S2S Sisters: “My Journey to Living as a Faithful Emissary” by Mary Z.

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. Welcome, ladies, to the talk here this afternoon. It's so lovely to have you all present here, and we are really looking forward to hearing this testimony that we have today.

And we want to welcome Mary on this platform here to share with us. We're so grateful for your presence here, and we're looking forward to just hearing about what God has put on your heart to share.

I would like to read your bio that we had on the website before we get started here. And after this session, I want to say too that we—I want to say that we have a question-and-answer session after Mary's talk. So you ladies can be thinking about comments and questions that you'd like to share with Mary and with the rest of us. So I will read Mary's bio here, and then we will have another word of prayer. And Mary, after the prayer, you can feel free to just begin your talk.

And when you're finished, I will open it up for the question-and-answer session. Mary says, "We are created in the image of God." Mary will be sharing about how believing that with all her heart changed her and led her to where she is today.

Living on foreign soil for most of the past seven years has given her deeper insight into the heart of God and His will for the people she works among. She will be sharing about how she can keep her passion for the work alive.

So let's have a word of prayer, and then Mary, you can feel free to start. Okay. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this opportunity, and thank you that we were able to come together like this and that our internet has allowed us to all join in this way, Lord, from all over the world. And I pray that you would just keep that connection strong while Mary is giving her talk here, Lord, that there wouldn't be interruptions in the technological part of things, Father. But most of all, we ask that Your Holy Spirit will be poured out on her and that you could use this talk for Your glory.

Lord, I ask for humility and grace and clarity of thought for her. And may our hearts be open to what You need to say to us, Lord. And I pray that we would put to practice the things that You show us. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

Okay.

I was asked to share some about my journey to living wholehearted and passionately for God. Like was mentioned, I've been living in the Middle East off and on for the past seven years and have been very grateful to experience life here.

I chose the title, Living as a Faithful Emissary, because I feel like it's not a word that we use a lot today, but one of the meanings of the word is that you're carrying a message for someone else. It's not your message. You're taking someone else's message. And I feel like that just encapsulates well what we as a team that are living here now are attempting to do and are doing with God's help.

So I am a nurse and a midwife and have been pretty much—I worked as a nurse in the States, but pretty much the rest of my midwife work has been here in the Middle East. I don't deliver babies here. I do prenatal and postpartum care. And yeah, it's mostly among people that are displaced by war. So that's a very unique set of people.

And so we have studied the language and, yeah, tried to have—trying to connect with them in their own language. Still do use a translator some because it is a difficult language. And to really get—when you're talking about healthcare things, you do want to make sure everything's understood and you're understanding properly. But I'm grateful for being able to study the language some.

It's a little bit hard to know where to start when you're sharing about your life when you're as old as I am. But I decided to start many at a place in my life where I think a lot of transformation happened. And for me, that was in my 20s. I was raised in a Christian home and grew up knowing about Jesus and all of that. But I think I just believed a lot of lies about myself and about, yeah, mainly about myself. And so that kept me from really experiencing God like I want to, like I do today.

And so I want to start with that. But before I actually missed the part, I wanted to share. So I did spend almost eight years in school training to be a nurse and a midwife. And so it was a lot of years, but I am really grateful today that I did it and got to experience life and just the opportunities that I've had because of that degree that I have.

So the main—yeah, I would say the big thing for me was just the understanding that I was created in the image of God and really believing that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I do remember thinking that surely I would talk to people who were working overseas and places like that. I wanted to do it, but I was like, "I'm just a little too ordinary for that. Why would God want to use me?" And I realized as I've gone on this journey, I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And when I could get that, I was able then to better be an emissary, to be one then that can carry the message to other image bearers as well.

And life has very interesting ways of teaching us about the compassion and love of God and just how He loves us. So there's a quote that I really like from an author, James K.A. Smith. He says that, "You couldn't have imagined your life. It spends and pivots. It zigs and sags. The crookedness of your unlikely life is not a failure. The wending paths aren't mistakes. The looping route that looked like it was going nowhere was a switchback climbing a mountain. The jagged line that is your story tracks the path of God's companionship and care." And so, yeah, there's zigs and zags in many ways, but at the end of the day, I know that the story, the path has tracked me to God's companionship and care.

