk this path until God says otherwise.

With the calling that Steve and I feel to work overseas in a developing country, this schooling would come in very handy.  So much of the world has a ridiculously high maternal mortality rate, something that thankfully here in Canada we don't have to worry about.  According to the World Health Organization "The number of women dying due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth has decreased by 34% from an estimated 546 000 in 1990 to 358 000 in 2008".  However, "pregnant women still die from four major causes: severe bleeding after childbirth, infections, hypertensive disorders, and unsafe abortion. Every day, about 1000 women died due to these complications in 2008. Out of the 1000, 570 lived in sub-Saharan Africa, 300 in South Asia and five in high-income countries. The risk of a woman in a developing country dying from a pregnancy-related cause during her lifetime is about 36 times higher compared to a woman living in a developed country".  In Afghanistan the lifetime risk of maternal death according to 2008 statistics is 1 in 11; Chad is 1 in 14; Niger is 1 in 16 and Nigeria is 1 in 23.  Now compare that to Canada's rate of maternal mortality which is  1 in 5600 or the United States which is 1 in 2100.  Big difference in numbers.

We would definitely appreciate any prayers as we walk this new journey that God is setting forth before us and we will keep you updated as things move along.

Sorry, it's been too long.

I need to apologize for not updating in quite a while. The problem was that when Google decided to change our blog over to a Google account we no longer had access because the email address we had used was no longer active.

But the problem is now solved, so we will try to update much more frequently!

You may be wondering what has been happening in our lives in the past while. I have begun my last year of school. Hopefully all my classes will done by the end of the semester. Then it will be my Field Education, which I haven't figured out what it will look like.

Over the summer I was working a little bit. I had planned on having two jobs, which should have provided full time hours, but that didn't work out quite the way I had hoped. I was able to work my retail job (Trailblazers) one day a week, but the construction job didn't amount to much. God did provide some work for me in May and June, which gave me a bunch of various construction type work to do.

We then went to Logan, Utah for a family holiday, which was great. We spent two weeks relaxing and sightseeing (and rock climbing!) around Logan and Salt Lake City. It was a lot of fun for all of us.

When we got back I realized that I had some free time, and that the playground up here at the school wasn't getting done, so I volunteered to help out. I didn't realize at the time that I would be overseeing the project and that the playground was a bit more elaborate than I thought! I was expecting a couple days worth of work, but it turned out to be a month and a half (part time), and involved drilling 40+ holes, assembling a massive school-yard quality playground, and pouring 5 1/2 cubic meters of concrete into the holes! Then we backfilled the entire area with 9" of gravel, and let the kids go!

It was quite a challenge and a learning experience, but it turned out great and the kids love it.

Kerri had the opportunity to take some training to become a birth doula, and had the privilege to attend her first birth. She has a couple more lined up for the next few months, and is quite excited about it.

So that's been our summer. As for what's happening now, we have some direction and a lot of unknowns. Kerri is beginning an application to become a midwife at a school located in the Philippines. I'll let her explain more about it as soon as she has a chance, but for now we would appreciate your prayers as she fills out all the paperwork.

I would also appreciate your prayers for me as I am back in school, as well as working more than I have in previous semesters.

-Steve

New Adventure

Well the semester has finally come to an end and to be honest it feels as though we have finally burst through a very long, dark tunnel into the brilliant light. To say that this past semester was hard would be an incredible understatement. It was by far the most difficult time for both Steve and I, but thankfully God is faithful and He brought us through. A passage of Scripture that God brought to my mind early in the semester is from Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light". This has been the Scripture that I have been clinging to for the last four months and I am so thankful for it. As we continue on this journey that God has planned for us, I'm sure we will look back at this time and remember God's faithfulness to us.

Now what? Well now that we have four months off of school, Steve is going to be working at Trailblazers, the camping/outdoor store here in town, one day a week, and then working with a friend of ours building safety anchors for his company. We are going to be heading to Radium for some much needed R&R next weekend for four days and Mom and Dad are going to be watching the kids for us. After that, Mom, Julia and I are heading to St. Ignatius, Montana in June for an Amish auction weekend. I'm pretty excited about this and you never know what treasures I will come home with. We are also planning to take a family holiday down in Logan, Utah for a couple of weeks at the beginning of July. We plan to relax, relax and then relax some more with of course some rock climbing on the side. My brother and sister-in-law and new little niece may also join us there for a while so that will be exciting as we have not yet met little Shianne.

I'm still plugging away at my last course and will finish June 8th (at least that's the plan) and this past weekend I took a Birth Doula training workshop and I am hoping to start working on my certification in the next little while. For all of you who are thinking "what's a birth doula"? and I know there are lots of you, doula is the Greek word meaning "woman's servant". We provide non-medical support and care to a woman and her partner in childbirth. A birth doula provides emotional support, physical comfort measures and helps the mother obtain information to make informed decisions. I can work as a birth doula without my certification, but can't charge for any of the births I am present for. So basically I am offering free birth doula services for the next while. I have to be a part of three births and then read a number of different books, and complete essays in order to obtain my certification. It is a long process, but one that I am really exciting to be a part of. When I finished my training workshop I realized that this is what God has created me to be a part of and it will be interesting to see where it leads and how it will work for what He has planned for us. This is just one more adventure in the very interesting journey that God has us on and when I told my parents what I was going to be doing my dad said "We never know what's going to come out of your mouth next", and he's right, we never really know what God has in store for us, but right now we are rolling with what He puts in front of us and are willing to see where it all will lead.

