Strength Indeed Small

 

I entered my clinic room after rounding on about twenty patients in our medical ward.  I felt the draw of returning to perform a lumbar puncture and ultrasound examinations but stopped by my office to pick up some things I would need.  A small stack of papers awaited me, left by our medical records officer – death certificates needing my signature.

 

With several of our doctors out on furlough, I have been working in our nursery in addition to my medical ward rounds the past few weeks.  It has been a while since I’ve consistently been there and I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say its busier than I think we’ve ever seen it.  Mothers and babies cluster close together in a room designed to trap their body heat and warm the little lives under our care.  IV poles drip fluids into tiny veins, a cylinder leaks out small amounts of supplement oxygen through split tubing into frail lungs, medicines are prepared in insulin syringes to accommodate the miniscule volumes about to be administered, a nurse dutifully prepares charts, and a missionary doctor scans the room hoping to see all the faces he encountered yesterday.  But some are nearly always missing, their short lives momentarily recalled in a day or two when I sign that stack of papers. 

 

I hear the savior say,

“They strength indeed is small.

Child of weakness watch and pray.

Find in Me, thine all in all.”

 

A baby I will call Anna delivered prematurely to an unmarried University student two months ago.  After a few weeks of tending this little one, her mother returned to school, leaving the child’s grandmother as her sole custodian.  Routinely, I asked if the baby was breastfeeding and was told, “Nogat – mama I go bek lo skul pinis.  Em mi yet tasol.”  “No – her mother is gone.  It’s just me now.”

 

We discussed the proper way to prepare formula for this premature baby, being careful to make sure the water and equipment was clean.  I asked if there were any women in the family who could breastfeed the baby.  No – but grandma was determined that she could prepare and give the feeds properly.

 

I moved on to my other tiny patients, their small lungs using every bit of their energy to take their next breaths, and I feared that their strength would give out.  All I can do is watch and pray.

 

 

 

 

 

In the next bassinet I pause before asking mom to accompany me to a more secluded part of the ward.

 

“I have tried everything to help your baby but nothing’s working.  You’ve been a long way from home for two months.  I’m worried about your family.  Yesterday, you asked if you could just take your baby home and give her to God.  I agree.  This illness cannot be cured.”

 

She thanked me for my care, took my hands, heard my prayer of surrender, and bundled her baby into a string bag hung over her head to begin a long journey into a remote corner of our province – most likely to begin preparations for a burial.

 

Lord now indeed I find

Thy pow'r and Thine alone

Can change a leper's spots

And melt the heart of stone

 

When I set out upon this entry, I planned to draw parallels between Christ’s triumphant resurrection and a miraculous story of recovery.  I began to write the story of how Anna’s baby returned having gained weight, when I received the phone call from the emergency room.  “Dokta, mipela I gat wanpela boi na ka I bampim em.”  A young boy we will call Norman was crossing the highway after getting dropped off near his home from Sunday Lotu when a large truck struck him.  Thrown across the ground, bystanders quickly rushed him to the Kudjip emergency room.  The next two hours I spent administering sedating drugs to alleviate the agitation from my patient’s severe head injury while cleaning and stitching multiple lacerations, reducing and splinting his femur fracture, and providing breathing support for his pulmonary contusion.  After stabilizing him to the best of my ability, I took the hands of his parents in our crowded emergency room on Easter Sunday and prayed that God might join the work of our medicines and treatments in healing him while giving peace to the hearts of his parents.

 

 

I do not preach many sermons.  I do not plant churches, though the work of our hospital has started several them.  But I have found a unique niche in meeting some of the great physical needs of our community while attempting to bring Christ’s love to bear on my patients.  I have seen many of them embrace His salvation and I pray and hope that they will help bring the change to this country that is desperately needed.

 

About two weeks ago I entered the emergency room and examined the first chart handed to me by the nurse in charge.  A young woman we will call Lucy on bed six had delivered her baby at Kudjip ten days prior, but now suffered from fevers and weakness.  Upon discharge she and her infant had been given a supply of anti-retroviral medications for HIV.

Her blood pressure hovered at about 80 millimeters of mercury, her pulse around 120 beats per minute, she breathed at nearly sixty times a minute, and she drifted in and out of consciousness.  No guardian stood by.  Staff and I scrambled for oxygen, IV access, and powerful antibiotics while I retrieved the ultrasound machine, worried about a postpartum infection.  As I concluded the scan, her mother and newborn child arrived at the bedside having just obtained her mandatory health book from our check-in clerk.  As I quickly transferred her back to our maternity unit, we obtained a chest X-ray that revealed a profound pneumonia in her lungs.  I could not "quick-fix" this with surgery and I was convinced that she would die, leaving her grandmother to tend another PNG highlands orphan.

I explained the situation to this sweet woman, every inch of 4-foot-10, cradling her grand-daughter in a bag over her shoulders.  Her eyes misted as she considered the severity of the situation and she asked, "The baby is hungry - can she still feed?"  I suggested that her mother was unlikely to be able to produce breast-milk and we would provide supplements for a while, but yes, she could still attempt to join baby and mother for a while.  I left the ward, along with one of our new missionary doctors, catching the image of a frail but dedicated grandmother latching her new grand-baby onto her daughter's lifeless form. 

 

 

As I enter my tenth year serving in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, I field more and more consults from my fellow doctors: seeking advice on how to evaluate certain cases, manage specific conditions, or even just to navigate the myriad challenges that buffet a physician tasked with a burden that should be shared among more colleagues.  In ten years, I have gained a little knowledge, some experience, and many scars.  I supposed one would think ten years serving in this ministry would make an “expert.”  Yet so many times my strength is small compared to the needs around me.  Like those little ones completely dependent on the few interventions that we can provide, I feel somewhat helpless.  

 

 

 

But I know that I don’t need great strength.  In fact, Paul writes that God’s strength is most manifest in my weakness.  I can and should invest my life into God’s call for the care of the sick and hurting.  But all of it depends on Him.  My watching and praying allows Him to show Himself strong.

And when before the throne

I stand in Him complete

"Jesus died my soul to save"

My lips shall still repeat.

Over the next two days, Lucy lay almost motionless connected to IV fluids, oxygen, a urinary catheter, and at times to her new daughter - dutifully placed there by a loving "bubu."  And then she started to speak in sentences, eat and drink, and even sit up on her own power.  A few days more and she was cradling her new baby lovingly to her breast, bathing her, then allowing her to nap in the ward looked after by our nurses while she went outside to see the sun a bit - resurrected to a new life with her child.

 

Today Christians all over the world celebrate that Jesus rose out of his grave to defeat sin and death.  He is risen indeed.  Though our world still hurts from the bondage of the Fall, He now rules and reigns with His Father.  His strength heals broken bodies, cares for newborn babies, and changes hearts and souls.

 

Jesus paid it all

All to Him I owe

Sin had left a crimson stain

He washed it white as snow