So during the time in my life, like in my 20s, I said I felt so almost inferior. I kind of hated how I looked and that I was so ordinary and not realizing these are insecurities. And so that really kept me from seeing and believing that I was fearfully and wonderfully made. And so the actually being able to start believing that and seeing that came in many different ways, but it was very foundational in the transformation of my life and my journey to being whole and complete in God. And so I remember there's a question that is like, "How can I love the—if I don't love what God created, how can I love Him as a Creator?"

And so that is something that I think of often. How can—if I can't love what He created, then yeah, that sort of is a measure of my love for Him, the Creator. The verses in Psalm 139, they're very familiar verses, but they are so true. And I just like to read them to remind myself of the beauty of how God created me and how He created each one of us. And as a midwife, I think of that a lot too when we talk about the miracle of a baby growing and to share with the patients about just what's happening inside of them and how God is creating your baby.

It is very beautiful, and it is a miracle, to be sure. So I'd just like to read Psalm 139, verses 13 to 17. "For you have fashioned my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I thank you because I am awesomely made, wonderfully. Your works are wonders. I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes could see me as an embryo, but in your book, all my days were already written. My days had been shaped before any of them existed. God, how I prize your thoughts, how many of them there are." It's easy to read that and to think about those words when you're looking at a little baby.

But then when you look in the mirror, sometimes it's a little harder to really believe that. But the words are so true, and they're as true for me as they are for the baby. It's true for you as they are for the little newborn baby.

So for me, as I said, that journey to living whole and loving the self that God created really is believing that I am created in His image and wonderfully created. Part of that accepting how I am created then also comes with your circumstances or the life that you live. So I'm single. I've never been married. And in my 20s, I felt a lot of shame and disappointment too because my whole life, I kind of grew up in a community that marriage is kind of what is expected to happen. And most people, to be honest, most people do get married in life, and it's a very good thing.

But you kind of start looking at yourself and your dreams of getting married. Maybe you start—you're in your 20s, your friends are getting married, and you're not, and you're just like, "Well, am I going to be single my whole life?" And that dream starts—you're not sure what to do with that now. And what are you going to do with your life? And so for me, I think one thing that I used to hear—I think times are changing, but I do remember back when I was that age, there was a lot of people would often say, "I wonder why she's still single. I wonder why this." And so you hear those things, and you start thinking, "Why?"

And the why usually doesn't lead you to good, "Well, I'm single because God has other work for me as a single person." It's usually, "Well, because I—" and then you can think of all the flaws and the reasons why you're probably single. And I believed those lies. I was sure I could think of many reasons that would make me an undesirable person to marry, and I believed them in many ways. And so it took years of undoing that. And as I accepted who God created me to be the self that He created and learned to live a fulfilled life, definitely has changed that a lot. And of course, it's not like you don't desire marriage, but it's not the thing that you need to make you complete.

And I think that we all would agree—we would all say that. Even as married people, they would say, "Well, we don't need to be married to be complete." And praise God, that is true because as humans, we're never going to find that in other people, wholeness and completeness.

I know there's questions that come to mind when you're single, like, "How am I just meant to wait around?" Especially when you're younger, "Do I just wait for marriage?" You're like, "How do I wait? Did God just skip over me? Did He forget about me?

Is marriage actually the ultimate goal, or are there other things? How does He desire me to live as a single woman?" And then the other question often, I know for me, and once I got to the end of my 20s into my 30s, this desire to nurture and to care, you don't have children, so what do you do with those desires?

And yeah, so I am very grateful that there are ways to—God created us as women to nurture, and there are ways to do that as a single person or a single or married woman. In the beginning of the Bible, God gave that mandate to the mankind to be fruitful and multiply. And so over many generations, that's what happened. People got married, they had children. Then there's always the stories in the Old Testament of couples that couldn't have children, and the barren women of how difficult that was. And their deepest desire was to have a baby because it gave them worth to their husbands and to their families if they could bear children. And the place I live, it's still somewhat like that today.

