Just a Link

I wanted to pass on a link to a blog I think you all would enjoy.  Jordan and Rachael Thompson have been missionaries here for almost 3 years now.  They first came so that Rachael could be our high school teacher.  After an initial 2 years term, they felt that God was directing them to continue in service here.  Jordan is now Maintenance Director, and Rachael is teaching the elementary kids.  We love them a lot, and are happy that they are staying on.

The latest post on their blog is about my ward.  The pictures are all from the other side of the ward, where they were under the care of Dr. Imelda Asaigo, at the time the photos were taken, but you won't care.  They are just as cute as the kids I take care of!

This is the link!  Bookmark it, and enjoy all their stories.

AB

Our Little Sisters

Nazarene College of Nursing, here at Kudjip has a program called "Big Brothers, Big Sisters".  The idea is that a staff or missionary couple "adopts" a group of students for the duration of their time in nurse's training.  The sponsoring couple will provide social and recreational times, spiritual mentoring, and friendship.

Judy with Loritha, Elis, Edna and Lavina.  Lottie was not present.

After talking about it for several years, this year we signed up.  Part of our motivation was that a young family friend is now a student at the CON, and wanted to be in our group.  The email arrived, announcing that we have been assigned a group of 5 young ladies, 2 first-year, 1 second-year, and 2 third-year students.  They are a diverse group, representing vastly different parts of PNG (except that 2 come from here in the Wahgi Valley).  Two come from single-parent homes.  A couple of of them have parents who are professional, some are subsistence farmers.  They are all Christians, coming from different denominations.

We had our first get-together last Saturday evening.  They came for supper, we visited, each sharing about our families and backgrounds.  We watched a brief devotional video, then we prayed together.  We agreed that we'd meet once a month for now, but we might revise the plan as time goes on.  We think it will be a lot of fun to get to know a few of the students better.

AB

A Surprise Visit

At lunchtime one day last week, a lady came to our door carrying a little boy.  She hadn't been sure how to find our house, but came looking.  She knew what Judy looked like, but hadn't seen her for a few years, so when she saw Becky Morsch who is of similar height, hair color and length and skin color, she asked her if she were my wife.  Becky explained that she wasn't but agreed to show her the way to our house.

When we came out, she introduced herself, and explained that her little boy had been one of my talipes patients a couple of years ago.  Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I've been treating talipes (also called "clubfoot") for several years now, and have seen several blogs about it, like this, and this and this.

She explained that the Lord had directed her to come to Kudjip and say thank you to me for what I had done for her son.  So she had gotten up at 4 AM in order to make the trip from her home in the Jimi Valley (the next major valley to our north) to come to Kudjip.  As far as we know, after visiting with us, she turned around and traveled the 6 or 8 hours back home that same day.  She brought a bilum (string bag) that she had made as a gift, as well as a bag of freshly-picked oranges.

Her son is Raymond.  He'd had clubfoot on his right only.  I got him to take his shoe off, and had a little ad hoc clinic there on my front porch.  He has experienced a mild recurrence of the talipes, with the mid-foot turned in slightly, but not enough to ask her to come back to the Kudjip area for the several weeks that it would take to correct it at this point.  He can walk normally, can run, will be able to play rugby when he's older and will have a normal life.  My heart was touched as this mom's gratitude, and thankful that little Raymond is doing well.

AB

Surprise Message

Two great organizations that work together ("wok bung", as we would say in Pidgin) to support the work of Nazarene Hospital are Hands of Hope Northwest, in Nampa, Idaho, and Nazarene Hospital Foundation, in Medford, Oregon.  HofH has a great ministry gathering medical supplies that are useful to hospitals like ours.  NHF acquires a variety of supplies, medicines and equipment specifically for our hospital here.  They partner together--Todd at NHF orders supplies and equipment from HofH, and then includes them in the containers he ships to us.

Our daughter, Amy volunteered at HofH for several weeks a couple of years ago.  Apparently, one day she was packing a box that she knew was headed for Kudjip, and obviously thought of her mom.  Judy manages the medical store room here, and her responsibilities include receiving the containers of donated supplies that come, unloading them, then sorting, distributing and/or storing the supplies.  Amy knew that there was a good chance that her mother would handle the bag of suture that she was packing.

We got a container from NHF a few weeks ago (see story here), but it wasn't until several weeks later while unpacking a box from HofH, that Judy found this note.  What a sweet blessing, and reminder of Amy's love.

AB

World Tuberculosis Day

Teen with TB.  Photo by Dr. Erin Meier

Today (Saturday) is World Tuberculosis Day.  Not a day for celebration, but a day to learn and understand.  So what will I do to honor the day?  I didn't think organizing a rally on the roads of Kudjip Station would do much good.  And, I didn't know it was World TB Day until just a few minutes ago.  The best thing that I can do is to educate my friends about this terrible, and wide-spread disease.

