Walking into the dark and musty smelling room, we are greeted by silence interjected with rattling coughs. The hospital matron greets the patrons and explain that we are here to sing a few carols and to wish everyone a happy Christmas. Her only response is coughs from several of the patients. I look around the small room that was labelled "TB Ward" and feel the oppressiveness of this disease. One small boy sits on the edge of his bed with a bloated belly from his medication. He is trying to stand up to get a better glance of the white people that have entered the room, but doesn't have the energy to stand for more than a few seconds before sitting back down. A teenage girl is lying on her metal framed hospital cot, huddled under a blanket, looking very poorly. I feel sweat dripping down my forehead and see beads of sweat forming on Nova's nose as well. I offer a smile to the girl, which feels almost insensitive when I see the pain written on her face and hear the next bout of coughs rack her small body. The matron has finished introducing us guests to the patients, and has cued that we are ready for the first song. I lift my violin to play the tune of "Away in a Manger" and several of the hospital nurses begin to sing a Gogodala Christmas song to the tune. At the first sound of my violin, I feel life coming into lifeless eyes as they quickly turn and focus all of their attention on me. Somber faces light up as they hear an instrument that they have never heard (or heard of) before. As I play the last notes, I turn back to the girl who turned my heart inside out. She is sitting at the end of her bed, completely entranced. Her face is filled with wonder instead of pain, and she offers me a small, shy smile. The next song in the program I do not know, so I pass my violin off to a MAF doctor who happens to also play violin. She starts the song off while I try to learn and join in on the hand gestures and words. My mistakes make the children and adults grin, showing a spark of life that was absent when we walked into the ward. I always knew music was powerful; today I saw the extent of this power.
After singing a few songs together, the MAF doctor's husband shared a short devotional. Ears opened wide as he shared about the love of Jesus, a free gift. It is free, which means it cannot be bought. It is a gift, which means it cannot be earned. His words offered hope and encouragement, two things which can be hard to find in the TB ward of a dingy hospital. After a time of prayer, Nova whispered up, "are my pencils for the boy there?" Realizing the simple joys that can be given, we decided she could give her gift of a pencil to all the patients, young and old. She passed me pencils for each of the patients, which I then placed near them on their bed (TB is extremely contagious). We wished everyone a happy Christmas, and then moved on to the next ward.
Each time we repeated the process, I saw the same effects. Lifeless eyes lit up. Bodies that had trouble laying down begged to sit so they could see. Hope and joy were shared in a place that needed a glimmer of hope. A young man lay in his bed attached to an oxygen machine, clearly in a lot of pain. His cot was pushed in the corner of a room, so he wasn't able to see us playing or singing. When Nova approached to give him a pencil, his family told him that a "baby was coming to give a gift." She walked up close and held out a pink polka dot pencil toward him. His eyes looked up and a shaking hand reached out -- not towards the pencil, but towards her hair. He patted and rubbed her head with a smile in his eyes, and then took the small gift and placed it on the bed beside him. Nova came running back, saying "Mom, he touched my hair! And he liked the pencil. Does another sick person want my pencil?"
The final ward had a different atmosphere when we entered it, and Nova was overjoyed when she realized where we were. "Look mom, babies! Little babies!" The maternity unit had 8 cots, about 10 babies, and about 14 mothers, some of who were still waiting for their little one to arrive. Nova walked around with her little pink plastic bag, ensuring that each baby received a pencil. "They will use it when they're bigger, Mom? Like Ezra?"
After finishing the program in each ward, it was time to go. As we were walking back towards our vehicle, Nova ran up to me and asked to say bye to the babies one more time before going. She confidently walked up to each precious little one and gave them a little wave and a goodbye before we left to spend the rest of our Christmas Day at home, our thoughts still bound to that young girl who was so transfixed by a simple song.
We pray for change in the Balimo hospital, which struggles to function adequately without any doctors on staff. We pray for supplies to be delivered that enable life to be sustained and new life to be brought into the world. We pray for the patients who endure immense pain and difficulty without a single complaint, and we pray that the young girl's treatments would be effective in overcoming her TB infection. "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21
And just like that, another Christmas has passed by; another New Year in a new place; time always seems to catch me by surprise! I have heard it said that life as a mother is filled with long days and short years, but with each year that passes this cliche rings truer. As at the beginning of most years, it is natural to look back on the year that is passed to reflect on the good and the not-so-good. This year, we didn't only reflect on the last year but on the last several, which have been filled with so many changes. In 2020, we were married, Nellicia started teaching, and we applied to serve with MAF. In 2021, Nova was born, Nellicia stopped working, and Brandon switched from instructing to raising support with MAF. In 2022, we moved to Papua New Guinea and settled into life in Mount Hagen, where Brandon started flying again. In 2023, Ezra was born and we moved to Balimo.
We spent this Christmas season finding new traditions and building special memories in Balimo, a very different place from the one our childhood was spent in. We had no fireplace to sit in front of or warm sweaters to keep us cozy, though we did enjoy a cup of hot chocolate on a cool morning (it was only 24 degrees)! Aside from the snowflakes we cut out and pasted onto our wall, there has been nothing wintry about Christmas -- after all, it is the middle of summer here in the southern hemisphere. We realized, however, that Christmas is still a special time even without a chill in our bones. We enjoyed a traditional Swiss Christmas dinner with our neighbours, which was a nice treat starring an amazing kind of sausage roll. Nova enjoyed learning the Christmas story and still insists on singing Away in a Manger at any opportunity.
As we welcomed this New Year, we commented that 2024 may be the first year in our married life that doesn't come with a major life change or transition; or maybe it will, and we just don't know about it yet! God has a way of directing our lives in ways that we never imagined from the outset, but He has shown time and again that we are not the authors of our life journey; instead, we must trust in the Author and follow His will as it is shown to us. "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel." Jeremiah 18:6