It's common and okay for men to take another wife if they want to have more children, or if the wife that they have didn't have a son, especially an heir is just very important to them. And so they will marry multiple wives and divorce and take another wife if, yeah, it's kind of—and so for women in this setting, they can feel like, yeah, just if they can't bear children or if they're not married, it's a very difficult life. It's a little—yeah, they aren't—yeah, what are they worth? What do they do? They don't have—it's not normal for them to just go out and start a career on their own or support themselves. They kind of have to be dependent on their families.

And so it's a difficult life. And so they feel that, that being barren or not being able to fulfill that being fruitful and multiply mandate. But I love how in the scriptures in Isaiah, the prophet said that there's going to come a time when the barren woman will rejoice and that she will be more fruitful than the childbearing woman and that she'll be accepted and whole. So I'd like to read those beautiful words in Isaiah 54. "Sing, O barren one, who did not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor. For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married," says the Lord. "Enlarge the place of your tent and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out.

Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. Fear not, if you will, for you will not be ashamed. Be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced. For you will not forget. You will forget the shame of your youth and the reproach of your widowhood. You will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is His name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth. He is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off," says your God. "For a brief moment, I deserted you, but with great compassion, I will gather you.

In overflowing anger, for a moment, I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love, I will have compassion on you," says the Lord, your Redeemer. It's such a life-giving scripture. And I think of a woman reading that. I know this has a much broader meaning, but for a woman who has never born children, to read those words and to think, "Wow, is that possible?"

It's just, yeah, it's amazing. And I remember reading that as a single woman and saying, "We really do have the opportunity to have so many children." I don't know how many children here where I work. There's so many families that I interact with. And to the many, I'm like a mother, a second mother to the children or an auntie or whatever they call you. And it's really special to be able to be that because you can be involved in many different families. So God has a desire for all of us, whether we're single or married, childless. Some are married and childless. Some have a lot of children. Some people wish they had more children. But God, He wants us all to be fruitful, and He has made a way for that.

He wants to be women who are caring for and nurturing the children or those who don't have a safe and secure place. Women who are nurturing the children in their homes, nurturing a generation to carry the light. Women who are living the mandate of the New Testament, which is found in Matthew 28, and that is to go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them what I have taught you. And when you compare that to Isaiah, it makes sense because you can go and have lots of children that way.

And so I just want to encourage all of us to live out the mandates of God, whatever state of life that we're in, and to keep the words of Micah 6:8 always in front of us, where he says, "He has showed you a man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God." And yeah, if we put those words to practice, our work is all cut out for us, right?

So for me, living that and going out as an emissary happened after I was finished as far as traveling away from my home. You can be an emissary wherever you are. But for me, that happened about seven years ago when I graduated as a nurse midwife.

During that year, there was a war happening here in the Middle East. And I first came over here to help with some medical clinics that we were operating for people that were escaping or fleeing the war. And so they were coming to camps, and we would set up clinics there and just see masses of people, mostly treating diarrhea and other acute illnesses.

But then over time, we kept coming back and are still working there today. And so that's when I'm now doing the midwifery care and more specific care in the camps. But when that first time when I came, I mean, I grew up in the States. I never experienced war ever before. So that was a very unforgettable experience. I learned a lot of things about myself and about the Lord during those times. And looking back, I can really see how God I was learning to truly trust the promises of God while I obey His commands.

Maybe I'll give an example of that. But the ways in which this is true are many, but there's one especially where He says that we should go. And then He also says, "For lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." And so I think there's a promise and a command in there. We should go, but then He says, "I am with you." And so I learned that He is with me even in these places. It can seem like the end of the world there. But during my time here, over the past seven years, I've lived in some places that were pretty volatile.

The situations could have—there's places that we were, situations we ran into that could have turned out differently than they did. But praise God, we are all alive and well today. But it was always that you just never quite knew for sure what's going to happen.

And so the risk of being harmed was fairly high at times. So there's a question that people often ask me, and that is, "Is it safe? Is it safe where you are?" And it's a little difficult to answer that question because I don't know. It's sort of, "Is it? I don't know."

It feels safe most of the time. But I think—and the other thing is, I didn't come here because it was safe. That wasn't something I came because I desired to obey that command to go. And that sort of overrides the desire for safety. But of course, I think about my safety, and I try to act wisely and don't do things that I think might jeopardize that, but I can't protect myself all of the time. So my personal safety starts to feel a little important, or it starts becoming more important as fear settles in. So I feel like there's a connection to that. And I especially notice it when things are starting to get a little unsettled and unpredictable.

