1,802  
Babies 

Life is in the Blood

Glory Reborn embarked on an exciting journey in May. We had our very first blood drive at our clinic. We partnered with the Philippine National Red Cross to help collect life saving blood. After many weeks of preparing we had four local churches represented at the blood drive and many relatives of patients enrolled in the Glory Reborn pregnancy program. Together we were able to collect 36 bags of healthy blood. We should note that more than 60 donors came to the event however many of us women were turned down due to anemia…but we tried! This event was particularly important as each month Glory Reborn has patients in need of cesarean section deliveries. Prior to undergoing surgery a minimum of
one bag of blood must be secured and at the hospital ready to be used if the need arises. By partnering with Red Cross, Glory Reborn is stocking blood that can be used for patients who would need a cesarean delivery. We look forward to continuing to partner with the local Red Cross in the future and are happy that our first blood drive at Glory Reborn was a success!

We were able to secure the first bag of blood for a first time mother who was in labor this week. Johna came to the clinic in early labor on a Friday morning. During an initial check of she and the baby it was discovered that the babyʼs heart beat had some episodes of decelerations below the normal range. As we tried to manage and continued to monitor there was not significant enough improvement of the babyʼs heart beat so we took her to the hospital where Glory Rebornʼs OB-GYN met us and ordered a cesarean section. Upon delivery it was noted that the baby boy, Kyle, had his umbilical cord pinched up against the motherʼs womb and an abnormality with his lungs proved to be quite serious. Currently baby Kyle is on a ventilator and being cared for by Glory Rebornʼs Pediatrician. We are believing that Kyle can continue to grow stronger and overcome the congenital defect. Glory Reborn would like to continue to keep Kyle under the care of our pediatrician at a private facility but would like to ask for your continued prayers. We are so thankful for having found doctors that are willing to help us save the lives of babies and mommies that otherwise would have to deliver their infants at home, perhaps in a dumpsite or in a graveyard. We are thankful for each and every little life and for the opportunity that we have, together, to bring a hope and future to them. For some itʼs through extended medical care for others its holding their hand through loss and being a shoulder to cry on, and for the moments that we share in the joy of a long awaited little miracle. We canʼt say thank you enough to each of you for being the support system to thousands of Filipino families, mommies and babies like Johna and Kyle who have found hope and help in a time of trouble. Just as Jesus has found us and brought us an eternal hope what a wonderful thing to share in a small way a practical hope to oh so many precious lives.

See a video highlight of the Life is in the Blood Event:

May is Expansion Month

We are so thankful to expand our services this month and help screen for anomalies like Kyleʼs on a routine basis at Glory Reborn. Due to your faithful donations Glory Reborn was able to purchase an additional probe for our ultrasound machine. This will allow us to more accurately assess the expected due dates and scan for anomalies for each and every one of our mommies.

May was also an exciting month for me as I was able to help a dear friend deliver her fourth baby. Having been apart of her last two deliveries I was happy to have made it back to Cebu just a few hours before she delivered another precious baby boy! Itʼs always wonderful when we have patients come back and deliver with us multiple times. I canʼt believe that the babies I helped deliver for her are already 9, 6, and one month old. My how time flies. I am so thankful to be able to be a part of such a very special moment in so many precious familyʼs lives.

Fundraising

As you know we had a recent fundraising trip to the US, and it was extremely successful. We were able to raise $19,261.65 through all of your generosity! This allowed us to purchase some much needed equipment as well as raise a good portion of our annual budget. This combined with the donations we have received up to May 1, 2010 totals to over $50,000! We are on track to meet our annual budget. We cannot express how appreciative we are for this support and we are excited about the opportunities that 2010 will bring.
As we mentioned in our past newsletters as well as our presentation, one of the key areas is growth into a new facility. We will be sharing more on this as well as creating a separate campaign for it. Many of you mentioned this topic while we were in the US, and we are so excited about the interest. We are looking for not only funding, but for individuals or groups that would partner with us in planning, designing, and overseeing the project. If you or someone you know would want more information on how to be apart of this campaign, please email us and we will keep you updated. We will also continue to update you on this campaign via our regular newsletter.

Glory Reborn Online

Many of you know about our website and maybe even some of you know that you can receive your newsletter via email, but did you know that you could also partner with Glory Reborn online via Twitter and Facebook?

