Pirates, Tropical Islands, Broken Ships, Danger, Adventure and So Much More!
Read my reflections of my time in Papua New Guinea, what I’m up to currently and what I’m looking forwards to.
Well, here is my time in PNG (Papua New Guinea) finally. I have put off writing this for so long because I kept thinking ‘How will I remember everything?’ But also ‘How can I capture everything in the beautiful, challenging, and wonderful way that I’ve experienced?’ The answer to both is that there is no way that I can. I cannot write about everything that happened to me over the four months I was in PNG. I also cannot fully convey what PNG was like for me, but I'll try because who knows maybe one day, you’ll find yourself there experiencing similar things. I hope to try my best to explain what my time in PNG was like because it was such a healing, growing, and learning period of my recent life.
Halfway through July 2022 I was packed and ready to go on an adventure God called me to 16 years ago. I had been 12 years old when God placed medical missions on my heart for the future. ‘It’s time’ He told me. I travelled for three days over to PNG and landed in the province of Madang, my home, for the next four months. It was so hot and humid. If you ever heard me share my experience in person before you’d have heard me say I got off the plane and stared sweating and didn’t stop until I got back in the plane to leave. Jokes aside the heat was a big adjustment that was a challenge for me but over my time in PNG. It was the kind of heat that makes you sweat, tired, and grumpy all at the same time. God helped me to acclimatize over time and not see the heat as such a big discomfort to focus on as I continued on my journey. See pictures at the end of my blog for reference as you read.
Further PNG Reflections
I was in PNG to join the medical ship there at the time belonging to YWAM Ships Kona, the Liberty. The ship wasn’t there though because it was waiting to be dry docked and it remained that way until I left. Actually, by the time November rolled around and I was leaving the ship was finally in dry dock. My plan in going to PNG was to do medical missions and as it turned out land-based instead of ship-based. I ended up going on five different outreaches as we called it. It was all volunteer based and even our medical outreach leader Cintia was a volunteer! Often volunteers would come and go in my time in PNG sometimes in two weeks and others in a month. I was one who stayed a bit longer, so I got to see the beauty of consistency in missions, even though my time was shorter than many long term missionaries. Anyone could come though either as a medical volunteer or a general volunteer and both were gladly used in the outreaches. I had the privilege of meeting and working with dentists, nurses, midwives, general volunteers, optometrists and ophthamologists who all came from different countries and with different experiences. Some of the different countries were the Netherlands, Panama, Switzerland, Brazil, New Zealand, USA, Canada (not me), Germany, Australia, Scotland, England, Norway, Singapore, Peru, Kona Hawaii, and even locals in PNG. A big thing I learned to value even more than before was the beauty of other cultures and of course the people from those cultures!
The culture of PNG has its bright side and dark side like any other culture. It is a hard, raw, complex, and challenging place to go to if you’re from a country like my own. I think though it is easy to point out the challenging things and the easily disliked things of the country. The challenges though for me are what made living in PNG so enriching. They helped me keep looking for the beauty of the country and culture. The beautiful parts were not hard to see after I looked. PNG is a country consisting of 22 provinces. Madang, Madang was the town and province I had the privilege of staying in the longest. I also travelled through other provinces and stayed in Mt. Hagen, Western Highlands province too. Each province has its own traditions and culture. Did you know there are over 800 languages in PNG? The main language apart from English is Tok Pisin. The main way of passing knowledge to others is through oral communication. They were an Australian colonized country until their first Independence Day in 1975 which is on the day of September 16th. Their culture is rich in putting relationship with others first. This is usually seen in villages and especially between families. However, family could include the 'mamas' and ‘uncles’ within a village meaning the neighbours, friends and other close people to the immediate family. The men are called man and the women are called meri. Often I would wear a meri blouse, a type of island dress, to special events or church and their purses or bags are called bilums. What I loved about the bilums were that depending on which province the meri who made the bilum was from they would look different. For example, the Madang bilums would often look like palms woven together into a purse with some dyed pink and purple in a unique pattern. See the pictures below: the first picture is some of the medical team celebrating Independence Day with the East Sepik province tent (each province has their own tent we walked around to) note the meri blouses we wore and second picture similarly was a cultural day where each province had their own tent and this is the Madang tent and group dancing (I'm not sure which dance it was at this point) note the bilum at the bottom of the picture.
