Philippine Midwife Project

Sherina Tatum has spent the past few years out and about in the third world.  She did a Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School, followed a few months later by a YWAM Primary Health Care course, both of which took her to Thailand and Cambodia. After a few months at home she returned to third world ministry, this time as a missionary volunteer alongside Filipina midwives in doing perinatal and related mercy ministry to poor slum dwellers in Manila.  Following that, she completed a three month midwife internship with an experienced (in third world midwife ministry) American midwife in Puerto Galera, another area of the Philippines.  She has continued serving there, moving with the clinic to nearby Calapan, and was acting director of that clinic for 6 months while the director was on leave. She continues to love and serve the poor and needy in that area in the context of the birthing clinic. 

You can follow her blog at www.sherinatatum.blogspot.com

Give online by clicking the icon below and selecting the Philippine Midwife Project Fund...

Update-April 6, 2010

Thanks for working so hard to get things into place so people can continue to support me - I REALLY appreciate it!  We really need prayer and support these days.

Last week, I had to witness another baby leave this world. Baby Faith was born at our clinic. She was not breathing, not really alive, but Jesus miraculously brought her to life! Then the mother started to lose a LOT of blood, so we transported baby Faith and her mother, Lyzel, to the Provincial hospital. Baby Faith was put on an IV and needed to be started on antibiotics but the family had no money to purchase the medicine. Unlike our hospitals in Canada, when a patient arrives at the hospital, any supplies or medicines that they might need have to be purchased first by the family from a pharmacy outside the hospital. The patient is not even admitted until everything is bought! And so it happens that patients die waiting to be admitted and treated because their families couldn't beg money off their family and neighbors fast enough. It's a heart wrenching system! So I bought the medicine for baby Faith so she could receive treatment immediately. I also paid for all the supplies and medicine for Lyzel - she had to have a D&C and a blood transfusion. The next day baby Faith went to heaven. Lyzel was not allowed to leave the hospital until she paid for or replaced the blood she'd used! We got some of the volunteers at Ruel to donate and the family donated some also - they needed 6 donors.

That's a few baby deaths recently. It's heart breaking when that happens! But I know that our clinic has touched so many lives. And I know being there to love, pray and cry with the mothers is so important. I love what I'm doing and know this is what I'm called to do! Our clinic has delivered over 300 babies in the last year. We now average about 40 per month. We also have about 200 moms come for prenatal check ups each month and then we do about another 200 visits after birth to check on the moms and babies that delivered at our clinic. The Philippines still has a high maternal and newborn mortality rate, mainly because many people can't afford to go to the hospitals, so clinics like ours are badly needed. There are many superstitious beliefs and harmful practices here and we use every opportunity we have with the moms and families to teach them and pray with them.

I have also taken on a widowed mother and her 2 children. Crisel (she's only 21) came to live with me last November, a few days before her 2nd baby, Joy, was born. I delivered Joy here in my house! Crisel's other girl, Micha is almost 2. They have no one to take care of them and Crisel had come to me before Joy was born to inquire about leaving her babies at the Ruel orphanage so she could get a job to support herself. I knew Crisel from when I worked at the clinic in White Beach, Puerto Galera. Her husband passed away last June from kidney failure. I love having Crisel live at my house but it does have its challenges. I no longer have much of an escape place as energetic Micha always wants to be with me when I'm home. It's also challenging financially as I have to provide food and living expenses for all of us. But I know that God's heart is so for the orphaned and the widows. He wouldn't turn her away and neither can I! Crisel would love to one day study and become a midwife and work at our clinic. There are needs everywhere all the time! I can't thank all of you enough for believing in me and supporting and encouraging me! I love you all!

 Sherina