How many of us have a planner and a list of to-do things? And we kind of—we like schedules. We like to know how to plan our weeks, how to plan our days. And so I'm the same way. There's something about that. And knowing it takes about one hour to go to my mom's house, and that's pretty predictable. I don't have to go through checkpoints. I don't have to be held up there. It's nothing to worry about, usually.

There's always things that happen, but overall, fairly predictable life. But there's something about that. When the tensions are high and things you just don't know, it brings about some fear. And so there was a time when we lived in a place where there were two groups controlling land, and there was a border. And we lived on one side with one group, but we worked on the other side of that border. And so every day, we had to go back and forth. And so some days, we'd come to cross the border to go to work, and there was a pile of dirt or a berm there saying, "It's closed. Today, we're closed. You can't come." And then you go back home, or the next day, you get through, and then you're praying that it stays open until you get back, and they don't have any fights or anything, so you can go back home.

And so those days were stressful. You always had to be thinking about, "Well, I might not get home tonight." So we always had a bag packed at home that people knew if we had to make an escape, that they could grab that bag and had my most personal belongings in it, and they should bring that with them if I'm not home, and we would have to make an escape.

So those conditions, they're not in my control. I can't control them. So I had to learn what to do with all that uncertainty. And I do remember just learning to say, "Thank you, God, for right now, for today, for how you have been with me until today.

And I know that you will be with me even when things don't turn out like I want them to." And being grateful for what is and not what I wish was. And just saying, "I don't know why we couldn't go to work today, but I'm thankful for what you have given me." To continually remind myself of truth. The Savior, He did say, "I will never leave you or forsake you." And that's true. And then there's things that only God can control. And some of those things that are comforting are things like the sunrise and the sunset. I remember sitting there some days in those really tense times and watching the sun come up and be like, "Thank you, God.

I know that you're there because I see that." And that's something that is from Him, and only He can stop the sun from setting and the sun from rising the next day. And so it's a promise, a way to really give the visual for those promises that He has for us.

Of course, the deeper purpose for going is beyond helping people or for going into places that may seem dangerous, is that God loves the people in these places, and He wants for them to know that. And so there's a quote from Kate McCord. She has a book, Why God Calls Us to Dangerous Places. And in that book, there's this quote that says, "And this is the thing I must always remember. The world is full of frightened and frightening men and women whom God loves, with a love so rich and so deep that no matter what they do, He still wants to bring them home." And that, I think, just really puts it in a good perspective.

It ties together the reality that fear—the fear is real. There's going to be frightening things, but God's love for them is deeper than all of that. So right now, for us here, there is war, not where we live, but nearby. And the threats of war came closer in the last few days.

But it's not in our control, and we're grateful that God is with us here, and He won't leave us or forsake us here. And we shouldn't be surprised by this, really. I mean, the Word warns us that there's going to be times like this. In Luke 21:28, Jesus said that there's a time on earth. Well, it will seem like the earth is falling apart, and people are going to be so—they're going to be fainting with fear. But He told us about that. And then He also said what we should do. And what He said we should do is straighten up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. And that is an amazing promise.

And so when we raise our heads, we can see where God is, just like the sunrise and the sunset. And we can see it as He comforts people when we pray, how He's drawing people to Himself in these times. We can see people being kind to each other, and we see the mountains. And remember David's words that, "My strength comes from the Lord, the Maker of the heavens and the earth." And we can see Him in the sunrises, as I said before, just reminding us that uncertainty will be here and fear, but there will always be morning and evening as long as God allows time to stand.

So that is why. That's how. Is it safe? We don't know, but God is with us. So we're grateful for that. Another question that I often get asked is, "How do you keep going?" Of course, getting involved in these places where people have suffered a lot of traumatic events like war. There's a lot of injustices, tribal warrings and exploitation and poverty.

