From the Indonesia team
I.
I couldn’t sleep, wondering what was happening with Susi’s* mom. Susi was in labor, but she had no money to pay for a midwife. She had gone to the local midwife, already four centimeter’s dilated, but the midwife had sent her away: telling her to find $70 first as a down payment for the care she would need to receive.
“Who is with you at your house?” I asked by phone at 10pm.
“It is just me and Susi,” Mama Susi answered. “My husband is still out on the streets working.” I knew her husband worked as a singer-beggar, and would only come home with enough to eat the next day. How could they be expected to come up with the $200 necessary to pay a midwife?
I wrestled with frustration – why had they not saved money over the past eight or nine months for the arrival of this baby? Paying for a birth should not be an emergency– they had months to save.
I wrestled with guilt – what should our role be? Should we pay the money for them? Would that just encourage lots of pregnant moms in the neighborhood to rely on us to pay for their deliveries in the future? What is the right thing to do?
II.
In the morning, I left for my run– wondering what the outcome of Mama Susi’s labor had been. Had she had her baby? Were mother and baby ok?
I heard a mosque call out something in Arabic– an unusual time of day for someone to be making an announcement. Oh no, I thought. Did Mama Susi die? The mosque was chanting the prayers said to announce a death – I couldn’t make out what the other words or name were, but I heard something about someone dying at 3:30am.
I spent my run pounding in prayers with my feet, as my thoughts raced: Dear God, please don’t let it be Mama Susi who died! Please let Mama Susi and the baby be alive!
III.
I found out a few hours later that my fears had been unfounded. Mama Susi had her baby, a little girl. Although the baby was tiny (2 kilos= 4 pounds 6 ounces), she and the baby were doing fine. She had traveled by motorcycle taxi at 2:30am— already ready to push the baby out!!– knocking on multiple midwives’ clinics before one finally took pity on her and let her in. The baby girl was born moments later.
IV.
Mama Susi’s sister showed up at my door the next afternoon, begging for money. “The midwife won’t let Mama Susi go home until she pays $50 as a down payment,” she said. This is a common strategy midwives use, not allowing the mom and baby to go home until some of the fees are paid. It is a logical tactic to play, otherwise they would likely go out of business.
I wrestled once again with what was the “right” thing to do. I gave the sister half of the money she asked for and said it was not a loan– just a birthday gift for the baby.
V.
The money we lent never got to the midwife. Mama Susi’s sister used it for something else. Somehow word got around the community about the backstabbing act of her sister, and the neighbors revolted— yelling at her, giving her some punches, telling her what a scumbag trick she had played.
Some of her neighbors managed to track down a donator from Instagram. Susi’s father provided a pathetic video of him holding the baby, crying, begging for someone to give money so they could go home. A few hours later, Mama Susi and baby were home. The midwife had been paid, and Mama Susi had even been given $20 to use on food. How much money rolled into the Instagram account as a result of that video? I wonder.
VI.
We are about to enter the month of December. My family has always loved celebrating the Advent season. We are preparing the wreath and the candles, looking forward to special Christmas songs and stories during our evening family devotions.
And while I know that Mama Susi is a very different person than Mary-the-mother-of-Jesus, I cannot help but approach the Christmas story this year with Mama Susi’s labor and birth fresh on my mind.
Did Mary have someone to help her as she labored?
How many kilos was baby Jesus?
Did she have trouble breastfeeding, or was it smooth from the start?
Was the cave/house/room that contained the manger they laid Jesus in similarly dirty and crowded and noisy– like Mama Susi’s house in the slum?
Of course, we can only speculate on the answers to these questions. But once again, Advent is this yearly season where we are invited to wrestle with the good news that God became flesh and blood– as a tiny, vulnerable little baby. And within a short time after being born, Jesus and his family were refugees, on the run from the authorities who wanted to kill him.
Somehow, the God of the universe wanted to enter into our humanity. To cry and eat and burp and bleed. The Lord chose to humble himself and enter into the dirt and messiness of life on earth– and show us there is hope for us yet.
May the Lord be near to us all during this season of remembering Christ’s birth– and awaiting His second coming. And may we be willing to share this good news with others, as we humbly seek to follow our Lord.
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