Emergency Surgery

Monday morning I began to feel intense abdominal pain.  I knew I was almost 10 weeks pregnant, so my first thought was I must be miscarrying the baby.  About 6 months ago, I miscarried our 2nd child at 10 weeks...so when I found out I was pregnant this time, the possibility of miscarrying again was always in the back of my mind.

I knew I needed to go to the hospital when I couldn't sit or stand without feeling like I was going to pass out.  I called my dear friend, Gail, to take me to the hospital.  I immediately went to see Dr Bill, the only other person on station who knew I was pregnant.  He did a quick ultrasound and said I was bleeding into my abdomen, and assumed the pregnancy was ectopic (when the baby begins to develop in the fallopian tube) and had ruptured.  Bill had such a sense of urgency, it made me thankful I had come to hospital when I had.

I was immediately taken to the ER and prepped for surgery (and asked many many times what my blood type was...to which I did not know the answer.  Now, I'll never forget!).  Someone found Jordan, who quickly joined my side...along with several other missionaries and staff who showed up to tell me they were praying for me.  Dr. Jim, our surgeon, calmly explained what was going to happen, and I was wheeled into the OR.

I remember having an amazing sense of calm and peace.  Hymns and worship songs came easily to my mind and I would quietly hum them to myself while they got the OR ready.  I fell asleep thinking about two things...how much I loved Jesus, and that they were going to see my bubbly yellow fat layer when they cut me open (how embarrassing!).  ;)

While I was out, my heros: Dr. Jim, Dr. Bill, and Gail found that our tiny baby was right in the uterus where it should be and that the cause of the 1-2 units of blood in my abdomen was a ruptured ovarian cyst.  They removed the cyst, cleaned up the bleeding, very thoroughly checked for any other cause of the bleeding (I can attest to the thoroughness by the amount of soreness I experienced later), and closed me up.

Once I was awake and they got my pain under control, I was on the road to recovery.  Jim explained what they had found, but was also clear that our tiny baby had undergone an incredible amount of trauma, disturbance, and strong medicines, and they were unable to do an ultrasound right away because of the location of my incision.

The next day...or maybe the day after that (it's kind of a blur), Bill did an ultrasound and found a wiggly little baby.  It was a miracle that our little baby had survived!

Since the surgery, I've been humbled to tears with the thoughtfulness, hospitality, and compassion of my fellow missionaries and PNG friends.  Every meal has been provided for us, never once did I worry about Miles being taken care of, and Jordan has done an amazing job taking care of me.  I've heard stories of people all over station stopping whatever they were doing to pray for me, of my friends and students immediately offering to give blood for me, and of people all over the world lifting me and our baby up in prayer.  Just saying I'm THANKFUL isn't enough...but I'm not a writer and I can't think of a better way to say it.

Just overwhelmingly thankful!

Please keep our tiny baby in your prayers.  It's still only 10 weeks old and still has a lot of growing to do.  No matter what, we are trusting God's perfect will and timing.
I think of one of the songs I was humming on the operating table...

"Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be your glorious name

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to say

Lord, blessed be your name"

Christmas Service

It's wonderful to be able to celebrate the birth of Christ with our Missionary and Papua New Guinea friends!!

Jordan, Rachel H., Zachary, and Susan led the Christmas worship

Miles was entertained by the music and food!

Bill, Ted, and Andy played trumpets

The teens did scripture readings

Miles was entertained by his shoes

The little missionary kids sang a special Christmas song

The missionary adults sang Silent Night

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

New Operating Room

Look at that fancy arch!

The new operating room is almost finished.  The exterior is completely done and the inside is getting it's final coats of paint applied.  The last step is to plumb in the septic, and it should be ready for business!

The many hats of Miles

We like to say that Jordan "wears many hats" in his role here on station.  In actuality, he only wears two dirty, stinky, falling apart ball caps every day.

On the other hand, we have Miles...who LOVES to literally wear many hats.  I suppose it's my fault...when you live on the equator, in the mountains, sun protection becomes important.  At a very young age I was constantly putting hats on him, even in the house.  I wanted him to get used to wearing a hat so when we went outside I wasn't constantly fighting him to wear his hat.  I never intended my "hat training" to back fire into a hat obsession.  The good news is...his head never gets sunburned!  :)

Oh...and he loves shoes too.  The boy is just all about the accessories I guess!

My Thankful List

Today my "Thankful List" includes:

-my Savior, Jesus Christ.

-consistent power.  PNG power has been off for the past 2 days, but we've had power thanks to our hydro power plant.

- decent internet.  We recently had very VERY bad internet for (what felt like, not sure of actual time) a couple weeks...now we're back to normal and it's wonderful to be able to skype with family and friends again!

- wipes...good wipes...not the cheap tissue paper kind or clothe.  This is something I once had and didn't realize how much I was taking real wipes for granted!  So today, I'm thankful Pampers or Johnson & Johnson or Huggies make quality wipes, that exist in this world...and I'm praying that someday, those wipes make it back to Papua New Guinea!!

- Earl Hartwig (builder extraordinaire of the hydro), who called the other night to relieve Jordan of his recent nightly duty of taking power readings a couple times.  We were able to be together as a family (and Jordan was able to stick around to help with the dinner dishes!).  ;)

Outside the Church

At church in PNG, there aren't any nurseries to drop off the kiddos.  It's just me, Jordan, Miles, and a big open area filled with other people sitting on the floor.  So, once Miles gets to a point where the temptation to...poke every baby in the eye (while proudly saying "EEEIII YE" very loudly), pat everyone else on the head, and perform a thorough investigation of the breast-feeding lady next to us...is just too great to resist, we have to head out of the church building.  We usually find a few other children outside, around Miles's age, who also just couldn't sit still any more.  

This last church experience we found some children to share our cereal snacks with...however Miles decided the best way to share is if he were able to place the treat directly into their mouth.

They were obviously a bit confused...but to my surprise, they let him.









Once church was over, we were joined by a few more children who all found Miles quite entertaining! Many enjoyed watching, but were terrified when he got too close.  Others just enjoyed following him around.

No, church doesn't go the way it used to or the way I thought it might.

Yes, I know he'll eventually learn.

But for now, my prayer is that God will use us as a blessing even outside the church building.

Yeah...he can do that.

 Being a maintenance man on a hospital mission station means you have your hands in pretty much every aspect of keeping the hospital running.  Power is a huge necessity for the hospital and a welcome commodity for the surrounding staff houses.  Recently, we’ve received the amazing gift of a finished hydro-electric plant, which is now Jordan’s responsibility to maintain.

How does one go from having NO experience with hydro-electric plants to being able to maintain one?

 You may ask.  I asked… probably with too much doubt and fear in my voice (not my best “wife moment”).  

It turns out, it takes spending hours with the man who designed it, spending hours after work reading about it, and then being forced to wire most of the thing together yourself!  VOILA! 

After that…you find someone brave enough to climb up a pole with just a couple little spikes strapped to your feet (I’m not sure where Jordan actually learned this skill himself), you teach them how to maintain the power poles and security lights (not sure when he acquired that skill either), and you’re good to go.  Bring on the hydro power!  

Below is one of my favorite pictures because, clearly, the best place to sit and watch Jordan up on a pole was right in the middle of the road.  No worries!  :)

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance.  It is the Lord Christ whom you serve."

Colossians 3:23-24