You hear stories of people sharing these things day after day. You hear these stories. And of course, it takes a lot of energy to do that. And I just remember that first visit I had here during the war. I went back home, and I really struggled to find rest. People in America were so—they complained about the silliest things I thought. And I was just like, "You haven't seen." I saw people that were gaunt, and their eyes were blank stares, and they were just coming from being—they were destitute. They just came from being trapped in a war zone for months. And they had lost family members. Their babies and children were malnourished. And I really was struggling to know how to keep going.

And I knew I had to find a way. I wouldn't survive if I carried everything like I was carrying it then. And so there's many different ways. One of the big examples that I had was one of my first days here working in a clinic. There were some parents that came. They brought some twin babies. And I was new to the place, and I was used to working in a place where we had hospitals, right? And these babies, they were twins, and the one was—they were little girls. The one was very weak, and the other one was so weak that she couldn't even swallow anymore. And so drinking a bottle was impossible. And I was like, "Well, she needs a hospital.

That's what we do with babies in this condition." And I was just coming up short. I was tried feeding with a syringe, and the milk would just sort of run down. It sounded like it was going in her lungs because she couldn't swallow. And I was worried she would choke or aspirate and get pneumonia and thinking of all these things. And there's a doctor working with also working alongside me there. And the parents were just pleading, like, "Please help us. Help us." And I felt very helpless as a medical person. Here I am. I don't even know how to help them. And I called Dr. Fried over, and he was like—he listened to me, and I'm about crying because I'm feeling so overwhelmed.

And he said to me, he said, "You can always pray." And it was like, "Oh, true." And I had a lot of disbelief about that. I was like, "Oh, well, I guess." So why didn't I think of that? That seems so basic.

But it was just a relief when he said that. I was like, "Yes, yes, we can pray." And he's like, "Why don't you pray for them?" So I did. And I just remember the tears just running down my face, and I'm just praying. I don't know what the parents—I don't remember anything about what they were doing at the time, but I remember how I felt and how relieved I felt that God, He could care for these babies, and He could heal them, and He could give—it somehow gave me strength to go on. And yeah, praise God. We visited them a few days later in their tent, and the parents were very happy. And they said, "Yes, our baby was healed because God answered your prayers."

And yeah, it was a real faith booster for me. The baby went from just having little drops of milk dropped in her mouth to drinking a bottle in a few days. And that was quite amazing and an answer to prayer. And I'm convinced, as I go on through my work here, that prayer is, I don't know, probably the top thing that we can do and that we have at our disposal, and it's a powerful weapon that we have. But anyway, back to the point of how do I keep going?

Of course, praying. Praying, just bringing everything with prayer and thanksgiving to the Father. But our hearts do get overburdened pretty quickly in the midst of this work. And I learned that I needed an outlet for the burdens of my heart. And there's a familiar word in Matthew 11 where Jesus said, "Come to me, and I will give you rest.

Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden," is the complete verse. So I mean, that sounds like what I need, right? So again, there's a command, and then there's a promise. "Come, come to me, and then I will give you rest." So there's that, "You need to come, and then He will give rest." And so I had to come, and that takes some time. Sometimes it's easy to keep going and thinking about the stuff and just carrying it and carrying it, but to just come to Him. And there's a practice. So for me, I'm a visual person, and so how do I give my burdens to God?

Someone shared this with me, so it's not original with me, but I really just—it just helps me a lot. At the end of the day, I don't do this every day, but when I do feel really, really like I have to just take extra time with it, I will just lay on my bed, close my eyes, and pretend that every—and just let the thoughts come to me and every person or thing or deed or burden that comes just to pretend it's a—and put it in a helium-filled balloon and then just sort of let it release it. Just imagine myself holding that balloon and then just releasing it to God. And that has helped me tremendously.

Sometimes I draw it out in my journal and just jot names and things into each balloon and just have a whole page full of these balloons just floating up to God. And I think as I release them, each deed that goes upward, I can whisper that name in prayer, that person's name and the thing that I'm burdened for them for. Or I can weep at some injustice or some deed that I heard in a story that day. I can tell my Father in heaven that these things are too heavy. I can't carry all of this. So I'm a human. I need to rest. I need to sleep. And so just committing them to Him gives me—I can trust Him.

