Queen's Birthday Holiday Weekend

Saturday, June 12, 2010: Two years ago when we were in Kenya we watched students from the Rift Valley Academy be baptized. We thought at that time that it would be wonderful to have our children baptized in Papua New Guinea. Several months ago our children went through baptism classes at church, and today we took them down to the river that went around the hospital and baptized them in the river. There were dozens of our friends from the hospital, both missionaries and nationals, along with dozens more of onlookers who were already at the river. The hospital staff had done a wonderful job of decorating the spot in the river that we had chosen. They had flowers and branches decorating the area, and had even dammed off a part of the river so that there was a deep, quiet spot in the river. Our dear friend, Dr. Scott Dooley, baptized our children. After the baptism we went up to Dr. Andy Bennett’s house where everyone joined us for a “mumu” or pig-roast to celebrate the baptism.

Sunday, June 13, 2010: This afternoon we took several families up to the surgical ward to visit. The children read some Bible stories to the pediatric patients. Anna and Amber visited Dorea, the little girl from last week that is recovering from Pigbel. She is doing very well. One of the things that I enjoy the most about taking our children on medical mission trips is the opportunity to involve our children in ministry. Whether it be painting a wall or cleaning up debris or visiting patients in the hospital, the impact of these trips on our children is wonderful.

The second photo is of Amber visiting with a little boy who has a femur fracture. The best way to stabilize a femur fracture in a child in a third world country is to put both legs in traction.

Monday, June 14, 2010: Today is a federal holiday in Papua New Guinea. It is the Queen’s Birthday, which oddly is celebrated here in Papua New Guinea but is no longer celebrated in England. After making rounds in the hospital this morning we went up to a mountain top ridge (Rondon Ridge) to have lunch and to look at their orchid gardens. It was beautiful, and we enjoyed a day of rest. Last week had been very busy for us. In one evening we had a patient with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy with a liter of blood in her abdomen and refusing a blood transfusion on religious grounds; a second patient who needed an emergency cesarean section for a frank breech in labor and then a third woman came in who had been kicked in the left flank. She had a very low blood pressure, a lot of blood in her abdomen, and her baby inside her uterus was dead. Our first impression was a ruptured spleen and that proved to be the correct diagnosis. The following morning all three mothers and the breech baby were doing well and were stable. I managed to find some injectable iron in the pharmacy, as the patient with the ectopic pregnancy lost over half of her blood volume.