Glory to God!!!!!!!!!!!!! And to God alone!!!

I must share what happened this week at The Pregnancy Center.

This past Monday I was there in the afternoon and I had the opportunity to talk to a young Spanish girl. She is 10 weeks pregnant, single, the boyfriend won't be involved in the pregnancy at all and to top it all of, she is here illegally. Her sister came with her and was very supportive but they were seriously considering doing an abortion because of the financial costs of having a child and also out of fear because of her situation in the country. It's very unusual for a Spanish girl to consider doing an abortion because Mexico is a Catholic country where abortion is illegal, as it is in Brazil (at least, so far!). But this one girl was desperate and was seriously considering doing the abortion.

As I spoke to her and her sister I felt she had a soft heart and was acting out of despair. I gave her some information about abortion and took her to the Ultra Sound room to find out how far long she really was.

The Ultra Sound was beautiful! This 10 weeks old baby was jumping up and down, moving his/her little legs and arms a lot, very alive and active. Little, if any explanation was needed as far as the images we were seeing because they spoke for themselves. It was very clear! After a few minutes seeing the little baby moving all around the mom started crying and I asked her why she as crying. She told me: " I AM HAVING THIS BABY, there is no way I'm going to abort him/her!" And she would not stop crying.

At that point I was crying as well and the sister had tears in her eyes too. It was so great and I could not stop thanking God for touching her heart like that! It was such a miracle and it brings tears to my eyes even now, just to remember it.

I told her that she was going to be a great mom because it was clear that she already loved the little one. And the baby would NOT stop jumping as if he/she was celebrating life, as we were! What a wonderful thing to witness, I really felt privileged!

So, every time you think of us, please, pray for our ministries, that God will continue to touch people's lives and hearts like He did with this one girl and that lives will be saved and transformed by His amazing grace, love and power!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZECA!!!!

Today is my aunt Zeca's birthday!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! MAY GOD BLESS YOU BEYOND MEASURE!!

We wish we could be there to celebrate with you... Matthew really liked the Brazilian parties. I think he will adapt pretty fast if we do go live there for a while.

This month we've been really busy. Matthew is leading the next Living Waters Program that starts this coming Friday, 23rd of March and he's been very busy getting ready, preparing everything, interviewing the participants and trying to put things together before it begins. It's a big job to lead the program and it takes a lot of time and effort. But Matthew thoroughly enjoy it. Living Waters is his passion so, praise God for that.

It is a great ministry and a wonderful tool that God uses to heal people. I've gone through the program myself last year, as a participant, and God dealt with several issues in my life. Some that I was not even aware of. It was great!

This year I took the Leadership training but I won't be involved because of Julia. The classes are on Friday nights from 6 PM til 11 PM and it's a little too much for little Julia. So I'm staying home with her but maybe next year I'll have a chance to get more involved. We want to have enough training under our belts to be able to take the Program to Brazil in the near future.

Talking about training, we have a praise report!! We've got ALL THE FINANCES to go to the Exodus Conference in June, in Irvine, CA. God is soooooooo good, He provides in the most unexpected ways. All we need now is the time off work. Matthew will try to work it out at the office. We are praying that it will all work out. We do feel that God is opening this door for us to go so we do believe this will happen. It will be so good to get out of the island for a little while. We haven't gone out since August 2005 when we came back from Brazil. It will be very refreshing, in all ways, I'm sure! Please, join us in prayers for the time off at Matthew's work.

And pray for the next Living Waters team as well. We have a few new staffs and we've changed some rules. We pray that it will all be for the better. Pray for Matthew as well, that he will have the strength and wisdom of God to lead one more program.

We love you all

Ana, Matthew and Julia

PS - Of course I had to put one more pic of our little princess!

Chocolate

This week has been a crazy week. Matthew is very, very busy this whole month because of the new Living Waters’ team that will start on March the 23th. He is leading this one too so it’s been a busy time with preparation for the new team.

On Wednesdays I teach Childbirth Classes at the Pregnancy Center from 5 PM to 7 PM and Matthew picks up Julia and takes her home for a couple of hours. Last week I arrived home, after the class, and asked him how everything was. I’ll reproduce our dialogue:

Ana – So, how is everything?

Matthew – Good.

Ana – How is Julia?

Matthew – She is doing good, we had a great time.

Ana – What time did she take the bottle?

Matthew – After the chocolate.

Ana (freaking out) – WHAT????????????????????????? Matthew, did you give her chocolate??????????

Matthew – Of course not! She took it.

Ana – Oh please, you better have a good explanation for that.

Matthew – Well, I was opening a Reeses Peanut Butter cup and the chocolate was melted. She reached out for the chocolate and knocked it out of my hand. It fell on her dress and it was all melted. I put her on the bed in order to clean both of us and when I came back she had chocolate all over her hands, face, dress and mouth. And she was sucking her fingers that were covered with chocolate.

Ana – Oh GREAT!!!!!!!!! She not only ate chocolate but also peanut!!!!!!!

Matthew – As I said, it was not my fault! She took it, I never gave it to her. But I can tell she liked it!

Well, I don’t have to go on with this, do I? You all got the idea. Julia had her first chocolate experience at three and a half months. And not only a chocolate experience, but a peanut experience.

God is good indeed and does protect the children. The good news is that she did fine. Her intestines worked just fine and I think she is not allergic to peanut. Praise God!

The Pregnancy Center

This is the third week that I’m back to The Pregnancy Center. I’ve been volunteering there since October 2005 but since Julia’s birth I was taking a break to get better adjusted to her and her to me in the house. I’m taking her with me, of course, and it’s been a blessing so far.

