Bikhet

Three weeks ago, Kira, my cat, broke her front leg. I don’t know how it happened. When I came home for lunch one day, she was hobbling around and crying. Although I considered letting it heal on its own, it was quite angulated at the fracture site. So, with the help of my friends at the hospital, she got a shiny new fiberglass cast.  I was satisfied that her leg was straight and protected from further injury or the pain of being jarred accidently. She was not thrilled to have this heavy, awkward boot attached to her leg and weighing her down. She stumped around like a pirate on a peg leg but the weight prevented her from jumping up on her favorite chair. Within 24 hours, she had slipped her injured paw out of its purple prison and was happily washing it in her favorite chair again. But the effort of extracting her paw had angulated the fracture again and every time she was accidently bumped, she would cry out in pain. 

Again, I considered letting her heal on her own, but it pained me to see her in this sad state, so I applied a smaller, lighter, tighter-fitting plaster cast. She had more mobility with the new cast, but she still didn’t like dragging along extra weight and was intent on removing the offending object. The next day, she disappeared for close to 24 hours, vowing not to return until she had removed the plaster cling-on. Afraid that she would be easy prey for the stray dogs that frequent our neighborhood, I searched desperately for her and finally gave up fearing the worst. But after a night out in the damp, her cast was soft enough for her to extract her paw and finally she returned home. Her leg was more crooked than ever, but finally I gave up and left her to heal on her own. Now, three weeks later, there is strong callus at the healing fracture site and she is running, jumping, and catching critters again with her crooked leg. Whenever I tell this story to my PNG friends, they laugh, first at my attempts to place a cast on my cat, but secondly at her “bikhet” (stubborn) ways. Then it struck me, how often have I stubbornly refused to be helped? I can think of several times in my own life when I was broken (emotionally or spiritually) and God tried to provide a support, but I blindly rejected it thinking it was a burden at the time. I preferred to suffer through on my own not realizing that someone who loved me and knew the situation far better than me was trying to ease my pain and help me heal. In my struggle against his loving arms, I likely caused myself more pain and distress than if I had just accepted the help. Who knows how many ugly subconscious scars I carry now because of my stubborn pride.  Lord, help me to trust you and accept your correction and guidance in the midst of my brokenness. Amen.

Little Is Much When God Is In It

Working on the MK school

       For the past week, a short-term team from West Texas has been helping out around station in innumerable ways. Their main project was assisting in the renovations of the MK elementary school, but God used all their special gifts and talents: including painting wooden puzzles for the pediatric ward, teaching Sunday school, and providing professional haircuts to the long-term missionaries.

Barbara shared her
amazing painting skills 

      On Sunday, I took 4 of our visitors to Kopsip Nazarene Church, just up the road from station. The congregation there was thrilled to learn that two of the visitors come from the same home church that sent Sidney and Wanda Knox, the very first Nazarene missionaries to PNG in 1955. The first Papua New Guinean Nazarene church that was started by the Knoxes continues to this day and is the mother church of more than 500 Nazarene churches spread across PNG. Sidney and Wanda Knox have become missionary legends here among the Nazarenes in PNG and our national brothers and sisters were more than excited to share this connection with our visitors.

Pastor Benny with Susan and Sam,
who prayed for him at General
Assembly

     Pastor Benny then shared the following story: In 2005, he was supposed to be a delegate to the Nazarene General Assembly in Indianapolis, but he only got as far as Port Moresby, the capital of PNG. He was not allowed to travel on to the US because his visa had expired the previous day. He was extremely discouraged until he received a message from the secretary of the General Assembly saying that his predicament had been shared at the assembly and thousands of his brothers and sisters from around the world were praying for him by name. He felt very overwhelmed and grateful that God had blessed him with the prayers of his global family. During the duration of the General Assembly, he remained in Port Moresby and a new church was birthed that week! The other two visitors who were with me had been at that General Assembly in 2005 and remembered praying for Pastor Benny. God has an amazing way of connecting his people around the globe.

     The sermon on Sunday was from John 6, the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. It still amazes me how a story that I have heard so often will take on new meaning when I hear it in a different language amidst a different cultural context. The story came alive to me again as the preacher described what the disciples must have felt seeing the great need and not having anywhere near the resources to meet it. They started giving excuses and other suggestions instead of trusting in the one who had performed countless miracles before their own eyes. Then there was the boy. Was he on the way home from the market with food to feed his family, or were the loaves and fish a little snack his mom had packed for him? Either way it was a huge sacrifice for him to offer his food up to Jesus. Then consider Andrew: “how far will [5 loaves and 2 fish] go among so many?” The small amount of food was truly a drop in the ocean when there were 5,000 hungry men present. But Jesus “already had in mind what he was going to do” (John 6:6), and he turned that drop into an overabundance. The boy may have worried about losing his lunch, or the food he was taking home to his family, but he likely ended up eating his fill and taking home more than he had started with. Whatever little we have, when placed in God’s hands, can become much, much more and have an impact beyond our wildest imaginations. When that boy started out with his little meal that day, I doubt he thought he would feed 5,000 people. But Jesus changes everything. What do you have? What do I have? What talents and resources have God blessed us with that we can place back in his hands and see multiplied to benefit many more people?

I am reminded of the song, “Little Is Much When God Is In It.” The chorus goes:

Little is much when God is in it,

Labor not for wealth or fame;

There’s a crown, and you can win it,

If you go in Jesus’ name.

      On several of the short-term trips I’ve been on, I’ve been struck by the enormity of the need and I wonder what difference we made. How does painting a building or handing out a few pills really change people for eternity? But this Sunday, seeing how God orchestrated several special connections between people who live worlds apart reminded me that He has in his mind what he is going to do. Instead of doubting him or offering alternative solutions, we simply need to offer our 5 loaves and 2 fish and watch Him feed the multitudes.

