Year in Review, Part 17

Random Summer Happenings...

Many hands make light work!

Moving Joanna's playhouse/turned lemonade stand!

Visiting with the Barlows and holding their babies!

Picking rocks in the soon-to-be wheat field. We filled a whole gully with all the rocks, and felt very accomplished a week later when the overgrown field was smooth and seeded!

Year in Review, Part 16

Tuesday night prayer meetings...

Our pastor's family hosts a Tuesday night prayer meeting at their house, which we thoroughly enjoy... we usually end up praying later than 9 pm, and then we stay afterwards visiting for longer than we planned... and then we get home really late (we have an hour drive)... but it's worth it for the sweet fellowship!

Above: most of the young ladies, posing by the gate to the field

Year in Review, Part 15

Last summer I helped with a surprise for a midwife who is working on her Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) certification. Her clients and former clients knew she didn't have money for all of the application paperwork, testing, etc, so they schemed and planned and raised money to give her towards her CPM!
They talked her into hosting a picnic at her house on a Sunday afternoon that she thought was just so they could meet other like-minded families. Instead, she had a surprise when they handed her envelope full of money and told her to go take her CPM exam! I'm not sure who was smiling bigger - them or her!
It was so fitting... she has given so much of her life to serve them for very little compensation.
In fact, she often doesn't cover her own expenses, let alone earn any money for her time spent serving many, many home birthing families. At least some of them realize some of the enormous sacrifices she has made on their behalf, and love her with very grateful hearts!

Year in Review, Part 14

I'm trying to hurry and finish my "year in review" that I started before it's March!
There were so many things that happened over the summer and unfortunately (sometimes fortunately!) some of them just didn't get documented with the camera!

The creek and a nearby small lake were favored places during the summer, since we don't have air conditioning and many times the mercury hit 100 degrees!

Adam B, Jemima, CarolAnne B. and Ellie B.

Sam and Abe at the lake

Jemima with Adam and CarolAnne in Sam's homemade "boat." : )

Year in Review, Part 13

Memorable moments....

Josh and Anna had a darling baby girl, Rosalind!

I spent a couple of days in St. Louis, celebrating Shannon's birthday with a group of mutual friends.

Andy and Amy got married! They are expecting a baby next summer...
I can't believe it - people who I thought of as "little kids" years ago are now married, mothers, fathers.... it's all so weird! I feel out of place and old among people five years younger than me who are discussing the houses they are buying and the kids they have!!

Year in Review, Part 12

Part of the Family Spent a LOT of Time in the Hayfield!

It seemed like Dad and the boys were cutting hay, raking hay, baling hay, or hauling hay nearly every day all summer! We had our own hayfields to cut, rented another farm with several hayfields, and cut hay for other people. (I say we; I didn't do much except provide transportation for some of the younger kids and deliver food and drinks to the field some days!) Since construction work was extremely scarce for Dad's business, we were all thankful for another opportunity to make some money, and especially one that the guys were all able to do together!

A picnic in the hayfield - Joanna being, ummm... I don't know... just her usual funny self!
Piggy back rides occurring in the background! : )

Sam and Liz are hot and tired, hoping that they can go home soon!
Throwing hay bales onto a trailer all day in Missouri August heat is not the most exciting job.

Year in Review, Part 11

Last Day at the Capitol

Victory at last! Well, sort of.
The last day of the 2007 legislative session ended with our bill/amendment still intact, on the Governor's desk. Would he sign it into law? We couldn't tell any of our supporters, but an hour before session ended, a couple of us had been given the Governor's word that he would... Still, we knew that everyone would be tensely waiting and hoping that nothing would go wrong until the day that he picked up his pen and it was done!