While Facebook has some security issues that they are working on, it has been an amazing success for Glory Reborn. Through the Causes application, we have not only raised awareness about our Cause, but we have also raised over $10,000 in 2009! We are developing and working on updates to include on Facebook and Twitter and encourage you to partner with us on these platforms and share Glory Reborn with your friends!

Facebook:

http://facebook.com/gloryreborn

Twitter:

@gloryreborn

Quality Care

Quality care is what we are all about at Glory Reborn. We believe that if you are able to provide a woman with consistent, quality care throughout her pregnancy you have already made a powerful impact on her actual delivery. In order to continue offering the women of Cebu quality care at a low cost, we began praying for an ultrasound machine. Many of our mothers are referred to an outside laboratory for an ultrasound due to inaccurate dating of the pregnancy or suspected low fluid inside the womb or poor fetal growth. Because the women we are serving in the clinic are in the 46% of persons living on less than $2 a day it was nearly impossible to require them to have an ultrasound scan. So, we learned to go without the scan or in severe cases Glory Reborn would pay for the scan. We began praying for an ultrasound machine nearly two years ago. A year and a half ago God blessed us with the machine. It wasnt until June 2008 that the ultrasound machine was finally released to us from the customs department of the Philippines. During that year and half of waiting there were days where the frustration level was at it peak and it took everything in us to be courteous and learn to develop an overflow of patience. As frustrating and trying as that year and a half was dealing with customs and the health department God always has a master plan. It wasnt until this last month that I could so clearly see how Jesus truly works ALL things for His purpose and glory. Let me further explain. It so happened, through a midwifery student of mine, that we came in contact with an organization called Hope Imaging. Hope Imagining is a non-profit, Christian, organization that provides ultrasound training for health care providers both in the USA and internationally. You can probably see where this story is heading. If I had the ultrasound machine a year and a half ago, when we hadnt yet enrolled our student, we would not have been able to make this connection with Hope Imaging. So after applying for the training program, four amazingly gracious sonographers came to our little clinic in Cebu and began to train 8 of us in basic obstetrical sonography. The training was educational and practical and allowed us to scan over 50 pregnant mommies. We enjoyed not just the training but also fellowship with the four sonographers who have a similar vision to empower health care workers to serve the pregnant community in their area. We were honored and blessed beyond measure. Isnt God good? When we prayed for the ultrasound we assumed we would have to hire someone to help us at the clinic. We never thought to pray for a group of women to come train us on our new machine. Thank you Jesus! The ultrasound machine has already proved its worth just in these past three weeks. We have discovered so many useful bits of information that are helping us customize our pregnancy care to each individual mommy in the clinic. And as an added bonus we also discovered that two of our staff members are expecting little ones of their own! We are so happy for our staff members and feel so honored to have been able to connect with such an organization as Hope Imaging.

Opportunities

Through another amazing series of events David, myself and our dear friend JoRae, had the opportunity to meet the president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. We were then entertained over lunch by the local Cebu City counselors and Vice Mayor. We are thankful for the position that God has led us into with the city officials and we are cautiously moving forward to continue to serve the pregnant women of Cebu.

Financial Update

Year to Date, Glory Reborn has raised 49% of our annual budget! We really need your help to meet our budget this year! Glory Reborn is a registered 501c-3 non profit organization.

Five Years, 1,436 Babies Later

Where has the time gone?! Glory Reborn Clinic has now been serving the mothers of Cebu City for five years. We could think of no better way to celebrate our five years of existence than to have a reunion party for our mothers and babies. We were thrilled to see that our babies are growing up healthy and happy. From baby number 2 to baby number 1432 it was a party for all ages. It was even harder to believe that some of Glory Reborn’s babies started kindergarten this year. For David and I it was a day of awe and thanks for all that God has done. As I looked out at nearly 400 smiling moms and growing babies and toddlers my heart overflowed. It started with a simple vision to help one mother who had no where to delivery her baby. The one turned into 100 and the 100 turned into 1,000 until I found myself in a crowd of so many special mothers and babies, each with their own story to tell. Stories of miraculous births, stories of twin deliveries, stories of finding hope and peace, stories of finding a safe place to deliver their little miracle, stories of hope for this generation, stories of the faithfulness of Jesus evident in each big and little life. Stories that beat the odds of the country for maternal and infant deaths. And a story that is more than just a story….Life through a God that knows each of these little names and faces. The story of believing there is still hope for the mothers and babies of Cebu; for this generation.

