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One of the air strips I
have regularly flown into is Appa. I well
remember the day we did the first test
landing there. Accompanying me on that
occasion was Les Anderson, who later
became the director of Adventist Aviation
based in Goroka. It can take ages for
isolated bush people to get their
airstrips open. Many years of back
breaking work, with pick and shovel,
moving the rocks, trees and stumps by
hand are often needed. The area has to be
leveled, drained, compacted and surfaced
as an airstrip.
As and I taxied up into the parking bay after
the first landing at Appa, with Les who had
just arrived in the country at that time, the
jubilation of the Appa villagers was
sensational. They began wildly chopping down
paw paw and banana trees and leaping in the air
and shouting for joy. I will never forget the
look on Les's face when the villagers picked
him up, hoisted him in the air and carried him
off on their shoulders round and round in
un-quellible delight. A fitting welcome for one
of the best missionaries I have ever had the
pleasure of knowing it was too.
People in these isolated parts are so dependent
on aircraft for basic services. Getting a
teacher there, getting supplies of soap, salt
and basic commodities, and of course medical
services. By air is the only way of getting
cash crops to market as well. Carrying these
crops, gives the villagers a little money for
educating their children and buying a few basic
necessities. Participating in the lives of
these isolated villagers in this way helps us
as missionaries to get to know them and their
needs. The fares and freight we charge, help
keep the service running. Being there
frequently gives the missionary pilot the
opportunity of knowing about and being able to
respond to the needs of the people. The story
below illustrates this aspect of a missionary
pilot's life.
Rubina comes from Dobu, a remote village on the
southern edge of the Papua New Guinea
Highlands. It is one of the last outposts you
come to before you reach the south western
Papuan jungles, which stretch for hundreds of
square miles throughout the south of the
country. Dobu is situated in an elongated basin
with mountain ridges on 3 sides and steeply
rising ground on the 4th side. There is a small
airstrip tucked away in the bottom of the basin
but it is a brave pilot indeed who takes off
with much of a load. High altitude, short
runway and a take off into rising terrain!
Every pilot's nightmare. After take off you
have to immediately veer to the left and follow
a narrow short ravine while you claw for height
to get above the rising ground in the main part
of the basin to your right hand side. Then you
circle around in the basin until you have
enough height to get out and over the lip at
the side. Pilots avoid going in there if they
can help it, consequently only an occasional
mission plane visits Dobu.
Rubina is a normal active girl around 12 years
old. I say around 12 because she like many
people in remote villages in Papua New Guinea
does not know her birth date or exactly how old
she is. About 12 months before, Rubina fell in
the bush and sustained a nasty compound
fracture of her lower left leg. She lay there
for a while sobbing with the pain and feeling
very frightened about not being able to move
her right leg. "How would she get home," she
thought, "and what was going to happen to her
leg?" Her friend was scurrying through the
jungle to find her father. After what seemed
like forever, Rubina's Dad came into the
clearing. "How good it was to see him at last,"
she thought. He bent over her and tenderly
examined her leg. There was a long jagged piece
of bone protruding ominously out the shin area,
and oh so much blood. He picked her up and
carried her to their simple bush material
house, where her mother was busily going about
the chores of their subsistence life style. He
placed her on the mat and stood there listening
to her cry uncontrollably with the pain and
watching the blood trickle down her leg. What
was he to do. There is no clinic in Dobu to
give any kind of treatment for even the most
basic ailments, let alone for a complicated
surgical condition like this one. Rubina's mum
reached for a dirty, torn old tee shirt and
carefully wrapped it around the bleeding leg
and the large jagged piece of bone protruding
from the torn flesh. Little by little the
bleeding finally stopped. Exhausted Rubina
finally fell into a light sleep. Her Dad went
outside into the cool evening air and sat on a
log. He swatted the malarial mosquitoes
instinctively, as he sat there deep in thought,
wondering what he could do for his suffering
little Rubina.
The mining company had moved on and there was
no radio to call for help anymore. Not that
there is much help at the other end of a radio
for bush people in PNG these days. "Oh what
could he do," he thought. Should he take her to
Negabo the nearest bush clinic? It was miles
away over rough mountain trails and she was
already in so much pain. No he would wait and
hope that an aircraft would come to Dobu. Yes
an aircraft would come and they would help her,
he was sure of it.
