Midwife on a Mission

Well, I finally made it to the Philippines!!! My plane arrived Monday afternoon January 22, after a long 16-hour flight to Manila. Right off the bat Mercy in Action, which is the Mission training Midwifery school I am with, put all us students on a ferry and sailed us off to Puerto Galera for 10 days of orientation and long awaited days of resting on the beach to prepare ourselves for the intense new chapter we Midwives are finally ready to start. I LOVE THE PHILIPPINES!

I want you to meet Florencia; Florencia is a 98-year-old Mangyan Helot, Midwife, from Puerto Galera Philippines. She started delivering babies before World War 1; this was as far back as her memory would let her go this afternoon. Myself and the other Middies hiked up in the foothills of Oriental Mindoro to visit this beautiful women today, she graced us with old stories of being a midwife while Japan was was invading during WW1, she spoke to us about her life, she shared with us about her family history and how she has trained her daughters to be traditional Helots, which our Midwives in our culture. Florencia is one of the wisest most beautiful women that I have ever met; she is such a treasure on this earth.