A Surprise Gift

We have some amazing partners and our supporters are awesome. I have to tell you about the most recent gift we received. It comes from an unlikely donor and just blessed us so much that it brings tears to my eyes and the story will touch you as well.

We serve the people that this culture considers the least and lowest of the region. The lowest and most rejected are the lepers who are considered worthless by the community and are even thrown out of their families and villages. It is a less than human, existence. We have a leper residential rehabilitation center called "Tamariska” which means “Dwelling Place of Kings.” It is a safe and very nurturing place for these rejected souls. The lepers who come to us for help live in the residential units and are treated as a part of our family. They receive daily care by our medical staff and it is a time of healing and emotional growth. Several years ago a leper by the name of Hendrik came to the base. He had been banished from his village for 15 years and suffered alienation, ridicule, and the physical effects of his disease. Hendrik is no longer infectious. He has lost his toes and fingers but he can walk and is just a delightful man. I love spending time with him and he loves to play UNO. He is actually really good and delights in putting a Draw Four on anyone who might be getting ahead in the game.

Hendrik recently heard that we were running low in the general medical fund. We have faced this challenge before and during those times, we just pray for the increased support. Hendrik came to the office and gave his donation of $550,000 Rupiah (about 60 USD). That is all he had. We do not even have the slightest idea where he got that amount of money. It is a big mystery and we are just in awe. Hendrik is like the widow who gave all she had—her two coins. He gave all he had to help others. I am just so touched by the generosity in his heart and I know the gift he gave was given in love, without expecting anything in return. The next time I see him I am going to give him a huge hug, and then settle down for a wild game of UNO!

Long Lost Friends

Thirty-five years is a long time. It is a lot of water under the bridge of life. Such is life when friends say good bye and new chapters open. High school graduations are a major event before the scattering starts. Those who spent almost every day together then are pursuing much different paths. I left high school to attend college. I had other friends who went directly to work and others got married. Whatever the reason, we all scattered and hardly looked back. We had lives to live and goals to achieve. The seasons of responsibility came, and we all raised families and/or immersed ourselves in our work. There are a lot of reasons that distance became the key word in old friendships. Literal distance was what separated me from old friends—I moved to Alaska. The reasons are many for why we all have 40 years of distance and occasional thoughts of: "I wonder where so-and-so is right now."

I got the chance to sit down with five of my long lost friends this last week. I was in Seattle for meetings and was invited by one of my high school friends to come by and meet her husband and get caught up on the gap of 35 years. It was a wonderful time of catching up. There was not enough time to talk about the last 35 years since I had seen them. We could only show photos of our children, and there were plenty of grandchildren to brag about. We were all in pretty good shape—gray hair and less hair (actually none for me) were the signs we were not wide-eyed teens anymore. We get our exercise chasing grandkids and attending fitness aerobic classes.

If you can come to this season of life and look back with a smile and give thanks to the Almighty, then it has been a blessed life. I am looking forward to the next chapter. I do not plan to slow down or give up. Life has been good, and now I have a few more friends in the boat with me.

Saying Yes

The little three letter word we use so often has so much power. It is the word “YES”. I can see myself as a child anticipating that word after asking a hope filled question. It might have been: Can I go to the lake? Can I have some candy? Can I stay overnight at my friend’s house? I can remember waiting to hear that little word — "Yes". When you think about it, it is a very powerful word. It can bring a smile and the hope of a good experience. That little word has been used to start the process to help so many in need: "Yes, we can help you."

I can think of six families who have heard that word when they have asked the question regarding the possibility of sending their children to the U.S. or Australia for extensive medical care. Their future became bright, but if these children are to be helped, so many people have to say yes. I am so grateful for the amazing people who make it possible to change a person’s life. If a number of people agree to help, then it is a shared effort. A life can be changed if we can find a way to say, "Yes".

Clean Water

Clean water is vital to good health. There are several ways to transform marginally safe or contaminated water into drinkable water. A common practice in the remote islands of Indonesia is to boil the water. It takes time and fuel to boil every drop of water a family drinks. A well (bore) can be drilled at a per-foot cost. It can be too expensive for some villages. Another option is to hand dig a well. This is a lot of work and the well remains open to future contamination. Roof catchment systems can also provide drinkable water. The challenge with this method is that you only get water when it rains. In a region that has a wet and dry season, there can be long stretches of time between the rainy days. Using water out of streams and rivers is also common. The rivers are used by everyone who lives near the river for everything including bathing, toilets and washing clothes. The water from these rivers can be just full of disease. These are all methods used by the poor to get drinkable water.