Kopsip Church

One small step for a girl, one giant leap for Bethany

        Today, we all rejoiced as Bethany walked out of the hospital. True, it was more of a slow, steady hobble assisted by crutches, but the fact that this eleven-year-old is alive and ambulating today is truly a miracle. Ten months ago, Bethany came to the hospital with severe septicemia: a bacterial infection that swept through her blood reaching every corner of her body. Bacteria implanted on a valve in her heart, infection permanently stole vision from her right eye, sores opened all over her body, and the microbes finally settled into the tibia bone of her lower leg. Months of fighting infection reduced Bethany to just skin and bones. No matter how hard we tried, we could not overcome the infection in her leg. Unlike the typical osteomyelitis cases we see in children here, a shell of new bone did not grow around the dead, infected bone in Bethany’s leg. Usually, we wait for new, strong, healthy bone to form before removing the dead bone so that the strength of the limb is preserved. But this did not happen in Bethany’s case.
           After months of treatment, there was no sign of any new bone growth. So, in desperation, we removed a 5-inch section of dead bone in its entirety, hoping to remove the persistent infection and allow new healing. Whenever we took her leg out of the splint to change the dressing, it would flop and bend like a wet noodle where the bone was missing. For months, Bethany remained in bed or in a wheelchair, unable to stand or walk. At one point, we considered amputation as we lost hope that the leg would ever heal. Then, miraculously, new bone slowly started to form. Once her wounds healed enough to allow the limb to be protected in a cast, we permitted her to start ambulating. But after months of debilitating disease, she didn’t even have the strength to stand. Last month, in His perfect timing, God provided a visiting physical therapist who assisted Bethany’s rehabilitation as she slowly advanced from standing, to moving with a walker, to ambulating with crutches.  Now, after 10 months in the hospital, she is finally going home! She still has a long way to go, but this small step out of the hospital is a huge leap forward for one very happy little girl.

No Laughing Matter

Dr. Rebecca, one of the PNG Rural Registrars that comes to train periodically at Kudjip, recently referred a patient to us. Jackson had recurrent lung infections for several months after aspirating a foreign body.  

We praise God for supplying the right resources at the right time to treat our patients. Just a few months ago Kudjip Hospital received new rigid bronchoscopy equipment, allowing us to look into and extract objects from children’s airways. Few hospitals in the Highlands have this type of equipment. 

Dr. Ben and I were able to successfully extract the object from Jackson’s airway and discovered it to be a thumbtack! Upon further questioning, we discovered that while he had been using the thumbtack to clean his teeth, he had laughed and inhaled the tack.  Let this be a lesson to us all: do not laugh while cleaning your teeth!

Back to the Unexpected

**I meant to write this post weeks ago, but time seems to have flown by. Now that Easter celebrations are over and things are settling back to normal, we’ll revisit the events of the past 6 weeks. Shortly after returning from vacation in Brisbane with my mom, PNG proved itself again to be the "Land of the Unexpected":

EARTHQUAKE!!

photo credit: Connie Lou Aebischer

Photo credit: theage.com.au

On Monday, February 26, at 3:45am, we were all jolted awake by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake that struck the Southern Highlands of PNG, about 120 miles southwest of Kudjip. Although there was minimal damage here at the Nazarene Hospital, there were extensive structure damage and massive landslides closer to the epicenter.

Photo Credit: Sokere Hali

Photo credit: BBC.com

In the weeks following the quake, we have begun to see the extent of the aftermath as tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes, their land, and their livelihoods. Over a hundred fatalities have been confirmed. Victims were either crushed by collapsing buildings or buried in landslides.

Photo Credit: Connie Lou Aebischer

The PNG government is partnering with Australian military and several NGOs on the ground to distribute aid, but efforts have been greatly hampered by the remoteness of the affected area and the great number of landslides that have blocked or destroyed roads.  Several rivers in the area were clogged with landslide debris making the water unsuitable for drinking and posing the greater threat of downstream flooding when the earthen dams finally give way. For more details regarding the ongoing challenges in relief efforts please see these reports from BBC and The Age.
     After the initial earthquake, there have been more than 100 aftershocks which have slowed in frequency over the weeks. Just yesterday, April 7, we felt a large 6.3 magnitude aftershock which reportedly damaged one of the functioning airstrips in the area which will further hamper the recovery efforts. Please continue to pray for those affected.

Handing off  the surgery
 "on-call" phone

         The unexpected did not end there. In the week following the earthquake, a lightning strike took out the station's phone system, resulting in a month of very interesting on-call arrangements until the system could be fixed. During that time the autoclaves also broke which forced work at the hospital to limp along for several weeks until they could be suitably repaired (as detailed on Dr. Erin's blog) . During that same period, we also experienced an increased frequency of power outages which reminded me of a blog post I wrote last year at about this time. As they say: when it rains, it pours!

Unloading the container (on left)

Thankfully, most things are back to normal around the hospital now and not all unexpected events are bad. Several weeks ago, we got a very pleasant surprise when a long-awaited shipping container from Nazarene Hospital Foundation finally arrived. In addition to the much-needed, donated supplies and medications, we also received a HUGE order of new re-usable surgical gowns and linens. The last time our linens were updated was 20 years ago and the patchwork gowns were starting to reflect their age. Thanks to the generosity of many who have donated to the hospital's Greatest Need Fund, we hope to have reliable surgical gowns and linens for another 20 years. I can't wait to see what new surprises are in store this week and this month!

New surgical linens!!!

*If you would like more information on how to aid our work at Kudjip Nazarene Hospital through sending medical supplies or financial contributions, please click the links above. Thank you to everyone who makes our continued work here possible.