Archive: Dec 2012

New Lithium-Ion Tech (LiFePo4) and Flexible Solar Panels for the third-world

Flexible Unisolar Panel on floorFlexible Thin film solar panels have revolutionized the work in third-world settings.  Not only are these panels more protable and light weight but they are less prone to breakage without any glass components. 

They are stellar perfomrers too, and especially in low-light settings. See the latest research in Papua New Guinea. (above 68 watt, Unisolar PVL-68)

See "Small Computing on Solar" »


Teaching Paediatric Advanced Life Support

Helen worked hard on her last furlough and now is certified to teach the American Heart Association course in Paediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), here in Papua New Guinea.

PALS TeachingThis is a course that adapts easily to our lower resource environment and this training has paid off in improved quality of care for the sickest of our small patients. Several weeks after completing the PALS course, two of our PNG nurses hurriedly paged, “Dr. Helen you are needed in the UHC treatment room!” I arrived to find an infant who had stopped breathing suddenly. Appropriate emergency treatment was already underway. One of the nurses performed chest compressions when the infant's heart rate became too slow; she stopped when it improved. A second nurse was breathing for the patient with a bag and mask at the appropriate rate. The child improved with the emergency measures, was placed on oxygen and appropriate antibiotics and transferred to the local hospital....


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You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. 
— St. Augustine



What is PALS?

Helen Instructs Clinic Staff

"Dr. Helen" happily teaching clinic staff during the PALS course.  Over the year 2012, Helen had opportunity to teach in three separate venues, once on location at another mission.

Paediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) is normally a 16 hour class with additional self study.  A program by the American Heart Association, the goal of the course is to aid the paediatric health care provider in developing the knowledge and skills necessary to efficiently and effectively manage critically ill infants and children, resulting in improved outcomes.

RosieProfessional health care providers use PALS during the sta- bilisation and trans- portation phases of a paediatric emergency, in or out of hospital. Skills taught include recognition and treat- ment of infants and children at risk for car- diopulmonary arrest; a systematic approach to paediatric assessment; effective respiratory management; defibrillation and synchronized cardioversion; intraosseous access and fluid bolus administration; and effective resuscitation team dynamics.


For wisdom is more profitable than silver,
and her wages are better than gold.

Wisdom is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
— Proverbs 3:14-15

We praise the Lord for the privlege of being in Papua New Guinea and the opportunities for Dr. Helen to teach others practical health care skills, useful for a lifetime of service.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.  — C. S. Lewis

 

"Say That Again... Audio Bibles?"

AudiBibleMust the Bible be exclusively written down to communicate well in your heart language?  Clearly the answer is "no" — God's "talk" to us can be expressed by other media.  Just as audio can be useful for instruction and entertainment in the West (look at the many portable MP3 players in the USA today), so it can re-vitalize a language in Papua New Guinea.

Our friends, Mack and Doris Graham, translator's to the Kandawo people wrote: “When Peter and John (Kandawo men) returned to the village, they each took an Audibible with them. Both men have been inundated with people coming to hear Bible recordings in Kandawo. Peter says the down-and-outers are especially interested in listening. Many who have never been able to read, can now hear God’s Word spoken to them. We feel this is a very special time for the Kandawo people and ask for your prayers.”

These Audibible units are solar powered, so the batteries never need to be replaced.

...That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful
are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
– Romans 10:15 (Isaiah 52:7) (NLT)



So, if you have managed to read this far down this page then ...

Pray: That God's Spirit of Truth and Peace will convict men and women in villages across the country, as they begin to really wrestle with what God has to say to them in their own language. For some, this will be the first time His talk is clear.  May God continue to give all of us grace to walk through the open doors of opportunity that He continually places before us to advance His Kingdom.
 


One Little Vowel


-Bob Creason (President, Wycliffe-USA)    

[A story from Cameroon.... but this could easily be the same in PNG.]

Translator Lee Bramlett was confident that God had left His mark on the Hdi culture somewhere, but though he searched, he could not find it. Where was the footprint of God in the history or daily life of these Cameroonian people?  What clue had He planted to let the Hdi know Who He was and how He wanted to relate to them? 

Then one night in a dream, God prompted Lee to look again at the Hdi word for love. Lee and his wife, Tammi, had learned that verbs in Hdi consistently end in one of three vowels. For almost every verb, they could find forms ending in i, a, and u. But when it came to the word for love, they could only find i and a. Why no u?

Lee asked the Hdi translation committee, which included the most influential leaders in the community, “Could you ‘dvi’ your wife?”  “Yes,” they said. That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone. 

“Could you ‘dva’ your wife?” “Yes,” they said. That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.

“Could you ‘dvu’ your wife?”  Everyone laughed. “Of course not!  If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say ‘dvu.’ It just doesn’t exist.”

Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God ‘dvu’ people?”

There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men. Finally they responded. “Do you know what this would mean?  This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.”

One simple vowel and the meaning was changed from “I love you based on what you do and who you are,” to “I love you, based on Who I am. I love you because of Me and NOT because of you.”

God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language. For centuries, the little word was there—unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable. When the word was finally spoken, it called into question their entire belief system. If God was like that, and not a mean and scary spirit, did they need the spirits of the ancestors to intercede for them? Did they need sorcery to relate to the spirits? Many decided the answer was no, and the number of Christ-followers quickly grew from a few hundred to several thousand.

The New Testament in Hdi is ready to be printed now, and 29,000 speakers will soon be able to feel the impact of passages like Ephesians 5:25:  “Husbands, ‘dvu’ your wives, just as Christ ‘dvu’-d the church…”  I invite you to pray for them as they absorb and seek to model the amazing, unconditional love they have received.

Around the world, community by community, as God’s Word is translated, people are gaining access to this great love story about how God ‘dvu’-d us enough to sacrifice his unique Son for us, so that our relationship with Him can be ordered and oriented correctly. The cross changes everything!  Someday, the last word of the last bit of Scripture for the last community will be done, and everyone will be able to understand the story of God’s unconditional love.
 


Insights into Papua New Guinea Life

Yellow FlowerHere is the entrance to our photographic favorites.  Come journey to the "land of the unexpected" as seen in our eyes after 25 years of ministry in this fair country.

See More from Years 2005 to 2011»

Higher Resolution Photos are freely available upon request. Just email and let us know what you would like.


You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever. 
— Psalm 16:11