Overall, the people I spent the most time with in Madang lived very contrasting lives compared to my own in Canada. It was a lot of work and time consuming to cook, make the yard look nice, live, raise a family and work. Some of the more challenging part of living in PNG were the dynamic between men and women. As a woman living in PNG I wasn’t able to go out on my own ever especially not at night for risk of my safety. Madang was a low violence province compared to others in PNG. Even so, going out I had to make sure my belongings were close to me, and I only went to certain parts of town and sometimes it would depend on the day and if there were rumours of a fight planned to happen or not. Every house in the main town had a fence usually with barbed wire at the top and potentially a security guard overnight. To name one more big challenge- the mosquitoes. No, not all the bugs although PNG is very close to Australia and shares a lot of the same dangerous/poisonous animals, if not has more- plants, animals, bugs, and birds. But the mosquitoes there were relentless. On a good day in Canada I’d have a fairly big reaction to mosquitoes but let me tell you the tropical mosquitoes do not mess around. I would get at least ten bites a day despite bugs spray and my mosquito net at night. But every bite left me blistering and so itchy, if I can be darkly humorous here I’d say one of my main words to describe my time in PNG would’ve been itchy. These were some of the main challenges I faced although there were many more they were all growing points for me. I certainly would never erase my time in PNG despite the challenges I faced.
Somethings that I learned to appreciate were the hospital staff because they worked with a lot less than I was used to but did so much for the people there. The place I stayed in Madang was only a ten minute walk from the hospital so on days where it didn’t work to do a clinic in a village we went to the hospital instead. There I spent time in the Labour and Delivery ward, the Operating Theatre, the Orthopaedic ward, the ICU, Emergency Room, and a Medical ward. I met so many lovely doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers and I learnt so much from them. I truly admire their patience, hard work, and persistence to treat sometimes very drunk and/or violent patients. I will also say I was intrigued as I learnt that the people of PNG tend to be very stoic whether it was delivering a baby, cleaning and dressing infected bullet wounds, to even a small child getting a cast or as they call it cement put on his leg; hardly anyone cried out, hardly any tears, hardly any reactions at all besides maybe a small wince. I also appreciated the effort it took to cook and even go to the market to buy the food. I found myself often helping cook after spending a day at the clinic and it was so different compared to cooking in Canada. I also appreciated the different villages health centres. Depending on the size of the area and village usually a place would have either a hospital (only one for Madang province in the main town), a Health Centre or even smaller an Aid post. Although, there were so many small villages it was not uncommon for them to have to travel far distances to reach a place where they could receive health care. It takes a lot of training and dedication to be a healthcare professional in general; to have nurses and midwives willing to staff an aid post when they are the only healthcare place for miles and miles for some village(s) is astounding to me. They are like an oasis in a desert, caring for so many people with so little is such a huge task but so needed. The Health Centres were much smaller than the hospital but much larger than an Aid post. They would usually be one maybe two buildings consisting of a patient triage room, a labour and delivery room, an emergency/ICU room, maybe a paediatric room and potentially a building for sick patients to stay short term. The Aid posts would large enough for maybe one triage room and one exam room.
Side Story: I met a real-life pirate and live to tell the tale, he even offered me some of his treasure! This was some of the inspiration that I had when I started to write this blog post. The reason it's significant to me is because I am an avid reader and when I was younger I read a book series that had pirates, danger and adventure mixed into the story. It has for some reason stuck with me and has always been a desire while seeking adventure to also imagine being on an adventure similar to the characters of the book series I read. Let me tell you God has a funny sense of humour because I think I found my similar adventure while in PNG! The coolest thing was that he was in the area because his brother was in the town and had just finished a DTS (Discipleship Training School) in Madang. I can only hope and pray that one day he will come to know the Lord and know how cool of an adventure Jesus will take him on if he so chooses. Jesus has certainly led me to a better adventure than I could ever have hoped for.
Back to the things I appreciated: I appreciated my team leader, my team, every experience that helped me learn more about tropical medicine and how to care for the people I saw. I appreciated even learning from the dentists who came and the eye surgeries I assisted in and learnt from. I appreciated the fun and friends I found in a place many would take one look at and decide to leave for a better place. I can’t say I always had a good attitude about things but especially after leaving and having time to reflect on my time in PNG I’ve been able to love all the more how God brought me to the country with specific people at the proper time.
Like I said before there’s no way I can write and do justice in conveying to you my time in PNG with just a post. For now, this is all I will share but later I hope to share with you about my time specifically in the five outreaches I mentioned. My overall schedule while in PNG was two weeks of clinic days for outreach and one week off to rest, record, and plan for the next outreach. Keep an eye out if you’re interested but also don’t hesitate to reach out and ask me any questions you have about my time in PNG.