When I lived in the US, the extent of my awareness of TB was doing skin testing on people who were planning to be food workers, or were getting ready to travel overseas.  I knew what to do with the positive test results--send them to the county health department!  That was it.  I encountered 3 or 4 positive tests in the course of my career prior to going to PNG.

Now, TB is a routine part of my daily life.  For instance, in seeing outpatients yesterday, I think I seriously considered TB as a diagnosis for 6 or 8 patients.  It's not unusual to start 2 or 3 patients on TB treatment in a given day.  I also see people who come in for other problems who are already on TB meds or have been treated in the past.



Most people don't realize that TB is not just a lung disease.  It can infect any organ or tissue in the body.  I have personally treated TB in the brain, intestines, pancreas, kidney, spinal cord, vertebrae and lymph nodes.  I could probably lengthen this list considerably if we had better diagnostic methods available to us.

TB kills indiscriminately, old and young, rich and poor, though the poor bear a disproportionate share of the burden.

So, here's what I'd suggest that each of my friends do to keep World TB Day.  Google "tb".  That easy.  Type a "t" and a "b" into your Google search bar, and then hit return.  Then pick 2 or three of the results to actually read.  Start with the Wikipedia article which comes up first. Then a couple of others.  Then, if you want to send a donation to one of the organizations that are fighting TB (and remember that Kudjip Hospital falls into that category), that would be fine, too.

Here's an article from today's news that you don't even have to google to find:
http://news.yahoo.com/drug-resistant-tb-blamed-indian-treatment-flaws-163325199.html.  Sadly, this article contains news of the first confirmed reports or "Totally Drug Resistant TB."  There's a lot of work to do.

AB

PS for medical folks:  When I asked my colleague, Dr. Erin Meier for pictures of "TB", I meant to say "pictures of people with TB", but she automatically thought of chest x-rays, and sent about 6 images.  She included the photo of the boy above.  Many of our readers do have some sort of medical background, and might find some of the CXRs interesting, so here are a few of those images:

Classic example of miliary TB

Triple Header Part 3--New Boss

We woke up this morning to an email we have been waiting for for several weeks.  We've known that Dr. Louie Bustle, the Global Director of Nazarene Missions had announced his retirement, and Nazarene missionaries all over the world have been speculating for months now about who would take his place.  The candidates weren't necessarily limited to the current Regional Directors, but history would show that they had the best chance.

I had mixed feelings about the prospect of our Regional Director becoming the new Global Director.  On the one hand, I think he is a very capable leader, he's bright, creative (don't read this Verne, it'll look like just flattering) and an all-around great guy.  I've been pleased with what has been happening on our region under his leadership.  He'd make a great GD.

On the other hand, well, copy everything I said above.  Those are reasons that I'd love to have him as my RD for a lot longer.

The email from our Field Strategy Coordinator copied Verne's email sent to all of the FSCs on our region, confirming that he had been elected as GD by the General Board of the Church of the Nazarene.

Verne was our Field Director (the title was changed to FSC a few years ago) when we first became missionaries.  I went to him when when I was confused about the culture of PNG.  I asked him questions about mission strategy.

Verne and Natalie first went to the mission field as short-term volunteers to be house parents in the Nazarene hostel at the MK school in Ukarumpa, expecting to stay for a year.  Five years later they took their first furlough.  They did church planting and development work in Dusin, high in the Bismark-Schrader mountains in very primitive conditions for 9 years.  They came here to Kudjip and Vern served for 11 years as Field Director before moving to the regional job in 2005.

Please be praying for the Wards as they make the transition, and begin the huge task ahead.  And be praying for him and his team as they select the new Asia Pacific Regional Director.

AB

Triple Header Part 2--Blackness

The scene in our house last evening

We've been having some struggles with power.  Electric power, that is.  Many of you know that we now have a really nice really big emergency generator, big enough to power the whole station.  We have an automatic switch that starts the generator when PNG Power goes off.  Diesel fuel to power the generator is pricey, so we only use it when we have to.  We used to have a hydroelectric system that gave us reliable, inexpensive power, but it broke.  Long story.  We're now beginning work on a really good hydro system that we expect to be the best possible long-term solution to our power problems.  It'll be ready in 2 or 3 years.

However, we have been having some problems with the switching system.  I don't understand it, but that's not the main point of this post.  The point is, the power was off a lot more than usual yesterday, especially in the evening, and for longer than usual periods of time.  Judy and I  were trying to watch a recorded TV show.  The power would be on for 15 or 20 minutes, then off for 30 minutes to an hour.  It would come back on, we'd find our place int the TV program, and within a few minutes, power would go off again.

At one point, I realized that it was a clear night.

Ordinarily, we have a lot of security lights on all around the station, so even when the sky is clear, most of the stars aren't visible.  But with the power out, I knew that the stars would be spectacular.  I used my pocket flashlight to find my way outside.  I was right about the stars.  I called to Judy to join me, and together we lay on our backs on the lawn enjoying the scene.

Well, eventually we got cold and our backs got itchy, but I didn't get any calls while we were watching the big show in the sky.

AB