Purpose Asia

“ She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.”  Proverbs 31:25 NLT 365 days, 52 weeks, 12 months, 1 year. A year. A container for life, experience, knowledge, joy, pain, hope, fear. A marker where we step over a line and start another cycle of events that mirror those that have happened before in what can either feel like a relentless march or a fiercely delightful dash into the unknown. These last two years my life was changed forever by phone calls, an accident, a shock. Last year my grandparents were in a car accident that would claim their lives within a week of each other. This year, my Mom lost the battle with cancer but won the war of her walk with the Lord and went ahead to be in His presence. In Papua New Guinea a person bears the outward marks of their grief for a period of time in one or more of several ways. Some choose to twist their hair into dreadlocks, or at least one piece of their hair, as...

        Today is Christmas Eve. The cicidas are singing outside and the fan palm tree outside flutters in the breeze that heralds the coming rain. The center is quiet and peaceful, the normal rush and bustle stilled for the Christmas holiday as everyone takes a break and spends time with family. I glance over at our tiny Christmas tree, bravely stretching it’s two feet to hold the silly little ornaments I shipped here in November of 2014.   A tiny nativity sits under the tree reminding me of the reason for the Christmas season.      This is my first Christmas in Papua New Guinea. Most of the month I’ve been saying to my friends how much it doesn’t “feel” like Christmas. The weather is closer to a Pacific Northwest summer and the general pace and routine of life has been going on much as usual. However, as I have been reflecting on Christmas this year I realized it does “feel” like Christmas despite the di...

“S-A-K-S-A-K” A brown hand carefully points to each letter as the woman before me sounds out each letter.  “ Saksak !” * She says, looking up at me triumphantly. Huge smiles spread across our faces as we celebrate another word that she has conquered.   Our heads nearly touch as she wrestles with another word and steadily works her way through the sentence. Soon she reads me the whole sentence and we both feel the thrill of how much she has accomplished. I bend once more to show another woman how to form the new letter she is learning today. She grips her pencil in concentration and slowly traces the new krai (sound) on her paper. Soon she is confidently writing the words the instructor is dictating for practice at home. I laugh with the man sitting next to me as he raises his hand to declare that he has four words in a row in the Bingo reading game. It brings me such joy to see how happy he is that he can read the words he has on his card. Sin...

Photo credit to Randy Lider, aviation Rain splashes on the dirt road outside my house and plunks on my tin roof.   Little rivers of runoff rush down the hillside toward the river wandering lazily outside the center. The tall Jacaranda trees release their own shower of delicate blue, trumpet-shaped flowers.   I’m back in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It’s hard to believe that I arrived back here only a few days ago. I spent over 30 hours traveling between my hometown and my new home here. I hopped to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Brisbane (Australia) and Port Moresby (PNG) before climbing into the final small aircraft that would take me home to my beloved highlands. I wondered as we turned from the coast and headed up and over the mountains what it would be like to be back in Ukarumpa (the translation center where I live). I wondered who would meet me at the airstrip, what it would be like to transition back once again, what it would be like to reintegrate into work,...

         I sit in my car on a quiet street in a neighborhood near my house. The grey road laps around the brown feet of the trees, their long arms reaching skyward with sleeves of green, gold and fiery red. The pale blue of the sky washes over all as a breeze rustles the tawny heads of the trees. Leaves drop to my car and inside like rain falling through open windows. My heart squeezes in my chest. Mama and I would have sat on this street and admired the colors, savored the chill in the air and the Autumn scents.  But here I am alone, missing her so much I can hardly breathe. I think that's what's making Fall harder this year, and harder to enjoy. I feel like my eyes see the colors but my spirit isn't registering them like I usually do. I can describe them, even beautifully, but I feel like they come with a pinch rather than a warmth. Probably because I too feel that my spirit is in its own kind of Autumn and the winds are stripping my soul of...

Orb Weaver web outside my house in Papua New Guinea after a storm Silver threads spanned the distance like a frail bridge. Diamonds gleamed along their lengths and shimmered in the pale light coming through the mist. What had been an invisible abode was now a colossal cathedral of glittering architecture that defied the genius of the greatest architects. I stood in awe as I gazed at the spiders’ webs outside my front door. They looked so fragile and delicate in the morning light and tiny drops of dew covered each slender thread as the owner of each abode hung silently from the center. But I knew better. The day before I had been sitting in my house when a fierce storm had swept down over my roof and buffeted these webs with the force of a gale. It clawed at the webs mercilessly with wind and beat down on them with pounding rain. But the webs were unmoved. They bent, twisted and swayed with the wind but they were not destroyed. Even more astounding, the spiders at t...

