Back in Canada

   After travelling across the world once again, we have taken our time settling into a temporary routine in Canada. Our first weeks back were spent preparing for and sharing a few presentations as well as reacquainting with grandparents, parents, siblings, cousins, and aunts and uncles. Nova is thoroughly enjoying all of the attention she receives from family! 
   As we continue to anticipate the arrival of our little one and then take some time to adjust and get ready for our return to PNG, D.V, we expect the days and weeks remaining in Canada to fly by quickly. It has been great to have a chance to reconnect with family and friends, but at the same time we are excited for the steps lying ahead of us.

 
   Over the course of the next weeks, we plan to share some of the stories that we shared during our presentations (with only brief family updates). These are all stories that show different aspects of our life in PNG in the first 10 months that we were in country:

   While working in Balimo, situated in the Western Province of PNG, I am on my way back from picking up a medical team from Lake Murray when I get a medevac call. A patient in Kapal, a village, needs immediate medical care – and the only way for her to get this care is by being flown to a hospital. My plans change immediately. I drop the medical team off in Balimo, inform the next team that I cannot pick them up today anymore and prepare for the medevac. How much fuel do I need? How is the weather where I am going? Do I have enough daylight to return home? Does the patient require a stretcher, or can he or she sit in a seat? How will this affect the following days of flying? I call the Ops team to get more information, and then remove 2 seats from my plane and put a stretcher in their place and prepare for take-off. 

      Twenty minutes later I am on the ground in Kapal (a minimum 2-day trip by boat and land from Balimo). Kapal is a bush village with no health workers, clinic, or school - it is only serviced by the AHP health teams.

   I learn that a young mother had a miscarriage, and the bleeding is not stopping.  Her family helps carry her to the airplane and I secure her in the aircraft on our stretcher. She is weak and I can see the pain in her eyes. Since there is not medical worker, I ask for a family member to accompany and watch her as we fly. Flying can cause medical conditions to deteriorate, so it is important to always have someone accompanying a medical patient. After praying for her and a briefing for the flight we take off towards Daru, a 20 minute flight, where there is a hospital. On route I call for them to have an ambulance ready -- which is just a truck -- so she can get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

    When I do these kind of flights the realities of bush living and lack of proper medical care hit me again and again. I can often see the pain in the eyes of health workers as they battle through the overwhelming need of the isolated each day and I feel privileged to be able to serve with them, realizing that we do not control life but are still called serve to bring help to best of our abilities.