Greetings Friends and Family!
Rainy season is in full swing here now! Rain comes every day now and sometimes multiple times a day but we are staying dry and doing well.
We wanted to bring to your attention a prayer request for our hospital. Recently, the PNG government started passing out a lot more money to hospitals, which sounds great, except for how it affects us. According to the government, any church run medical center is considered a "clinic" and not a hospital. Because of that, our hospital with a staff of over 100 is only considered a clinic and does not receive this extra money. Our hospital sees approximately 3/4 the number of patients as the nearest government hospital but we receive 1/10th the the government funding.
Because of that difference in pay, our hospital is going through a mass exodus of sorts. In the last month or so we have seen over 20 staff members leave the hospital, mostly nurses. This is causing huge problems for our hospital and every week, we hear of another staff member who has applied to another hospital or quit. In addition to the hospital staff leaving, we have also lost about 3-4 (maybe more) of our college of nursing teachers. Since we only have 8 or 9 teachers, this is going to really effect our college if the spots don't get filled by next semester.
So our prayer request comes in 2 parts. First, pray for our staff that they will view this hospital as a ministry opportunity and not just a pay check and pray that we will get more staff. Second, pray that we will get more funding for the hospital and that the government will upgrade our status so we can get the funding we need.
Also, while American nurses aren't able to work at the hospital, they can teach in the nursing college. If any of you are nurses or know a nurse who feels God's leading to serve in PNG, let me know and you/they may be able to teach in our college.
Because of this staff shortage, Amy and I had an exciting opportunity recently. We went on an all day hike to a waterfall with some visiting volunteers. When we got back that evening, we were quite tired and just finishing up supper when we got a phone call. Jim Radcliffe, our surgeon here, was calling because he had to do an emergency surgery on a patient who had been stabbed and he couldn't get ahold of anyone else to help him. Amy and I headed down to the hospital and ended up scrubbing in and assisting with the surgery. After the hour and a half surgery, we were quite exhausted and went to bed.
Another prayer request. Our station has its own hydro electric plant. However, it hasn't been working for a few years. Without being able to generate our own power, we have to rely on the government power which isn't very reliable. The cost of government power is also quite high which is cutting into the funds we have available to pay our staff. Next week, we have 4 gentlemen coming here to inspect our hydro system and get the ball rolling on getting it running again. Once we start the project going again, we will need a project manager who will have to live here for 2 years to oversee the hydro. One of these 4 gentlemen is considering taking on that responsibility but if he decides not to, pray that God will lead a project manager to us.
Thanks for all your prayers and support. I will have more pictures available for you to see soon but our internet is having problems right now so uploading pictures is very hard.
God bless you all,
Stephen and Amy
