Category: Uncategorized

Some have wondered how the patients I’ve written about previously are doing. Unfortunately, we generally don’t hear back from them until there’s another health problem that they need treated. So, in general, we assume that if we haven’t heard from them they’re doing well! Not always a safe assumption but under the circumstances, the best […]

Through the provision of God I was able to join some missionaries in their bush tribal location this past week. The work they are in is an older work that had had the Gospel and had a church for some years but, after the missionaries moved out, the church began to diminish over time. Some […]

My last night in the bush, my friend called me out to see the stars. The usual nighttime clouds had lifted revealing an elaborate, almost fireworks-like display of shimmering stars sprinkled densely over the dark sky. No moon was visible but the stars really looked as if they were twinkling. We saw two stars go […]

When I flew in that weekend the missionary woman with me was also just returning from 7 weeks away. While catching her up on the local news, the other couple told us that a woman nearby had given birth to twin girls. Here in PNG it is a common belief that twins are not good, […]

I’ve visited churches where they speak pigin or mix pigin with their tok ples (talk place—tribal language) and I can follow what’s going on. But this past weekend was the first time I’ve heard the message entirely in tok ples. About half the songs they sang were in pigin but the other half were in […]

It was yet another morning of screening patients when the doctor walked in and asked, “Did you hear that we have an emergency case coming? They said it has taken four men to carry him so we’ll be needing that bed.” Upon realizing that the group was already at the door, I excused the patient […]

The Clinic has been busy the last month or two. Plenty to keep us hopping! Yet most of it has not been stuff to “write home about”. Mostly physical exams, well-child check-ups, immunizations, colds, flues, and allergies. The whole rash of broken bones we seemed to be having several weeks ago has died down and […]

I’ve been reading in Genesis these past few weeks and have been struck again by the awesomeness and power and goodness and love of God! I felt absolutely dumbstruck again by the (not to overuse the word but..) awesomeness of what He created and how with such care and detail and foresight! We, the human […]

Yesterday, we rejoiced to hear another tribal update and to see what God is doing here in PNG! In 2009, a team of NTM missionaries moved into a tribal work here in the mountains. Now three years later, they have seen the Gospel presented and literacy taught; they have been teaching through New Testament and […]

A woman recovering from the medications we’d given her before removing an area of skin cancer, became quite happy and, as people recovering from surgical medications tend to do, began to shout. But it was what she shouted that just made my year! She would frequently sing out with a joyful, “Mi hamamas! Mi likim […]