Mobile Clinic

Wednesday was my first mobile clinic. We left the house around 7:30 and traveled about 30 minutes to another village. Half way into the drive we come to this huge river, with no road leading across. Now this thing had a really strong current, you'd get swept away if you tried to walk or swim across. Now this is completely normal for anyone living here but I am new to this so I found it to be pretty entertaining when Bill drives through it and the water is coming up the side of my door. The rest of the drive is absolutely beautiful I still cannot get over the mountains here! When we arrive there are 300-400 people awaiting our arrival. Some of the men had come in the ambulance, earlier that morning to get everything set up. We had one big tent that Lori used as an examination room and there were a few canopys set up for other purposes. Upon our arrival Bill had all of the people who needed to see Lori form a line so he could distribute numbers to each of these people. He soon realized there were more than had been expected and only gave numbers to the 200 that were in line, anyone coming later in the day wouldn'nt be able to see her. One of the pastors gave a short message before we started seeing any patients. There were about 10 people that would meet with each of the patients afterwards for a one on one ministry. Since I can't speak Pidgin I was given the fun job of treating sores! Yummy. There were a ton of people with sores and scabies and such, that myself along with one of the clinic nurses help treat. We pretty much just sprayed them with a type of antibotic and cleaned the area then put neosporn and a bandaid on. There were some pretty nasty looking infections coming through, especially with the poor little kids. Alot of them had scabies all over their bodies. After an hour of that we got through the majority of the people but Lori was only at patient number 40 out of 200...we had some time to kill. We ate lunch in the ambulance and then played some volleyball and finally at about 4 in the afternoon started packing things up. Long day but I got a nice tan!

As I headed out to the kitchen for breakfast yesterday morning, I could tell something was wrong. Bill and Lori were there talking and I could hear the worry in their voices. As I sat down at the kitchen table with my cup of coffee, Bill filled me in. Lalow's death, is still stirring up problems with the people here. Bear with me as I try to explain this because it's really confusing to put into words: A witch came to the village this morning in search of Lalow's spirit so he could tell her who killed him. She claims the murderer is the ambulance driver, who looked in the mirror while driving Lalow to the hospital and did sorcery on him. Now I've spent a great deal of time with this man lately and feel awful when I hear this because he is such a sweet guy. The witch was paid by Lalow's brothers to come find the killer and have said before that they suspected the ambulance driver so it's no surprise that's who she said was responsible. They are now demanding 10,000 kena(5,000 american dollars) and two pigs or they will kill him. The biggest thing that shocked me was that most of the people here believe(or are questioning) that he is responsible. And I'm talking about the christian guys and even the pastors! They have grown up believing that these so called witches NEVER lie about this, so it is hard for them to change their way of thinking.

It's Friday morning and I'm about to leave for Simbai. The power went out last night when I was trying to finish up this blog post so I have to hurry and write the rest, so sorry it is very rushed and probably confusing. But Lori just came and told me that some of the men came to village last night and tried to attack the ambulance driver in his sleep. Luckily alot of the christian men were sleeping outside of his home and all stuck together to stop the attackers. It's hard to imagine this is happening a few hundred yards away from where I had been sleeping. Anyway I am headed to Simbai in a 6 passenger plane, which should be fun. There are no roads leading in or out of Simbai so this is the only way to get there. They only have 3 hours of electricity a day and have no internet or phones. The only way of communicating with the outside world is through walkie talkies, which Bill contacts them with every Monday Wednesday and Friday to make sure they are okay. If they don't answer for 3 days he has to send out a search party for them, lets hope that doesn't happen while I'm there! Thank you all for your prayers and please continue praying for everyone here and the hardships they are facing!