I can know that He's going to carry these things for me while I sleep, while my human body gets rest. And in the morning, I can wake up. I'm rested, hopefully, usually. And then I can have that fresh courage to go again. I might have to pick some of those things up again and carry them a little bit. But there's help there. There's a rest that comes in unloading those burdens and giving them to Jesus.

And the Father doesn't ask us to carry everything. I had to learn that as well. He doesn't ask me to do everything. He doesn't ask me to carry them. He says, "Give it to me." And I have to remember that, especially many times as I go through life, the kingdom work can feel very thankless, and it can seem so slow. And how do we do it? How do we start being emissaries? How do I start sharing the good news? And yeah, I don't know. The thing that I—the picture for me, again, I'm a picture visual person, is to think of—there's a parable in Matthew 13 that speaks of sowing the seeds and the different soils.

And I think of that often. It seems like there's gardening terms used. I know a little bit about gardening and tending soil. And I know that preparing the soil is most of the work. And that's where the hours are put in. And then there's seeds planted. Planting is fairly easy. You can just put the seeds in and cover them. And then the Lord, they grow. He makes them grow. And so I feel like what I've learned and what I like to remember that I'm doing is preparing soils as I go interact with these people, interact with people anywhere. That is, but to know that the sowing the seed and tending the soil, they go hand in hand.

And there's some soil that is rocky and hard. But the seed that fell on the good soil in that parable, it says it grew and it yielded. And so I think we desire for the seed to fall on good soil. But who prepares the soil? How does that get prepared is a question I have. And so I think about that in my own life. How did the soil get prepared in my heart to receive that good news? And for me, it was the good deeds that people did to me, the people that showed kindness to me when I didn't deserve it, the people that listened to me and cared about me, the people that were doing good works.

And I observed them living their lives completely sold out and wholeheartedly for God. And those were the ways that I got rid of stones and weeds. And I was like, "I desire that. I desire that." It pointed me to the Heavenly Father. It made me believe that Father has something for me. I can do that. And so I think that it's the same for other people as well. I've seen people slowly change over time as they experience those things, as they experience people caring for them in the ways of our Father. And He comes to them in the man in white, comes to them in dreams sometimes. Those are things that start drawing them and pointing them toward the Father and ready to receive the seed.

And then, of course, the drawing of the Holy Spirit is a part that is—it's mysterious. We can't really see it. We don't know how it works, but we know it is working, and we see that. So I do know that there's joy that comes that day that someone is interested and they want to know more. And the soil is getting ready. It's almost ready for the seed to take root and to sprout and to yield. And so day by day, we sow and we plant and we prepare soil.

And so that can seem like a very slow work, and it is a slow work. But there's also promises in that, in the Bible. There's the verses in 2 Corinthians 9:10 that say, "The one that supplies the seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your need—no, sorry, multiply your seed and sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness." So our Father is familiar. We know His Son is familiar with multiplying and supplying food. He multiplied the loaves and the fishes. And so He will do that with our seed. And so for me, if I'm not feeling like I'm not seeing much, or it's that, again, trusting He is doing those things.

He said He will, and He is. And then some days, you do see that He is, and that's very encouraging.

We don't have to force it. I don't have to. I can just continue on being patient and enduring and planting and tending. So I sort of lost track of time here, but maybe just a little bit more about our work. So we intentionally do this. I do all my visits in the homes of the patients. I don't have a clinic where I sit and people come to me. It does limit what we can do, but I do like that ability to be able to sit down and be flexible with my time. If I need extra time with someone because they're sharing and there's need to sit and listen and care for them, I can do that.

And many times, we'll have—there's free time at the end of the day, and I'll be like, "What are we going to do? Maybe go see this person." But we kind of keep it open. And I've learned to ask the Father what He would have us do in that time. And it's amazing how many times He fills that with something.

The other day, just it happened. We had some time. We were like, "Well, we could go visit this woman." And as we were sitting with the patient we had been visiting right then, she started sharing a part of her story that she had never told us before, a part of some of the powers of darkness and how it controls her and how she experienced that over the past years and the fear that she has. And she was able to share that with us, and we were able to spend time with her and care for her in that need. And I was so grateful that we had that time to sit with people and to spend hours.

