New Hospital is coming along

If you stand at the gate of Kudjip, this is the area of the new hospital that you face. The outpatient is at the right of the above picture.

The double doors in this picture will lead you to the emergency room.

Different wards and areas of the hospital are divided by these covered halls. I'll get some inside picts and pictures from the helicopter soon. We are planning on moving over to the new hospital soon Aug or Sept. Lots of guys are working very hard to get the hospital finished! The money to build the new hospital was given from Australia. We are finding many of the additional costs from various sources, but that is whole other blogs!

Medications

Getting your medicine is a whole different story in PNG. We don't charge patients for medications, but many times we don't have the right med for treatment. I think of the people with Parkinson's that get better when we have medicine, but then we run out, and their sympotms come back.
Emma and I both have to get our medicines from the states as you can not even buy them in this country.
But God does great things at Kudjip. I have heard it said that our meds are twice as powerful because God blesses it and we give the medication with His love.

photos by missionary Jeff Myers

Mt Hagen Missionary Home

This was our cute little flat. I could totally live there. Only 50kina ($18) per night. They have a tv with about 10 channels! Wow! The girls plugged into the cartoon network as often as we let them. Just thought you might want to see where we stayed!

Hagen Weekend

To keep our lives stable, we try to have family time once a month. This month, we went to Hagen, 1 hour away to spend 2 nights at a guest house. It was cloudy, rainy and cold (60 degrees) all weekend. It didn't keep the girls out of the pool, but I stayed far away as I drank coffee to keep warm!

We got to eat out at the Highlander, it is their pool. They allow us to swim if we eat there, since there are not a lot of restaurants in town, we usually go to the Highlander. Saturday night they have a great stir fry! Scott and the girls got lunch from a Kai bar (kaikai is food) on Friday afternoon and Scott was up 4-5 times in the night with the effects of the greasy chicken. Glad I didn't eat there!

Happy Birthday Grammer!

July 20th is my Mom's birthday. Sad we couldn't be together, the girls and I made her a cake! Hope your day was happy! Love you mom.

We got a box from my parents on Saturday. Olivia asked if she could keep a knitted dish cloth. I said "okay" (thinking that she will leave it laying around and we'll just put it in the drawer with the others.) Later in the day, she was rubbing it on her cheek. She said "when I smell this, I feel like Grammer is whispering in my ear".

Woofie dogs

Another missionary family here at the hospital received a gift of 30 stuffed animals from a church in the states. These Woofie dogs have a collar on that tells a story of Jesus's love.

Our friends explained the colors and that these toys were sent with love but the biggest gift is God's love for us.

This little girl's twin sister was discharged the day before, so she is taking home a puppy for her sister.

My kids enjoyed sharing and the patients in the hospital loved the gift!

Someone has been playing with the camera!

Lives He touches

Last week Thursday, 3 pm, on the last surgery for the day. A car wreck came in to the ER with about 12 patients that needed treatment. A car/bus had overturned on the Jimi road. This road is not much more than a muddy track up the mountain. The patient above, let's call him Bob, had flown out of the vehicle and the car was said to have rolled over him. He had significant lacerations at his groin area, but a much more serious condition in his abdomen. He whole belly was tender and bruised and distended. His O2 Sat's were 72% on room air. His blood pressure was low and dropping. His hear rate was high and rising.

I felt like Bob could very well die before we got him to surgery or while we were working on him. I felt that I must ask him if he knew the Lord. I didn't want to pressure him into making a decision, but wanted to give him the opportunity to make the choice.

"Bob, do you know God?"
"I used to go to church, but I don't now."
"Do you know what would happen if you die today?"
Silence.
One tear out of his closed eye. His breathing still labored.
"I...want...to go to....heaven"
"Do you want to pray with me now?"


As we prayed together. I felt a indescribable warmth cover me from inside my bones out. I don't think I had ever experienced this sensation before. I opened my eyes wondering if I would see angels all around me.

We got Bob into surgery. He had about 2 liters of blood in his abdomen. (a person has 5 liters in his whole body).

His spleen had ruptured in the wreck, the doctors worked as quickly as possible to remove it and stop the bleeding. It was a difficult case with various complications. Bob received 5 units of blood to keep him alive during the case. For the couple hours of surgery, I wasn't sure whether Bob would live or die.

We have no ICU or extensive monitoring after surgery. The next day, I asked how Bob was doing with anxiousness. He was still alive. He is still alive today. One week after surgery, he is up and around and getting better. He told us he is happy and thankful for God saving his body and soul.

Please pray for Bob's continued recovery and his friends and family. I am thankful to be used by God to touch His people of PNG.

Water tank saga

Wednesday, 2 pm.
Walking home.
10 guys.
2 water tanks stuck, inside each other, new from the factory.
These are very expensive, built to last forever, Tuffa tanks.

I can tell they have been working for awhile to get the tanks apart and the current plan that I over hear is
"let's roll them down the hill and that will make them come apart."
I say nothing beyond "hi guys" and go home.




4 pm.
15 men.
Dina truck.
2 ropes.
Trying to pull the 2 water tanks apart with the truck.
Also, hitting the tanks with big rocks and sticks.

4:30pm
20 guys.
I talk with a male missionary to see if he has any ideas to help the water tank adventure.
He gets them to stop hitting the tanks, thankfully.

Now, I really enjoy PNG guys as individual people. I find them kind and happy and we have a nice time visiting.
But there is a huge stigma that women are not knowledgeable in this country. A bit hard for an independent white girl to swallow, and I adapt my keeping my mouth shut with large groups of PNG men (after a long history of being ignored).
So, I had approached this situation by not worrying about it and thought that they would eventually get it figured out on their own.

Now, approaching 5pm, I thought that there was a slight possibility that they might be able to listen to my idea.
I quietly suggested to just one guy that they needed to put something long between the 2 tanks and break the suction then it would be able to pull them apart easier. They started collecting 2x4's and shoving them between the 2 layers.
I went home and not 15 minutes later the tanks were separated!

I was happy that the tanks were apart and the work was done. But most happy that I was listened to. Vain? Proud? I don't know. Maybe God just wanted to break down some of the cultural assumptions that I have made over the years.

Fourth of July!