Friends and family,

I have a prayer request to share with you  all. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have been helping out in our SOPD (surgical outpatient department) clinic (I screen patients and then help w/ dressing changes and whatnot). Yesterday we had a young girl, about 16, come in with a very swollen right leg. Her name is Naomi and she had been in the week before for some blood work and xrays and was coming to follow up. Her family said the pain started in February and she is now to the point where she can't walk w/out assistance or bend or straighten her leg. Dr Jim (our surgeon) has told them this is bone cancer (I'm not sure which kind). Yesterday he did a chest x ray and liver ultrasound and found that it has not metastasized yet, but that if she did not have surgery to amputate that right leg witin the next few weeks, it will spread and then he can't do anything.

People in Papua New Guinea still have a hard time grasping the seriousness of CA and just how deadly this disease can be. I watched as one of our nurses explained to them in their local talk place what Dr Jim was trying to explain in Pidgin. Though they all had concerned faces, not one of them shed a single tear. (and I was standing behind Naomi trying to not to breakdown!) They were very quiet and smiled at Roselyn (the nurse) and me as we sat there with them. The father said they needed to go home to talk and pray about this w/ their village people before they could make a decision. Dr Jim asked Roselyn to tell them that he understood this was something to inform their extended family about and pray about but to reinforce the fact that this young girl needs surgery to amputate her leg and needs it soon. The family left saying they would be back to us in a week or two, but Dr. Jim and Roselyn are not convinced they really will come back before it's too late.

Cancer is not an uncommon diagnosis in our patients-- we see a lot of cervical, uterine, breast and mouth cancer but not bone cancer nor in such a young patient. I think this patient especially weighs heavy on my heart because this case reminds me of my mom's battle with cancer. Yes, my mom was a little older than a teenager and she didn't have her leg amputated, though the doctors thought they would have to, and my mom knew more about her diagnosis than this young Papua New Guinean, but I would imagine this girl and my mother felt some very similar feelings.

Please pray for this young girl and her family- pray that they will make the decision to bring her back to Nazarene Hospital for surgery and make this decision soon. Her family told our nurse they are Christians (though sometimes people tell us that since they're at a Christian hospital) so pray for Naomi's relationhip with Jesus to be strengthened through this time. Pray that she will put her hope, her fears, and her future (of living life in the highlands of PNG with one leg) in His hands. Also thank Him for our doctors and nurses, like Dr. Jim and Sister Roselyn, who serve at Nazarene Hospital so that they can tell our patients about the love of Jesus!!! Thank Him that even in the highlands of Papua New Guinea we have the technology to physically treat Naomi's body and that we know the truth of Jesus' ability to completely save her. And thank Him for saving my mother's life, both physically and spiritually, thirty- something years ago! We serve a great God and I trust Naomi's life will be a testimony of this!

Thank you for partnering with us in prayer for Naomi and her family!

Love,

Amy