Current New Zealand Adventures and Future
I also wanted to briefly update you all about how my October DTS leading experience has been now that the lecture phase is halfway complete. We’ve covered Life Stories week, Relationship week, Hearing Gods Voice, Father Heart of God, Character and Nature of God, and Holy Spirit weeks. Six weeks filled to the brim of lectures, students learning the heart of worship, the significance of intercession, the power of evangelism, and growing in honouring relationships with each other. I cannot fully express how sweet it is to be co-leading the school. Especially when it involves the student's gaining freedom in life and learning what it is to live life to the fullest and learning how loved they truly are by God. The DTS staff are wonderful and they all have their own roles within the school. I think it’s such a blessing to work with the staff team that I have for this school. It’s also a blessing to be learning and growing with them. I am certainly challenged in my role and I think each day I learn more and more how to lead in my role. God is good though and I certainly could not do it without His guidance. One exciting thing I will mention is that there was a desire to learn more about medical missions amongst the students. I have been able to put together a few small classes for some students to teach them similar things I taught in the last DTS Medical Compassion stream in February. I will teach them pulling from my experiences while working in Canada in the ICU and from my experiences while in PNG. I am so glad to be teaching potential future medical missionaries the valuable lessons I’ve learnt so far in hopes that they will take what I’ve learnt and go so much further in changing people's lives for the better with God.
As I look forwards, I will be doing a couple more weeks of lectures then I will co-lead my outreach team with Anaiah (DTS staff) for two weeks in New Zealand over Christmas and New Years. Then in the new year the school will have one week of lectures in New Zealand then two final weeks of lectures in Vanuatu at the FCC (Family Care Centre). After that our outreach team will have five weeks in Vanuatu. I’m not sure exactly what we’ll be doing during outreach there but hopefully going to an outer island within Vanuatu and doing some basic medical care (and more). Then after that the DTS will be on to re-entry week and graduation in the beginning weeks of March!
Prayer Requests and Financial Needs
Please be praying for my health, for me to get the rest I need, for outreach plans to be God led, for God to keep growing my leadership skills, and growing my friendships outside of DTS. For the students, please pray, that God would continue to soften their hearts and learn to partner with Him even more. You could also pray for the DTS to run smoothly especially as we begin to travel and look to outreach phase.
Financially I am hoping to still have my rent costs covered ongoing. This month is looking a little more costly with the outreach flight tickets and a dentist appointment too. My estimated costs for the month are: $2100 (rent, food, flight, dentist) if you would prayerfully consider helping me out financially, I would be very thankful. So far God has been very faithful in providing for my financial needs. It has been in many ways, but a main way has been through your donations! Thank you to everyone who has helped me along this financial journey, so far you have been an incredible testament to God's provision and faithfulness to me.
End Words
As always please do not hesitate to reach out and send a message. I will respond amongst the business as best I can to pray for you, to share and/or to answer any questions you have. Missing you all over the holidays! Even so, I hope you all have wonderful holidays (and enjoy the snow for me, it's summer here). I often am thinking of all my family and friends- from Canada, around the world and in all the places I've worked/volunteered in!
Manaakitanga!
(Blessings)
Lianna
Pictures from Papua New Guinea:
The OBT (oral bible translation) container used to record different versions of the Bible into different languages of PNG, gotta start somewhere amongst the 800+ languages
The house (the bottom) that I lived in for the majority of my time while in Madang, PNG. I even experienced a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in it (obviously I ran outside)
A cassowary a nice local bird in PNG- just kidding they can be quite dangerous despite being flightless... because anything in PNG, like Australia, can manage to kill you
I am trying to not post too many clinic pictures, but this was on one clinic days we went to a village by the ocean named Sarar Village, they had made leis and built such a beautiful set up for the clinic to take place in- the medical team felt very honoured
The leis I received from Sarar villagers
Buddy the puppy, now dog made every day a little brighter #RIPChase
A clinic selfie at the end of a clinic day at the top of a hill overlooking Madang, Madang
The medical team traveling from Madang to Mt. Hagen, what a wild adventure, that's all I'll say for now ;)
A beautiful, common view in Mt. Hagen from the Eye Operating Theatre floor, note the barbed wire that was all around the hospital fences
The end of my medical mission in PNG, I finished in Mt. Hagen scrub nursing for cataract and pterygium surgeries- this was the hard-working team, note our Western Highland bilums ft. Dr. Wahamu (end right), the Ophthamologist changing lives all around PNG
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