Thanks to each of you that have believed together with us for the families of Cebu. Enjoy the pictures below and know that these are the faces of your dollars.
Here is a Collage of the Event:

Dear Friends,

Welcome to another edition of Glory Reborn e-News! This month has blown by, and we have had some successful deliveries as well as some interesting interactions with the local government. It seems there is a growing relevance for Glory Reborn here in Cebu City. While we are flattered by the necessity, we are hopeful that the city government would partner with us to improve the conditions of the healthcare system.

One Moment at a Time

Greetings! With each month our hearts grow more and more anxious to see what all the Lord has in store for Glory Reborn. We find ourselves continually pressed for space, which is a problem, that we are happy to have. We are confident that it means our staff is doing a great job and that the care and treatment you receive at Glory Reborn contrasts sharply with the alternatives in the city. Although we are ecstatic to have so many patients, we are continuing on our search for a new building. Each week we look at new places all over the city but we have yet to find one that is in very good condition. It is amazing how in just a few years many houses and buildings become so dilapidated. One building we visited last week was only 4 years old, but termites had eaten away the structure and the corrugated roof had rusted over and caved in. We are still looking into the school building we first saw, but the owner is hesitant to repair the building. We are confident that the right building is available, so we continue to look. We know that as God increases the number of mommies in our program He will also multiply the space for them to be cared for safely.
Part of our growth as we previously mentioned, has been due to changes at the one public hospital (Cebu City Medical Center or CCMC) that serves the city. We had been informed by the hospital and the city council that CCMC would only take high risk and emergency cases. All normal cases would be referred out of the hospital for home delivery or delivery in a maternity center. Although I think this is a very dangerous idea, we were willing to pick up the slack of some of the normal deliveries. After a few meetings and phone calls, we also thought that these changes would have little to no affect on the emergency cases that come to our clinic, so we were confident we could still transport these patients to the hospital for emergency care. It sounded good in theory. However this month has shown us the severity of the situation, and the stark reality of less developed countries.