One of the senators was hurrying down the hall to the Governor's press conference with the Leadership from the House and Senate shortly after session ended, and invited us to come along. So we followed him right through the Governor's office and out onto his private portico and listened to the legislators speak about all the things they had accomplished. It was hard to believe that one of the bills they were talking proudly about having passed contained the language that could free Missouri's midwives from the criminal charges they currently face if practicing!
Afterwards (above), we stood around and tried to decide what to do next. It was hard to believe that this day had come and it looked like midwives might soon be legal in Missouri. We wanted to party, take a nap, cry and shout for joy all at once!

It was with very mixed feelings that we packed up our stuff from all of the offices where it had sat for five months and said goodbye to the many legislators who had become our dear friends.
We hugged a few of the lobbyists and staff who had shown us the ropes around the Capitol, and looked back at the building that would always hold a piece of our lives. I didn't know if I'd be there on a regular basis ever again or not... I didn't know if in a few short months professional midwives would be legal and I would be back to pursuing my midwifery training and certification.
Little did I know of all that loomed ahead, and that the doctor's groups that opposed decriminalizing midwives weren't planning to give up any time soon!

(Note: The Governor did follow through and sign the bill a few weeks later, and our supporters flooded his office with thank you letters.)

Year in Review, Part 10

Stressful Days at the Capitol

As the legislative session was coming to a close in May, we were increasingly busy at the Capitol, reading bills (dozens of them, hundreds of pages thick!) every day, taking care of children so that their mothers could speak with their legislators, fighting every day to keep our midwifery provision that had passed from being stripped out in a subsequent bill.

Christy multi-tasking: Feeding Sammy his bottle, and scanning a bill for "bad amendments"

The last week was so very tense, as our bill lay safely on the Governor's desk waiting to be signed, and every day the opposition did their best to pass an amendment in another bill that would strip our midwifery provision out of the bill on his desk.

Every day the newspapers carried ugly stories about how the bill had passed (most of the senators weren't paying attention or reading the bill and did not realize that midwifery had been amended into a huge health/health insurance bill until after they had passed it).

Every day we wanted to explain to people what had really happened, but we couldn't tell the whole story for many sensitive reasons. To this day, we haven't even been able to tell our supporters the whole story, as the midwifery law is now tied up in the courts... and heading to the Missouri Supreme Court.

A crew of volunteers, mostly homebirth mothers, scanning bills in the Capitol cafeteria.
"Folks, we have to get through this 300 page bill in the next fifteen minutes and know if it's clean, because the senators are asking if it is safe to vote for..."
So, we pushed our lunch aside, tore off a chunk of pages for each person and started reading....

During that last week, those of us cloistered in an office reading bills furiously from morning to night (trying to catch all of the bad amendments the opposition was trying to insert) were under so much pressure not to miss anything or mess up when declaring a bill "clean" so that our supporters would know they were "safe" to vote on the bill currently being debated on the floor. Part of the time hordes of reporters would come by the office with their microphones, cameras, and notepads and press in, asking pointed questions, shoving microphones in front of us, asking to speak to particular people who they thought might have a juicy quote for them... Then we'd read the newspaper coverage and groan over the negative spin put on what we said, and call our supporters and ask them to respond to the flurry of blogging going on about the midwifery provision...
Tensely, we asked some of the volunteers to take the babies and children outside who were there for the day, and others of us had discussions about our maddening position.

What were we to do? What was the next right thing? Maybe all this work would be for naught and the opposition would find a way to sabotage us anyway.... Would the Governor even sign the bill? He was being pressured from many directions to veto it.
Some people cried, some people yelled, and some people buried themselves in the work there was to do! It was a long, miserable week.

Joanna is entertaining both herself and another volunteer's little girl by sliding down the
front steps of the Capitol!

I have read through 20 bills in the last hour! What an accomplishment!

Year in Review, Part 9

Real, Genuine Honesty in the Face of Insincerity

Magnolias in bloom on the Missouri Capitol lawn

I scribbled my thoughts on a scrap of paper and tucked in in my lobbying folder one afternoon at the Capitol last April. Reading it again today, my thoughts seemed so very relevant as I continue to encounter more and more of exactly what I wrote about. So, I'll share it below. And, yes, this has been my life for the past year! (I have left out names of particular legislators to protect their identities.)