Day after day Rubina lay there with her leg
throbbing from the injuries and the subsequent
rampant wound infection and osteomyelitis. Her
body was weak from the loss of blood. Day after
day her family watched the sky and listened for
the sound of an aircraft engine, hoping a plane
would come to take Rubina to the medical help
she desperately needed. Days turned into weeks.
No plane came. The pain and the infection were
weakening Rubina further.
As she lay there with her leg bound up, very
slowly the Fibula -the smaller leg bone behind
the tibia or shin bone, began to knit together.
At last she could move her leg without it
hurting so much. Days of fever came and went.
Little by little her body started to feel a bit
stronger. Somehow her immune system was holding
its own against the raging tropical infection.
As the days passed she began putting more and
more weight on her injured leg. It gradually
grew stronger and so did she. The broken shin
bone was still sticking out of her leg and
catching on her clothes as she moved.
Then the fevers started again and oh how the
leg pained. In a few days the pain subsided and
the fevers went away once more. By now Rubina's
dad began to realize that a plane may not come
for a long time. Something had to be done for
Rubina. Now that she was a little bit stronger
he decided to set out for Negabo health clinic.
It was slow going for Rubina as she hobbled
laboriously along the bush trail through the
rainforest and the mud. Oh how the leg burned
with pain from infection and the inflammation
caused by the constant trauma of the broken
shin bone edge still inside her leg jabbing her
tender flesh as she limped along. Many times as
she stopped to rest, she wondered if she would
ever make it to Negabo.
Then at last up on the next ridge, Negabo came
into view. The aid post orderly frowned as he
summed up the situation. There was very little
he could do for Rubina there at Negabo. She
needed to be flown out to a critical care
hospital and have surgery. Negabo airstrip was
closed -again. One of the operators who
operates larger aircraft closes the strip when
ever it is a bit boggy or rough for their big
aeroplanes. Unfortunately "closing" the strip
means that smaller planes like the ones most
missionary pilots fly, are not allowed to land
there either. The down side is though, that
while the strip is closed, the medical clinic
is isolated and planes don't call in for urgent
medical cases.
Rubina and her dad waited and waited while the
strip was repaired. The infection flared up
again. The aid post orderly had a small supply
of oral antibiotics. She was given two courses
in all. Unfortunately they did not have any
antibiotics with good bone penetration to give
her any way.
His face fell as Rubina's dad heard the news.
The Chimbu government did not have any money
left in the budget to assist villagers who
needed medical evacuations. This was a real
blow. The clinic had been told to make patients
as comfortable as possible and that's the best
they could do. Most flying operators -even some
with missionary labels, rarely help ill
villagers to get to medical help unless they
can pay a full fare. Anyone who is really sick,
needs a family member to travel with them as
well, to look after their needs while they are
in the hospital system. So this cost is a
double whammy for them. He was only a simple
subsistence farmer and did not have anywhere
near the 250 Kina odd needed to get both he and
Rubina to Goroka. Had she survived this much,
had they come so far to fail in their quest for
healing and restoration now?
As they sat despondently turning the situation
over and over, back and forth in subdued
discussion, the villagers looked over at Rubina
sitting forlornly with her hurting leg. They
began telling stories about how one mission was
different to the others and often helped
desperately ill villagers who could not
pay.
They enthusiastically told Rubina's Dad about
one mama from Negabo who had incompletely
miscarried had been slowly bleeding to death.
The clinic at Negabo was told by the health
office in Kundiawa to make her as comfortable
as possible and let her die. They had no money
to do a medevac for her.
-Seeing people suffer and die because they
cannot afford available treatment really stirs
the heart of the missionary pilot. My medical
training told me that this lady had a good
chance of getting better and having a healthy
full life if only she could get the right
treatment. This poor woman had several living
healthy children but was now unable to complete
any pregnancy. She had recently had 5
miscarriages!! Her system was obviously very
run down and depleted. I often get to look
after dying people as a nurse in my other job
back home. In those cases people only arrive at
that point when there is nothing more that can
be done for them. Here I was looking at an
otherwise healthy person who was slowly dying
of something that could be treated. As a
missionary pilot I had the chance of uplifting
and connecting this helpless soul to the
treatment that would save her life.