We had a client who had been seen by our obstetrician and then appraised for a cesarean section due to complications that were deemed high risk. When she went to CCMC for her scheduled cesarean section they refused to accept her. The problem: she was not yet in labor. She came back to Glory Reborn, and after caring for the patient at the clinic for the night we then called CCMC in the morning to inform them that the patients labor had started and she was ready to come to the hospital with all of her supplies for her cesarean section. Our patient then returned to CCMC, but upon arrival the doctor again refused the patient and informed us that she must first have a trial of labor at our clinic. The poor patient came back again and now we had in our hands a woman who still needs a cesarean section but is being refused by the only choice she has: the public hospital. To make a very long story short our poor patient had to stay at the clinic for 16 hours where she finally went into active labor. Back I went with the patient (and this time my mom who was visiting) and we went straight into the ER. After 45 minutes of waiting for a doctor, she came, examined our patient on a bloody table where a delivery had just taken place and then began to scold me for bringing the client in. Again, for the record, our client had been appraised prior to labor, and our obstetrician deemed that she would have to deliver via a cesarean section, yet this doctor continued to scold me and tell me that she would never perform a cesarean on my patient. Tearfully my mother and I drove back to the clinic now well past 2 a.m. Tired and exhausted, we arrived only to find another woman in labor. We rejoiced when she had a beautiful, normal delivery, however the previous situation still loomed over our heads. In the morning when we finished our shift, we stopped by the hospital to see how our patient was doing. She was still in the labor room and had yet to be scheduled for cesarean section! She had now been in labor for over 24 hours and been appraised for cesarean section 48 hours ago and was still laying in a dirty labor room just waiting for her baby to be born naturally. It was clear that the situation was out of our control. Later that day, we again followed up with the patient who was attempting to try and push her baby out on her own. Since we are not allowed in the delivery room, we waited and prayed. By that evening 36 hours after labor started and 60 hours after she was appraised for cesarean section she was finally on the board for a cesarean section. Now the family had to go and find a matching blood donor and purchase more supplies for mom and baby. After twenty-six hours in the hospital, our dear patient had a cesarean section! Our mom did well and baby stayed at the hospital for a few days due to distress and infection from a lengthy labor! Ironically, this was the exact thing that we were trying to prevent. Had the poor patient received her cesarean on time when first appraised things could have gone a whole lot smoother for everyone! So by this point David and I decided this was just not fair and something had to be done. After speaking with the local Dept. of Health we were advised to make arrangements with a private hospital if we wanted better treatment for our patients. However, our patients cannot afford private care, nor can Glory Reborn shoulder all the costs. So the search began to find a hospital that would give more than a generous discount to our poor clients. Meanwhile I found myself again in a similar situation. A patient had come in for her prenatal checkup. The baby’s heartbeat was far below normal. We went to the hospital where we were sent back to the clinic because they would only accept our print out of the baby’s terrible heartbeat after it has been four hours! If the baby’s heart beat was still poor at four hours we should CALL back. Meanwhile we are trying to find somewhere to take the patient but she has no husband and no money – literally. Four hours goes on and we do all that we can at the clinic together with our OB but the patient is not in labor and the baby’s heartbeat is still terrible. So we call the hospital. Can we bring in our patient we have four hours of poor fetal heart tones recorded so on and so forth? The doctor on the other lines explains to me that they have no fetal monitor at CCMC and that the only means of listening to the baby’s heartbeat is via a stethoscope. Furthermore, the one anesthesiologist for the hospital, thats right, one, has the night off so she would not been scheduled for cesarean until morning if she did in fact need one. Now Im crying because I have a mom who wants to save her baby, a staff that wants to save a baby, no money to go private and a doctor in a hospital that is refusing our case! Which is not entirely her fault since there is no equipment in the city hospital and one anesthesiologist who probably needs and deserves more than one night off! However in the moment it was beyond upsetting. So I call a public hospital that serves persons from outside the city. (A provincial hospital.) My voice still shaking as I tell the story of my poor patient whose baby is dying by the minute. She tells me that she is not allowed to take patients from the city. Now my voice is really shaking and Im just trying to believe that by a miracle this woman could go into labor and only by a miracle would her baby survive. I do believe in miracles. As Im getting ready to hang up the phone planning what Im going to do with my staff who just would not handle listening to a baby slowly die on a monitor the doctor on the other ends says, Okay come in and we will tell them your client is from the province! Hallelujah! I can work with this. Since we had another two women in labor, David and a midwife get into the car as fast as possible and drive to the provincial hospital to find the doctor waiting for them at the door. She took our patient straight in and listened to the baby’s heart beat. Just in the 70s now and so weak. Within ten minutes the patient had a cesarean section! Baby survived and so did our hearts! But the problem is more than apparent. The city just doesn’t care about its pregnant mothers and they are not making any steps to work towards a better future for them. So we have found a private hospital who will accept our clients. Although the cost is still high at least there is a glimpse of hope for patients in extreme emergencies. I am so thankful for the doctor who had compassion on our patient. They are hard to find and we could never say thank you enough!

Current Prayer Needs

• That Glory Reborn would be able to exceed its 2007 Annual Budget
• That the Dollar Peso exchange rate would stabilize, it has fallen from 53 pesos to $1, to 45 to $1 in just one year
• That the Lord would direct us as we search for a new building, and that it would be fully funded
• That new opportunities with metabolic and HIV screening would happen
• That God would continue to open doors for support in the Philippines and Australia

Our Strategy

So generally, Glory Reborn is expanding with the number of patients we serve, in the number of women we will be able to keep in house, and with the private hospitals of the city to bring awareness and a better future for the pregnant women and infants of Cebu. Thank you for literally saving four lives and many hearts this month! Just as our hearts are indebted to the kindness of the doctor our hearts could never fully express what your prayers and donations do each and every day in Cebu City. Thank you.

Blessings,

Hilary & David

Well in case you are wondering, Hilary and Eve work at the clinic regularly, but earlier this year we had twins born at the clinic, and the mom named them after Hilary and Eve. Hilda came to the clinic in labor, and had been closely monitored her entire pregnancy since she was having twins. One of our supervisors, Eve (Evelyn Yu) was there to help as was Hilary. After delivering one of the twins normally, the other twin was having difficulties. We made a decision to immediately transport her to our OB, who delivered the second twin without problems. In doing so, Hilary & Eve saved the second twin and Hilda! She was so grateful that she decided to name her two girls after them. I happened to be at the clinic yesterday, and Hilda came by with the two beautiful girls!

(left to right: Eve, baby Eve, Hilary, baby Hilary & Sharon Walker!)

Another Great Month

Greetings everyone! Thank you for taking time to support Glory Reborn Organization. We have had another very successful month of normal deliveries We have been able to focus a lot of our attention this month on educating our mothers to be and sharing the joy of Jesus with them.

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