August Monthly Hero

Well another month has arrived, and this means it is another month to highlight an inspirational other who is daring to live a life of More Than Words. 

Allow me to introduce you to the wonderful Lauren. Lauren just happens to be one of my dearest friends. She was the Maid of Honour at our wedding, she visited me when I was living in India and she now just lives up the road. I wanted to share her with you as she really is inspirational. 

This is a photo taken when she visited us in India

 

Who are you?

Bondia, Hau nia naran Lauren, i hau nia enfermeira ho Parteira hosi Brisbane, Australia.  Hello, My name is Lauren and I’m a nurse and midwife from Brisbane, Australia.

What are you doing?

From August 2012, I am travelling to East Timor for 6 weeks.  I will primarily be staying in a small village called Weberek situated 7hours from the capital Dili. There I will be meeting up with another nurse and midwife.  Together we will be operating the local medical clinic, providing pregnancy and postnatal care, facilitating discipleship training to the local believers and supporting the young church.  In particular there are two locals in Weberek that need particular attention- Milton who is a 18^th month old boy with a cleft palate and

Maritu who has a very deep wound.  With me, I will be bringing special cleft palate bottles and dressing as equipment needed to care for Milton and Maritu is not available in East Timor.  

Why am I doing it?

I am passionate about nursing and equipping individuals & communities with the resources to improve health and wellbeing.  Whilst I love nursing, I have a greater calling.  Nursing overseas gives me the opportunity to express my first love- to make Christ known and serve others (Colossians 1:28).  Since my first missions exposure trip in 2004 when I was 17, I have felt a tug towards missions.  After high school missions became a reoccurring theme in my life through church, friends and a trip to India in 2010.  In 2011 I started praying with another midwife from my church who had been in East Timor for 7 years prior.  As we prayed together the pull and tug for missions reached fever pitch. The lyrics “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace’ by Helen H. Lemmel, is the best way to describe the past 18 months.  The busyness, glits and glamour has started to dim and the light shining from a life of overseas service is growing brighter and brighter.

How can others get involved?

Most importantly pray. Pray for the locals, the long term missionaries and the short-termers of Weberek.  Over 80% of the population are catholic, however it is a mixture of ancestry worship and animism.  There is also still civil unrest as this young nation seeks to establish national order and independence from UN intervention. 

If God has laid East Timor on your heart I encourage you to pray about short or long term missions in Weberek.  YWAM established the church planting in Weberek, however as of July 2012 the community has been handed over to the Parks Council Friendship Agreement and Peak Hill Uniting Church.  Currently only 3 permanent missionaries are in living in Weberek- with the young church so hungry for discipleship, there is lots of work to do!

So there you have it, she has a degree and has been working in Australia all her life, however more and more she felt the pull to live overseas living out her faith in a practical way. I love Lauren's story because it encourages people to pursue in obedience to that which we feel the Lord is calling us to do. The closer we draw to Him, the more He reveals to us about who we are. Please, if you remember, pray for Lauren as she goes to East Timor for the next 6 weeks.