Recently we had a wonderful portable hand pump water purification system donated. It will be very valuable for our teams to use on mobile clinics. The medical and dental teams go to remote villages to serve the needs of the poor in their villages. These teams will stay in the villages for one day or as much as three months. In many villages the challenge is having clean water to use for the medical and dental work. This portable purification system weighs only 20 pounds and will be used by the mobile clinic teams to guarantee they will have good water. It doesn’t take a lot to help in big ways.

Surgical Team

TheIFC/Hohidiai staff at the Medical Clinic and Hospital are looking forward to this team coming to focus on cleft lip surgeries. The permits have been secured with the Department of Health for this team to bring hope to the poor that come for help. Those needing the cleft lip surgeries are now just waiting for the team to arrive.

There are a couple other special cases for the medical team to assess. The top of the list is a middle aged man who is badly burned on his back from his neck down to his feet. He is in desperate need of specialized burn care.

There is a lot of logistics for a medial team of 13 people. Our short-term team coordinator and team leader, Dan Holmgren, have worked long and hard to get the travel, lodging, visas, letters, supplies and permits organized. It is a huge job but well worth the investment--those cleft lip patients will leave with a new face and new future.

Jet Lag

The sky was a stunning blue as I looked down on the glaciers and snow covered mountains of Western Canada and Alaska. It was a view that was the best welcome sign you could see. I was nearly home—weary but excited to be close to the end of my travels. There is no place like home even after being in the remote islands of Indonesia and the beautiful continent of Australia.

I left the northland with a dental team in early February. Seventeen flights later I am back in the same place from which I started. The international flights were all packed and the local puddle jumpers were nail biters. I was stuffed into seats made for people much smaller than I, and I sat next to Sumo wrestlers in training on a nine hour flight. The one I communicated with could not speak very good English and he definitely took up his seat and more. I even gave him part of my in-flight meal which he received with a smile. The meal was hardly a snack for him even with my donations. I met a wonderful 18 year old Singaporean who was going, during school break, to join a team to help the Japanese tsunami survivors. It has been one year since that disaster and he was giving his time to make a difference. I was so proud of him and only imagined what he will change in his lifetime. He did spend most of the trip sleeping on my shoulder. I met people who wanted to talk and those who wanted to sleep. I slept when I could and read a couple books between Sumo wrestlers in training, young world changers, cramped seating and wondering how the plane landed in that tropical rain storm.

The miles went zipping past at 600 mph over the Pacific Ocean and over the dry plains of the great southland. I am now home but jet lagged. I know what that means for me over the next few weeks. I met some wonderful people and added thousands of miles to my mileage plan. I will need to use them because I will be back in the air in a month or so. I wonder who will be sitting next to me over those cloud piercing miles.

Dr. Gigi

In Indonesia the word for teeth is gigi--so a dentist is Dr. Gigi. We had our own Dr. Gigi on the recent team. He came from the place on the planet that has had a record snowfall and now he is in the remote islands of Indonesia pulling and filling teeth.

Dr. Paul (Dr. Gigi) was just been amazing as he patiently took a look at the dental needs of each person. He was also there to train the dental support staff. It was fascinating watching him instruct each one of them--they were each at a different skill level.

The bonus was his interpreter, Annie. She was born in Indonesia and moved to America as a young woman. She has family who live in Java. She flew up to the base and was a great help to Dr. Gigi as he instructed his staff. She just stood back until she was needed. She had a very good grip on the more technical part of the language.

He has children come to the dental room who did not want to get close to a dentist and others who just opened their mouths and came out smiling. I saw the first boy who came to see the dentist and his dental needs were major. There was another that needed the best part of three days to help his mouthful of cavities.

I could see the confidence of the dental staff increase as each day passed. Dr. Paul let them assist and even do some of the work under his tutelage. The staff is learning the practical experiences and upgrading their skills--step-by-step.