It has been hard to go from my life of interacting mostly with my family and friends who are "just like me" to a life of interacting constantly with legislators, staff, and the public.

It's so easy to become superficial in this world... simply use people for what you need them for; then move on. It's easy not to take the time to just stop and love then and care about them. The Capitol is full of insincere people slapping each other on the back and oozing with flattery. It has been everywhere for the last couple of years that I've been there, and I've been well aware of it. But I had never fully felt the ugliness of insincerity till last week. Last week, it seemed to ooze from every pore in the granite walls and coat the marble steps. It seemed that everywhere I turned, there was another insincere smile from someone seeking their own interests.

I couldn't get away from it. I finally went outside and slumped on a bench under one of the magnolias and cried, "Oh, God! Am I becoming as insincere as the rest of the building? Am I genuine, honest, and real? Or am I just another smiling, hand-shaking fake? Do I really love anybody here? Do I really care about them?"

I thought about all of the forced smiles and pleasant comments that I had put on that very morning with the senators who hate my bill. Inwardly, I wanted to scream when I said "thank you" to the Floor Leader's office, but I didn't. I smiled, nodded, and acted grateful even though I was furious about what he was really doing behind the scenes. I knew it wouldn't get me anywhere to tell him what I thought of his actions, so I didn't.

I thought about the committee chairman who I had run into in the hall that morning. He told me that he had done what I had asked him to do - kill a bad bill coming through his committee. He grinned and said, "You owe me big, girl!" I had nodded, still shocked that he had actually done what I asked him to. I had stammered, "Yeah, I - I sure do!" That was genuine. I should have been shouting for joy over this improvement; but I only wanted to cry. I blamed it on the four hours of sleep a night that I was running on; the stress overload. I had barely been able to eat my lunch as I was still reeling from a horrible confrontation with a very angry senator. I still couldn't understand why she was so upset, and particularly at me!

And... oh, yes. I hadn't followed up with a thank you note to the Governor's office for the meeting we had on Wednesday. I was planning to write a gushy thank you letter. But, maybe, I decided... a simple, very genuine thank you would be more... more... the kind of person I wanted to be -- real and genuine. I decided to be real. Mom would be happy. She's always telling me to just simply be myself and not worry about impressing people when I'm worried about how I will come across at an important meeting.

Out the bench, the magnolia petals were dropping and being trampled by the hundreds of people strolling past each day. I cried out for a humble heart, a genuine love for lost people, and simple honesty. That sounded better to me than ___'s Rolex watches, french cuffs, and gold tie clasps. It sounded better than ___'s back slapping, flirting, and wining and dining anyone who he wanted to use. It sounded real. It sounded simple, and just plain good.

I smiled through my tears and went back inside to go to work with an honest heart and a genuine smile. My cell phone buzzed. It was one of the senators with some good news. Another real person, who's honest, who's always told me the truth, even if I didn't want to hear it.
His honesty was a breath of fresh air to my asphyxiating soul, choking on the fumes of a disingenuous Capitol world.

"Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully..." Ps. 24: 3,4

"He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; He shall dwell on high.." Isaiah 33:15, 16

Above: The Missouri Senate in session ~ 2007

Above: Allison, Elizabeth, Mary - reading bills, and figuring out what to do next!

Above: It's been a long morning at the Capitol. Debbie, Keith, Mary over lunch

Pouring over amendments...

Year in Review, Part 8

Ruth has been an avid picture-taker for several years now, and I would say that she is rapidly advancing towards being a real bonna fide professional photographer.

When no one else wants to sit for a portrait session with her and she has some new ideas for lighting or poses or who-knows-what, she uses herself as the subject! : ) And I'll have to credit her with at least 90 percent of the photos posted on my blog. Thanks, Ruth!