  photo credit to http://demortalz.com      The pale blue of the morning sky is dotted with creamy clouds. I sit in front of my window wrapped in a blanket, letting the crisp, chilly, September air wash over me. It’s been over a month since my Mom passed away but still there are days I struggle to believe it. Struggle to conceptualize that she is gone. Struggle to understand what that means and how I should proceed. In many ways it’s getting harder rather than easier the more distance there is between our loss of her and the now. I remember when my grandparents died a year ago – after the numbness wore off the grief set in. And so it goes with this loss too.       I’ve been struggling with what to write to you, which is why I haven’t written. What can I write? If I stay away from all that is going on in my life then I will seem flippant, surface and even somewhat cold. Nothing is further from the truth. However, I ...

So much has been going on that I thought I'd give you a mini photo journal to give you a window into my daily life here. So, here's a glimpse into some of the things I've been up to lately....  I've been talking on the radio with the village team we support. It's neat to hear about how they are settling in, learning the language, meeting people and getting a feel for the work God has for them in the Pamosu language group. To the left is a picture of me at the radio when I was talking with the village team Courtney and I provide logistical, prayer and encouragement support to while they are here in Ukarumpa or away. I've been crocheting with some friends. Recently a group of them asked me if I'd teach them how to crochet and now they're going gangbusters with it! It's so much fun to learn with them, compare projects and build relationships through something as simple and wonderful as crochet. To the right is my friend Dawn with some of the fini...

God is working mightily in and through the Papua New Guinean ladies’ Bible study I attend and get to lead occasionally. Here's an amazing story from a time our Bible study leader asked the ladies what characteristics of God stood out to them in particular or had been evident in their lives recently.  "God em i winman!" (God is the victor!)   From Marianne Recently Marianne has been trying to share the good news of Jesus with her friends and family. Then, with no apparent cause she started having swelling and pain in one of her legs to the point that she could not walk. Family told her that she had the same thing that had killed another family member and they began to say that she had been "poisoned" or cursed. Marianne began to think about this and she prayed. She thought to herself, if I give in and say, like my family is saying, that I've been cursed I just give glory to Satan and proclaim that he has the power, but I know that's not true. I kn...

     We open the back doors of the Land Rover-turned-ambulance and pull out our supplies. A goodly number of mothers and kids are beginning to gather under the trees and in the grass around the ambulance. Out come the scales, the umbrellas and tables and the basic medical kit and medication and vaccine boxes. Now, we’re ready. Community Health Clinic is now open.  First I help the ambulance driver check in and weigh the various children and infants that will be seen by our team today. Each wriggling baby that bounces in the hanging sling scale or little wide eyed kiddo that stands on the scale in bare brown toes is so precious to me. It’s at these clinics that I remember why I’m here. It’s the people of Papua New Guinea that have captured my heart. I love them so deeply and want so much to be a blessing to them as they are to me.     Soon all the kids are weighed and I go around the back of the ambulance to get ready for the next wave...

Checking In Patients at the Clinic I slide the key into the lock of the back door of the clinic and my day begins. I walk down the hallway past the x-ray machine, the treatment room and the lab, the pharmacy and front desk into the break room where morning devotions start at 8:00 . We sing and pray and I’m surrounded by the faces of missionaries and Papua New Guineans alike, all of us unified in our love for Christ and desire to serve Him with the work of this clinic in the lives of those in or around the center. 8:30 arrives and we all scatter to our various tasks. Today I will work in the lab in the morning and as an appointment nurse in the afternoon.     I switch on the light and run my hand over the cool black countertops in the lab as I turn on machines and prepare the lab for the day. I slip on my lab coat and busy myself with refreshing the bleach, running quality control on various machines and getting everything set up for my morning. The firs...

My Papua New Guinea "Family" The warm breeze blew in from off the ocean and ruffled my hair as I was watching the light fade over the ocean. A little girl with tight, curly hair sat in my lap and breathed deeply and peacefully. She’d fallen asleep there as she sat close to stay warm as the evening grew cool. This was my Papua New Guinean “home.” The place where I’d first lived in a village and where I’d been “adopted” into a Papua New Guinean family for the first time. I was visiting my host family in the coastal village where I had lived and trained last year. This was the first time I’d been able to come back. It felt like home. This is my family's "kitchen" and house behind It was also the first time I’d been able to go back since my host father had died in January.  I sat with my host family and heard about the events of the last year. I listened to all that had occurred with “Papa” and how the family had been doing since then. Eventually, conver...

