(Ohm-baa-ton-draw-zah-ka)
It all started Oct 2024 at the Joni and Friends conference. God coordinated our meeting a beautiful couple, a Pastor and his wife, with a heartbreaking birth story. Peter was there with us and shared their similar story, and got to share how God had already used Henika’s life for His glory. One of the many ways the Father used his life was that it reignited a fire in my heart that I thought had been put out, even doused in water! As a result we went to the Philippines so that I could become a Master Certified Trainer in both Helping Babies Breathe and Helping Mothers survive Bleeding after Birth. We came back and immediately started translating. April, I did a test training and that launched us forward into this moment.
“We need this training in Ambatondrazaka. Would you be willing to come?” My eyes still had tears in them from hearing her story, and my hands were wide open to the Lord’s leading… At that point we had trained 47 and had 5 Master Trainers- more than I could have dreamed of… “Absolutely!”
We prayed together with the Pastor and his wife and soon we had permission to come teach and 150 signed up! I knew we’d need help to train this many well, so we teamed up with our friends at 3M healthcare to train up more trainers, and were blessed to get to use 10 of the training dolls from Mercy Ships, making it possible to train 40-50 people a day.
We hit the road on a cool rainy morning and got to experience something that I can hardly put to words. Rainbows were everywhere. They were to our right, to the left, if front of us and even in the palms of our hands. We drove through the rainbow pictured and it was as if we were at the end of it (but didn’t find any treasure). Neal held out his hand and it was there on his hand, and it filled the car. It was endless and filled space. It played tricks with our eyes. It was incredible!
The whole team of 15 arrived safely and were warmly welcomed to this new town. Everyone was all abuzz about how nice the road was, and the new sights we’d all seen. Seriously, for about 3 hours we could have been on a road in the states. It was beautiful, such a smooth drive!
Day 1 we got to train a group of Doctors and we were honored to have a representative from the department of health come to officially open the training.
Day 2 was to capacity with nurses and midwives, and they were so eager that the nurses and midwives for Day 3 came on Day 2! We were humbled and so encouraged.
Day 3 was full to the max with nurses and midwives
Day 4 was a sweet mix of birth workers, students, birth attendants, pastors, teachers and more
All said and done, our team certified 142 new providers (some who traveled a day to get to us) and we added/welcomed 3 new Master Trainers to our Equip Madagascar team. We celebrate having 17 Master Trainers all together!
At every training we do, we also get asked “what do we do if we don’t have the equipment?” So, we teach how to safely perform mouth to mouth, and how to gently wipe a baby’s mouth if need be… but we’ve so desired to be able to get extra bag valve masks so we could equip them even further. Because of your generosity and prayers, we were able to equip and bless 20 facilities with a neonatal resuscitator!
I don’t know that we will ever get to see or hear the total impact of that week this side of heaven, but we are so honored to get to teach this course and share freely God’s love and design throughout. I can only dream about the number of babies that will be saved and the ripple effects on those Mommas, families, and communities gives me goosebumps. Praise God!
As if that wasn’t enough of a blessing, this last week I got a message from our sweet host in Ambatondrazaka. She shared some photos of one of the doctors we had trained. She was 100km away from their town doing training. The ripple effects of equipping and empowering- wow
We praise God for each of you who prayed, gave time, gifts, words of encouragement from the first flicker of this dream to teach in Ambatondrazaka through its fulfillment. Thank you!