Rubina's Dad listened intently as he heard how
we loaded the plane with the bags of coffee the
villagers wanted us to take to market and then
gently laid this dying woman on top of the
bags. My wife Lorretta who is a trained mid
wife took her over to the hospital and made
sure she got seen to straight away. She could
only speak her local language, but fortunately
one of the medical interns could speak that
particular one, of the 700 plus languages in
PNG. It was a pleasure for me to take her back
home not long after that, a happy healthy
smiling individual again with life's potential
restored. That is exactly what Jesus did for
people. How does a missionary pilot feel when
he can do work like this? Its just great.
A spark of hope now illuminated the shadowy
landscape of Rubina's Dad's troubled thoughts.
Perhaps there was a God who really did care for
His suffering hurting creation after all. But
would the mission plane help Rubina? The
mission's radio from Negabo airstrip had been
taken up to Goroka for repairs some time
before. How could they contact the mission? The
airstrip was closed anyway.
Then someone remembered hearing that the
mission was helping the Appa villagers nearby
carrying their coffee to Goroka. That was it,
they would walk on and try to get to Appa. May
be the mission pilot would take pity on them
and they would find help at last.
I remember sighing with satisfaction as I
trimmed Charlie for the descent from one zero
thousand into Appa. It was a beautiful cool
morning and the atmosphere was calm and stable.
Shallow wisps of cloud hovered around the
mountain slopes and lounged benignly about in
the valleys after the bustling storms of the
evening before. I was unaware that today, just
being there, being a part of this village
communities daily life, was going to be one of
those days where God opens up the opportunity
to show his love in a special way to someone
who needed that so much.
When I landed, the people told me they had a
sick person. Curious I asked to see Rubina. As
she stood quietly and nervously before me, I
quickly scanned her little frame looking for a
clue to what the problem might be. Nothing
obvious presented itself, so I asked what was
wrong with her. Her father lifted the hem of
her dress to show me. Wow! I have worked in
charge of a casualty ward and have seen quite a
bit of horrible looking stuff. I was taken
aback however when I saw Rubina's leg. There
sticking out of her leg, half way
 down from her knee was the 3 or
4 inch length of her tibia bone surrounded
by a large area of angry looking, infected
flesh. On closer examination I could see
that infection had eroded a large section
of the bone. As I was told the story of
what had happened, my mind boggled as I
tried to assimilate that this poor kid had
been carrying this very large open wound
for such a long time. How had she escaped
dying of Septicemia? I marveled at the
power that the Creator has put within
created life to adjust to and fight back
against the hazards sin has brought into
the world. "This kids immunoglobulin would
definitely worth bottling," I thought, as
she sat down again on Charlies right main
wheel.
There was silence for a moment as I
incredulously went over the story again in my
head. Rubina's Dad began fidgeting nervously
and looking at the ground. Rubina was looking
up at me with her dark brown eyes in perfect
trust. She must have read something in my face
that her father didn't see. Thinking I was
weighing up if I would help them or not, one of
the villagers offered 2 coffee bags to help pay
for getting Rubina to hospital. Rubina's Dad
had 40 Kina which he offered to give me. I
shook my head and refused to take the 40 Kina.
I knew he would need that to look after her
when they got to Goroka. I accepted the
villagers offer of the 2 coffee bags however,
remembering what state the mission's finances
are in.
As I flew home there was a hint of a smile on
Rubina's Dad's face as he sat there up front
beside me. I looked back out the window at the
Nomane range slipping by underneath and
wondered with admiration at the stamina and
perseverance of this poor family who had
overcome all the odds that bush people face in
PNG and had found the source of help that God
has provided for them in their need. "What
though," I thought, of the other thousands of
villagers hidden away in isolated villages
dotted all over Papua New Guinea? How will they
be able to get access to the missionary support
services and the gospel ministry they need, to
uplift and bring new life to them? But at least
Rubina now has the chance of getting the
treatment she needs. Wont you join me in
praying that God will open the way for this
kind of service to be available to the many
other village kids like Rubina, who are
suffering in other remote areas of Papua New
Guinea?
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