Jan 22, 2008

 

An American “Hi” to all of you!

 

Yes, we’re beginning to feel like Americans again for awhile, which is a little strange.  Sorry to all of you Aussie, Kiwi, Dutch, Indonesian… friends of ours, you’ll know who you are!  We’re getting fat, re-learning how to “swipe” a credit card at the grocery store, and trying hard to remember to drive on the right side of the road.  And so on….

 

We’ve settled temporarily in Fresno, California, and we’ve had many answers to prayer concerning practical matters.  We’ve found inexpensive (by US standards) housing in the form of a two room studio apt.  It’s a little place a family has set up for visiting missionaries, and it’s got goats, pigs, horse, ducks . . .  so there are animals for Claire to enjoy.  The same family helped us find cheaper car rental, so we don’t have to go through the hassle and expense of buying a vehicle to get around.  We were referred to a good private center for Claire’s speech therapy, which was one of our priorities during this time in the States.  Accomplishing all this has been a relief, and is allowing us to start focusing on all the other things we have to work on during our time here.

 

I, Kim, am meeting with a counselor experienced in “debriefing” and counseling returning missionaries.  With so many suffering patients coming to Calvary Hospital every day, it is easy to lose perspective on how much can be accomplished with our current resources and personnel.  Work days can get longer and longer, and more and more stressful over time.  My hope is to work on learning how to better balance and prioritize my medical work, administrative duties, and home life.  This is something easier to say than do for me, so I’m hoping to return to our work in Papua with some new insight and perspective in this area.  I’m also hoping to network in the hope of finding some new missionaries who may feel called to join our team in Papua.  Additional medical staff (nurses and doctors), and someone to direct improvement and building of our hospital, will be crucial if we are to expand our ministry.

 

We will need to spend some time at our CrossWorld home office in the Philadelphia area sometime in the next couple of months.  We are still hoping to return to Papua before early July as planned.  The rest of our schedule in the US is still undecided, but will become clearer over the coming weeks as we make travel plans.

 

We are in frequent contact with our team in Papua, and the clinic is continuing to function at a slower pace.  Prayers for additional funds to pay our staff salaries are continuing to be met, and we praise God for our dedicated staff who continue to be faithful in their work in our absence.  Our TB, leprosy, and HIV patients continue to follow up and receive care, and our other chronic patients (e.g. asthma, diabetes, etc.) continue to receive their medications.  We hear that our new team members, the Bogle family, are getting settled, and they are currently visiting some of our friends who work with New Tribes Mission in an extremely remote area.  Ben will be doing some medical survey work there, and this is a location we are considering ongoing outreach, which would be pretty exciting.  It will be a challenge for him to find ways to teach people who have had little or no contact with “outsiders”.  We will have to be creative to find ways to meet these people’s medical needs as well, as they are fearful of our medical treatments, and see spiritual meaning in everything we might do.  For instance, some have taken the medications given them and, instead of drinking them as instructed, tie them in a bag around their neck.  To them, these are more of a spiritual “charm” than anything else.

 

I hope this gives you all an idea of what’s going on with our family and with our ministry in Papua.  It’s hard to be here while things go on in Papua, but I feel confident that God’s timing is right for us to be taking this time in the US.  I’m sure the time will be well-invested, and we’ll be able to return to our work there with a fresh, more effective perspective.

 

Hey, and give us a call or drop us an email while we’re here!  Our temporary US contact information is below.

 

Kim (for Grace and Claire)