We will keep you posted with new adventures as they arise, but for now we are simply following where God leads.

Kerri

Stress

School is back in after a long Christmas break. This semester is shaping up to be a tough one. I have four classes total, and Kerri is doing two. We both are doing an online class which is a requirement to work for the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and it's tough. There is a lot of reading to be done and the lectures and assignments are stretching for both of us. They are difficult to understand and use lots of big complicated words. Hopefully we will both get through it.

We are still plugging away at school. Beyond that we don't really have a clue what our future holds. There is a new opportunity which has presented itself recently which we are exploring. I will let Kerri explain that later, but for now I will say that I don't know how or if it fits in with our original plans, but it is something we are praying over a lot, and if we end up pursuing it it will be a huge opportunity and huge financial cost. More on that to come...

Please continue to pray for us both in school and in figuring out what we will be doing in the future.

-Steve

UAE Trip

Well, we've been back from the UAE for a week now. I have been asked many times about our trip, so I'll explain it all here.

Kerri and I had the opportunity to go to the UAE recently. We went for 9 days, although with long travel days (read: 15 hour flights) on each end it was more like 7 days there. We had the opportunity to go to a conference while we were there to learn more about the region and some of the work which is going on there. We also had a chance to reconnect with some good friends who live in the Arabian Peninsula and who were also at the conference.

The conference itself was four days, most of those days being from early morning until late at night. We pretty much just went to bed afterwards. We were pretty jet-lagged for the first few days. At the conference we had various meetings, during which we were able to learn more about the countries in the AP, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. We met lots of people at the conference, made some new friends, and reconnected with some old friends. We also were able to attend the United Christian Church of Dubai, an interdenominational church which meets at the Dubai Evangelical Church Center, which is built on land donated to the church by the royal family of Dubai. It's pretty amazing to be at a Christian church in the center of an Islamic country!. Again, a great experience. .

After the conference we had the opportunity to be tourists in Dubai. We got to see the Burj Dubai (the tallest building in the world at 818 m high), the Burj Al Arab (the only 7 star hotel in the world), the largest mall in the world, Ski Dubai (the indoor ski hill), and many other great buildings. We also got to go to the Sharjah Aquarium, the Arabia Wildlife Center, and several local markets, including the spice souk, the gold souk, the textile souk, and the pet souk.

It was a great experience for us and we absolutely fell in love with the culture there. The diversity was amazing, and the atmosphere walking through the malls with all the different nationalities and languages present was wonderful.

I've been asked if I would go back. Yes, I would in a heartbeat. Except next time I would want to take our kids with us and visit more of the region.

Fall 2009

It's been a while since I last updated this blog. Sorry for that, but I've been busy.

I'm back in school, and even though I am only taking three classes there seems to be a lot of work for each of them. Just keeping up with the reading for each class has been keeping me busy enough, let alone writing papers too.

This semester I have Public Speaking, Baptist History and Belief, and Old Testament Survey. I am really enjoying all my classes and am learning a lot, which hopefully I will be able to apply in the future.

It has been a rough transition to back in school though. It has seemed like I cannot get into a good routine, with working one day a week, and trying to balance school work with family time. I certainly don't want to neglect Kerri and the kids for the sake of my school, but I also want to put in adequate time to my school work. Maybe I'll figure out a routine by the end of the semester!

There has also been a lot of stuff going on outside of school and work. I have taken on a role as an elder at our church, and also am co-teaching an adult Sunday-school class. This has been very good, but again, takes up time from my schedule.

Through all of it God has been faithful though. Somehow I've been able to keep going, in spite of what has seemed like too much work and too little time.

We have received a lot of bad news recently. My grandma is in the hospital, which has been very difficult for me personally. At this point we are still unsure what the future holds for her, but thankfully, she has faith in God. We are praying for her, as well as my grandpa as he deals with this situation, and would ask that you pray for them too.

A good friend of ours has found out recently that her husband has been having an affair for a while, and is now leaving her and her kids.

I could go on and on with all the bad stuff that's been happening recently. It seems like it has been one thing after another for us, but God is still right there alongside us.

On a more positive note, Kerri and I just celebrated our 11th anniversary, and have the opportunity to take a trip overseas soon (more on this at a later date). The kids are doing great in their schools, and we have had the opportunity in the past few months to make some new friends and to deepen friendships with some old ones.

Unfortunately the weather has turned ugly, so we have been forced to put away the climbing gear until next spring. The joys of winter in Canada, eh?

I guess we will have to find some climbing areas in Niger when we get there in a couple years. They don't have winter there! Yay for climbing year-round!