"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!"

Our clinic has been through a tOUGh couple of weeks - what with the DOH (department of health) bursting in and giving us 15 days to comply with (UN)reasonable measures...all of which are underway. There are approx. 100 lying-in (maternity) clinics in all of Davao and WE, as Mercy Maternity, are the biggest of them all. We're like walmart...only with no sweat shops or cheap materials. The DOH has only found 14 clinics up to their standards, ours not being one of them. We almost closed down. Why? Not because we're dirty, or have malpractice, or anything like that...just because we're in a war against something bigger than ourselves. [OUR clinic gets in trouble for not having the cap screwed on tight to the container of our cottonballs.. when the public hospital gets away with cats running astray through the wards, blood splattered on the floor, not bothered with until the next shift].

Mercy is a great clinic, not ONLy because we are clean, but MORE so because of the people we serve. Most of our clients don't make more than $4 dollars a day (and that's being generous). And we give them free prenatal care, free labor and delivery, and postpartal care. We decided to show our patients jUSt hOW mUCh we love and care for them and their families by springing big bags of food on everyone who walks through the door, on some random day at the clinic. WE've done this before, the students just gather as much money as possible by a certain date, give it to our filipina staff to go to the market where they can buy lOADS of rice, and vegetables, and powered milk, and sugar, and such to bless our patients.

As I've said before, people at home just have such a heart for what I am doing here, constantly reading up on my blog, and girls have done this in the past where they throw this out there, and see if anyone would respond...
and so am i.
If you want to give ($5, $10, $1000) whatever you've got in your wallet at the time...(haha, Matt!) Just get the money to my mom 562-7400 - probably not so smart to put a telephone number on here but, she'll wire it to me, and i'll see that this foodbank at Mercy receives it. Oh my goodness...this thing'll be great, even if NO one gives any money! I cannot wait to see the reactions of our patients (a little disheartening, because filipinos tend to be shy and not as expressive as sOMe...but. mmm, it'll be sweet either way!) Pass on the word! and thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Isaish 58:6-8