Preparing our patient for transport to Australia I was jarred awake by the jingling of the on-call radio. I fumbled for the light with one hand and the radio with the other. Blearily I looked at my watch; 2:30 A.M.. I pressed the button to talk on the radio, “This is the nurse on call.” I waited for the crackly response over the radio. A response came through and I asked where I could call them and ended the radio call. Throwing back the blankets I hauled myself up and stumbled to the phone to find out what was going on. I called the number I was given and heard the brief story from the patient’s father. At the clinic we’d been monitoring his daughter over the last few days for suspected pneumonia. Over the course of the night she’d begun to decline and now was struggling to breathe with decreasing oxygen saturation. Now, he wanted to know what he should do. I ended the call with a promise to call back in a few minutes and I called the doctor on-call with me over the weekend. He ...

One year ago I sat in this very spot and heard the news that would turn my world upside down. It would send me back around the globe to be with my family in a twist I had never seen coming. I’d be a liar if I told you I was perfectly composed that day or in any day that followed it. Truth be told, I was a mess and I remember many tearful days and nights that followed that day as I was stretched to the breaking point and beyond in the months that followed. I was reading my journal from last year and came upon my entry from May 18, 2015. It was full of raw emotion but at the end I wrote, “You [God] are good and I trust you. You give and take away. May You be praised.” Praised. Seems like a strange response to such difficult news. However, God did not change when my circumstances did. He was the same God that was good, loving, faithful, true and caring. I knew He had my best in mind even if it looked horrible and painful. Since then, I’ve been learning what prais...

I came in the door and dumped my stuff on a chair. It had been a tough few days and I felt exhausted. Then I noticed the note on the table from my roommate that invited me to grab the smoothie she’d made for me from the fridge and to join her on the back porch for some time in a hammock to enjoy the evening scenery. I smiled and grabbed the smoothie she’d made for me. It smelled of sweet fresh strawberries, banana and pineapple. What a perfect end to the day. My roommate knew just how to cheer me up even when she herself had been very sick for the last week. I thanked God for such a thoughtful roommate and headed out to the back deck. I breathed in deep as the screen door swung shut behind me. The evening air was fresh and the view was amazing.      I turned to my roommate with a look of gratitude. “Thank you,” I said, “I really needed this.” It was true. I’d had a really tough few days and, in the generous and encouraging way that typifies ...

Me in the Kodiak plane with the patient (photo by Mandy Pehrson)      Far above the ground we kept our little hospital. Expert eyes flitting from our patient to his I.V. ensuring that he remained stable. Periodically we checked vital signs and compared them to previous ones. We'd been working all afternoon to evacuate our patient from our rural clinic in the highlands of Papua New Guinea to a hospital in Australia. Now, we were in the air on the 4-hour flight from the highlands out over the Coral Sea to Australia. Our patient remained stable as we prayed for good flying weather and safe travel.      The dense black of the night pressed in around us in our tiny, rumbling Kodiak plane.  Time crawled forward as we watched and waited for our arrival. Another hour and a half of night lay before us before we would reach the safe haven of Cairns, Australia (pronounced "cans"). Who knew a flight could feel so long. However, God had been gracious...

At the end of this week I will have been back in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for a month. It’s hard to believe. I can hardly believe it myself. In the last month I said goodbye once again to friends and family in the USA, packed my bags, flew around the world, resettled in my apartment and restarted my job at the clinic here in the Eastern Highlands Province of PNG. What a whirlwind. It’s been such a joy to reunite with my Papua New Guinean and missionary friends and to start jumping back into my life here. However, it’s also had its challenges. Transitions always do have challenges. Because the center where I live has a population of primarily missionaries it means there’s a lot of flux and change as people leave to go to villages, or go research new language areas, or go home for fuloughs, or return from furloughs, or come for the first time, etc, etc… It’s a place of a lot of transition. There’s been changes in how things are done at the clinic and who does what. There have been changes ...

“It is finished.” So rang the redemptive words from the tortured lips of Jesus on the cross. The debt owed to God’s perfect justice is paid in full and the task is accomplished. This year is the first year I’ve had a lot of time during the week before Easter (Holy Week) to ponder what Jesus did for me and all its implications. I was lost, like a sheep without a shepherd; defenseless, doomed, unable to save myself. I stood under the just wrath of a perfectly holy God who required that I live up to His holiness or suffer the judgment for breaking His standard of holiness. There was no way, I could never live up to that standard and I knew I stood condemned. Then, like a life raft to a drowning man in the ocean, Jesus came and placed Himself between me and God’s wrath. Jesus, being perfect and completely holy said, “take me instead.” He suffered what I should have suffered and then offered me restored relationship with God as a result of His fulfillment of the blood-debt th...