The Pregnancy Center is an awesome place to work and I do love the staff team. Everybody has a passion for the cause and A LOT of compassion for the pregnant women.

The majority of girls that look for the center are going through a crisis pregnancy and usually seriously considering abortion. It’s sad to see them go down this path so we do our best, in the most compassionate way, to show them that there are better options. Ultimately, it’s up to them to decide but it’s very rewarding to see them change their minds after getting more information on abortion and other options.

Basically, I’m helping doing the Ultra Sounds of the pregnant women, with 3 other nurses. It’s so amazing to show the mom the baby’s heartbeat and see their eyes water most of the times realizing that they carry a real tiny baby and not just “blood” as some people believe.

I’m also teaching Childbirth Classes for the moms that are carrying their pregnancy to term and I enjoy teaching very much!

In the beginning I was not sure how Julia would adapt to the new schedule but she is doing well so far. Of course, there are a lot of “aunties” that are dying to spoil her a bit while she is there, so it makes it easier.

It is a ministry that faces a lot of spiritual battles, so if you feel led by God, please, pray for the girls and for us that minister to them. It is known that there are at least 3000 abortions A DAY in the United States. Have you thought about how many lives we are missing a year? The numbers are too high and we are losing this battle to the enemy. We do need more volunteers there to do different things but we also need people that stand in the gap and pray for this ministry.

If you live in Kona and want to help out somehow, please, give us a call at – 808 326 1766.

If you don’t live in Kona, consider praying for us. We need this covering.

And if you want to know more details about this ministry I’ll be happy to talk to you by phone or e-mail.

Thank you.

Julia's Birth

Julia was born on November 9th, 2006, Kealakekua, Hawaii. She was 7.2 oz. and 18 inches long. I was in labor for 48h and ended up having an emergency C-section. This was a big disappointment for me because I’ve always wanted to have a natural delivery. Because I had a C-section they did not allow me to hold my baby right away. I was only able to hold her in my arms when she was 3hours old. It’s well known how important the first hour of life of a newborn baby is. It’s when the baby is the most alert and ready to establish the bond with mommy. Thank God Matthew was there and was able to bond with her and it was very rewarding for him but I felt guilty for not being there for my baby.

From the beginning I didn’t have a lot of milk. I breastfed her exclusively for 15 days and had to supplement with formula up to two months and then I stopped breastfeeding because I had NO MORE milk. This was another BIG disappointment because I NEVER thought I would not be able to breastfeed my babies up to one year. And everybody knows the advantages of breast milk, no discussion about that. But reality is that I really didn’t have milk.

Well, guess what? With all these struggles I had a GREAT time of getting closer to God for the first couple of months after she was born and I’ll share with you one experience I had during this time.

I was trying to breastfeed her one day and she was refusing my breast. She was crying, totally upset, obviously hungry, but she would push my breasts away and keep crying and fighting me. After a while I was crying as well, very frustrated and feeling totally rejected by her.

And I was also crying out to God and asking for His help and for discernment to know what to do. At one point I felt God saying:

“Do you know what you feel when she fights and refuses your breasts? I feel the same when you fight my love”. And He went on: “Stop receiving the drops of my love, I want to pour out much more on you”.

And then I was REALLY crying and repenting before God because I never thought that He would feel rejected by me and I didn’t even know I was refusing His love. So I asked Him what I should do to completely receive His love. And He answered: “That’s the problem; you don’t have to DO anything. Stop DOING, simply BE in my presence and let me take care of you. Stop striving and fighting, I want to hold you in my arms, as you are holding Julia, and take care of you, providing everything you need. As soon as you start receiving my love she will also feel it and settle down”.

And I saw myself snuggling with Jesus and hearing Him speak words of love and affirmation to me. As soon as that happened Julia stopped crying and latched on, without my help, all by herself. It was like a miracle but I knew she was feeling Jesus’ love and peace.

That was an extraordinary experience and from that I took a couple of lessons. We all know that our kids belong to God. They are NOT OURS. We all know that in our minds but not always do we feel it in our hearts. After that experience I really felt that she belongs to Jesus and that there’s no better place for her to be other than in His arms of love. It was clear that I can’t provide everything she needs and I’ll always fall short on something. So it became really easy for me to surrender and truly, give her to Him. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

And the second thing I took out of it was true compassion for new moms. If I ever come back to work as a Pediatrician I’m sure I’ll have an extra amount of compassion for the moms of my little patients.

Isn’t that amazing the way God works? He takes what the enemy meant for evil and turns it into good. I’m SO grateful for that and for God’s gentle way of teaching us, always full of love. Praise Him!!!

I love you, Father!!!

Ana

Introduction to my blog

Hello Dear Family and Friends,

I'm creating this Blog in order to communicate more frequently with all of you and let you all know what is going on with us here in the Big Island of Hawaii.

In order to post something in our website I depend on Matthew because the program we use is in his laptop so it makes it harder for me (Ana). But here it is very simple and handy so I'll try to post frequent news of our family and ministries.

I'd love to hear from you all and know how you are doing. Comments on what I write are very welcome. They will help me to improve communication.

I'd like to give a special "thank you" for John Teague who gave us the idea of creating a Blog. He and his wife, Karen, were here in Kona and took the time to see us and collect some information about our ministries so that they can take that information to Matthew's home church back in California (Redwood Covenant Church).

Thank you all for taking the time to read.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Blessings,

With love,

Ana