Imagine

Imagine that you were playing soccer so hard, so passionately that when you collided with an opponent it was so hard that when you went down you broke your femur. That's the big bone in the upper leg. Imagine how painful that would be. Now imagine that the nearest place that you could get medical attention would be a 5-hour walk away, if you could walk at your normal pace, but that now you couldn't walk at all. Imagine that to get you to a place where a Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) airplane can pick you up is 2 miles up a steep mountain side. Imagine that your friends carry you on a home-made stretcher, and that a plane comes and takes you to the health center. Now imagine that the nurses at the health center determine that they cannot treat your injury, and that you have to be transferred to Nazarene Hospital, a 40 minute plane ride followed by a 1-hour ambulance ride away, but that there was no plane available to take you for several more days.

Now, just to really stretch your imagination, imagine that Nazarene Hospital didn't exist. Imagine that Nazarenes around the world did not give the money needed back in 1964 to build it. Imagine that they had not been giving faithfully through years to keep it in operation, and to keep doctors assigned there. So now you have to imagine that when the MAF plane lands, you are taken to a government hospital, and because it is late Friday afternoon, you have to wait until Saturday morning or even until Monday for anyone to do anything to relieve your pain.

But of course, all that imagining in the last paragraph is truly hypothetical, because Nazarenes did give and build in 1964, and have supported a steady stream of missionaries through years to keep Nazarene Hospital going. So now you can imagine that after the MAF plane landed, an ambulance from Nazarene Hospital takes you to Kudjip, and that you are met in the ER by, well, by me. And that I make dumb jokes, and talk about your home village, which I love, and which I think is among the most beautiful places in the world, and that I give you a shot of morphine and that your pain fades away. And you can imagine that I call Dr. Jim Radcliffe, who will get the bones of your leg back in place, and keep them there until they heal. And you can imagine that you have hope to be back on the soccer field again, even if it's after many months.

Sualili is his name. He really did play soccer hard enough to break his femur doing it. Soccer is about the only sport played in the Dusin area. Rugby is the favorite sport in most parts of PNG, but in Dusin, they love soccer. They even have an organized league. A few years ago there was only one usable ball in the whole league, which made practices hard! But they play, and they love it. The Dusin soccer field is down in the valley by the river. The airstrip is up on the mountain, about 2 miles of very steep climbing above. The Nazarene Health Center is in Sangape, 5 hours away if you walk at the usual pace of the very fit PNG mountain peole. The friends carried Sualili to the airstrip, and 2 days after the injury, an MAF plane was able to ferry him to Sangape. But is was another 4 days before they could come back and take him to Mount Hagen, where he could be met by the ambulance which brought him to Kudjip.

I'm pretty sure that Sualili will be alright. He has good friends. And he has a good hospital that you have provided for him!


The photos are of Sualili and two of the friends that brought him taken by me today. The other two were taken by either Judy or by Becky Morsch on past trips to Dusin. The second is an MAF Cessna 206 on the Dusin airstrip, and the last one of part of Dusin village taken from the plane shortly before either landing or take-off. It's a pretty spectacular place to fly to or from.