And sometimes it means we literally sit for hours. It's cross-legged on a mat on the floor, sipping tea sometimes, holding children, just listening to stories and sharing about life while also providing care for their prenatal or postpartum needs. But they have seen many things in life. And yeah, we also celebrate with them as well. We celebrate their healthy babies or the safe delivery or just many things. So it's not just always intense listening to hard, heavy things, but we try to incorporate celebration. We have need. We have cause for celebration in our lives, and it promotes thankfulness as well. And I've found that's needed for my life. And so it helps me to stay focused, to remind them and myself that, "Let's praise God for this.

He has granted you a healthy baby." And that's a lot of fun. We're throwing little parties every time the baby's six months old. They kind of graduate from our program, and so we throw a little party with the family at that time.

So yeah, so tending soil, sowing seeds, we try to find practical ways to do that here. And it has been a real blessing for me to be able to do that and to listen and care for women, to treat them with dignity and to share hugs and smiles with them and just to be able to—they often say how they feel restful around us, and we're quick to tell them the reason for that. And they know that. They can sense that. And I praise God that He is working through our—not just me, but all of us, our earth and vessels. And the purpose is so that we're told in Corinthians so that the surpassing power of God is visible.

And so that's my prayer for my life that people here can see that. So yeah, that's a small glimpse into my life. There's many more areas I could talk about, but I am grateful to be here. And I'm grateful that my midwifery skills and my training is a platform for me to do something that I really, really love and care about. That was so inspiring. And just what a beautiful picture of the way God has worked in your heart. And now the outworking of that heart work is coming off the ends of your hands.

And miracles happen at the ends of our hands, and especially when there is that work of redemption inside. So God bless you with what you're doing there. I just wrote down the question you shared early on in your talk about your journey with being single. And your question was, "If I can't love what He created, how can I love the Creator?" And that's a very good question. And I think that's a question that women in general need to answer and maybe at some time in their life ask.

It's a very good question.

How about the rest of you ladies? Is there something that you would like to ask or comment on? If you don't feel comfortable turning on your video to ask your question to Mary, you can submit it in the chat box as well, and Lynelle will present your question.

So feel free. I have a question for you, Mary. What are some specific ways that you as a single have felt seen by sisters around you?

Yeah, that's a good question. I would say, I think just showing interest in what I'm doing.

I feel like I have—my church is very supportive, and the women there do very well in reaching out. And yeah, just being interested in what I'm doing is big. I think just the, yeah, taking the time to stay connected, sending notes and messages is definitely one way to be seen that I feel seen and cared for. I think at the end of the day, we all want to just be valued for who we are. And I feel I'm very blessed to have a lot of women in my life, from married or single, all ages, who are—we treat each other, first of all, as women who follow Jesus. And then we share out of the experience that we're in or the status that we have or whatever.

And so I feel very seen when we can connect, first of all, as women and on our—that is, first of all. And then the other things are secondary, so to speak. Thank you for that. And then here's a question from the chat. How can I be truly sold out for God, and how can I be passionate about serving locally before globally?

Yeah, that's a good question. I feel that's very important. The thing about serving locally before globally is very important because that's one thing I did a lot of while I—because I was in school for almost eight years studying with my trainings. And so I intentionally moved to the local city and then got involved in a pregnancy center there because of my interest in working with midwifery and babies and pregnancy. So I worked at a pregnancy clinic, volunteered there, tried to get involved in my community and things that interested me. I think putting yourself in places that are uncomfortable or that will stretch you is very good because when you come to places like this, that's kind of your daily life, especially in the beginning.

And so that will seem less overwhelming, I think, if you have a little bit of experience with that. And then I will say there's a thought called missional living, and I think it has to do with seeking first the kingdom of God, just taking the Sermon on the Mount, the principles that are just the basic principles.

Yeah.

Just, yeah, I'm drawing a blank on time, but reading scripture and just saying, "How can I practice that where I'm living? How do I think I'm going to live when I'm overseas?" We think we're going to be like these some kind of superhero people, and it's going to be easy to live with less or to do. But then when you're here, it's not true because sometimes these things actually are magnified in us, our issues. And so I think practicing that kind of living, living with less, living below, just because you have the means to do something doesn't mean you have to do it, right? Just because you can buy it doesn't mean you should.