Just returned from another incredible trip to Papua New Guinea. I could do with a little less excitement on these trips, however. I'm getting too old for this!
I left the US on November 7 and had given myself only a day in the provincial capital of Alotau. Unfortunately, my flight from Port Moresby, the national capital, to Alotau was delayed by several hours so that I was left with just a few hours to my things ready once I arrived in Alotau. I had 1 hour on Wednesday the 10th to purchase what I needed, then that evening I packed up everything.
I had hoped to leave Alotau on the MV Kwadima the next morning. But unfortunately, we had to wait several hours for some cargo to be loaded from one of the local stores. We also had 10 extra passengers to help bring the cost down for me. We managed to get off around 3:30 pm.
The boat was almost to East Cape, the eastern tip of the mainland of PNG when we started having trouble with the fuel lines. There seemed to be an air leak in the lines. The problem was compounded when the captain attempted to restart and something was then wrong with the gearbox. After several hours of trying to bleed the lines, a boat, the MV John Vincent towed us to East Cape where another boat, the MV Jazz II agreed to tow us back to Alotau.
When we arrived in Alotau the next morning (Friday) the boat manager was waiting for us (around 5:30 am). I spent the entire day on the boat while they tried to fix it. Late afternoon it looked like everything was ready. We departed again from Alotau 5:30 pm planning to sleep at East Cape (3 to 4 hours away), then leave there around midnight.
We made it to East Cape with no trouble, but didn't leave there until around 3 am. We had several stops to make to drop either cargo or passengers. Each stop took awhile so it was already around 3 pm when we arrived at the second to last stop before heading to Nubogeta. As we were leaving there the engine stopped again - same problem. The crew boy got it going again and we kept going. As we rounded the eastern end of Fergusson the engine again seized up, but this time the crew boy couldn't get it going. It was now 4 pm. We were in a bad place to anchor. If the wind picked up we could end up on the shore which was quite rocky. It was calm at the time which was good. We all worked on the engine until about 10 pm. Another boat passed, the MV Koyatabu coming from Basima (where we were to drop some passengers) and heading to Budoya (where we had just come from) to drop some passengers. The captain of this boat agreed to tow us to better anchorage on his way back and to take the Basima passengers to their village of Basima.
He did not return that night like we had thought. Instead around 10 pm we were pretty well tired of working on the boat and getting no where with it. We did discover why the gear box had been a problem, though. It turns out when the engine stopped, the boat was in gear and the Captain forgot to take it out of gear. So when he tried to start it, it was in gear and that is what caused the gear box noises. So at least that mystery was resolved. There were maybe 12 of us on the boat and so we gathered together with all the lights off to save battery power and prayed over our circumstances. You can't imagine how amazing this time of prayer was. Several people prayed out loud, but each did it in his own language. I would say that was the highlight of this trip. We all asked God to protect us from the pirates who were in the area (we were sitting ducks) and to protect us from the wind pushing us ashore, and finally to provide a way to get everyone where they needed to be. The wind never picked up all night and the anchors seemed to have firmly held.
The next morning another boat came at first light. It was the MV Sagu II. The captain agreed to tow us to safer anchorage and to take us to Nubogeta. After towing us about a mile, we saw in the distance the MV Koyatabu coming. The Sagu II captain told us the the Koyatabu had been stuck at Budoya the night before because the steering cable had snapped. They finally fixed it and the boat was headed our way to pick up the Basima passengers.
The Sagu II captain wanted to try something on Kwadima that might work. He bled all the injectors and the boat started right up. We had already got onto the Sagu II so we departed for Nubogeta. The Koyatabu took the Basima passengers and the Kwadima headed back to Alotau.
The Kwadima was fixed a few days later and seems to not have any more fuel line problems. I made it to the village Sunday afternoon, which left me only the afternoon to get my house set up and to get the translation house ready for work the next morning.
We were working on 2 books, John and 1 Corinthians. The first week was 1 Corinthians with people from Nubogeta. The second week some from Gumawana Island came to work on John.
I started the first week off sick. I had a low grade fever all week along with a sore throat. The weather was incredibly hot. The days in the village were in the low 90s with about 70 % humidity. The inside of the translation house was even hotter. I was already drinking a tremendous amount of water.
At the end of the second week I was finally feeling a bit better. Throughout this time people had been coming daily complaining of headaches and fever. I figured it was malaria so gave everyone malaria treatment. But this was not normal. People don't typically all come down with malaria at the same time. I had given out so much chloroquine, yet people were still sick.
Early Thursday morning of the third week I woke up with a fever. I went down to the translation house around 7:30 am to start work with the men on 1 Corinthians, but after a half hour, told them I couldn't work any more because my fever was increasing. I went home and discovered my fever had gone from 99 to 102. My head was pounding and all my joints and muscles were in pain. I tried various pain relievers I had (even some with codeine) but nothing seemed to help. I had informed our manager in Alotau that I thought I had malaria and had even started the treatment for it so that he was aware that I was sick. But later in the afternoon I began looking through our medical books. This just didn't feel like malaria. I reread about dengue fever. Both Roxanne and I had it 14 years ago. After reading the symptoms again, I began to think that was what I had. It made since that everyone else in the village had probably had it as well. There is no medication for dengue fever. Pain medication is about all one can take. Dengue fever is passed by mosquitoes and appears 4-10 days after being bitten. It can often effect a lot of people all at one time. The person's temperature will go up each day. It ends with a rash. One of our translators, Siyokira, had itching after 2 days. Another kid in the village, I remembered, had thrush in the mouth.
The next morning (Friday) the fever was at about 99. I felt well enough to try working again. We finished 1 Corinthians around 2 pm. I noticed all day I was itching on my arms and legs. So I thought maybe I was already at the end of the sickness. But by 2 pm I could tell I was not feeling too well again and went home. Sure enough the fever had gone back up to over 102. So I thought that it was not over. But then on Saturday again the fever persisted. Around 1 am that night the fever broke. I was drenched in sweat and assumed that I had finally got to the end of it. I had not been eating a lot, but had been attempting to drink more water. The next day, Sunday, the fever was back and it persisted throughout the day. It was still holding at over 102.
The men from Gumawana came and I explained that if they wanted to wait for me to get better maybe in a couple of days we could start work. I was still hoping the end was in sight. But the next morning I could see I was getting weaker each day. I talked to a doctor at Ukarumpa on the radio. She advised me to get out of the village immediately. She suggested I have the helicopter come get me, but I knew the expense would be huge. So I declined and told her that I would let our manager in Alotau know and perhaps the boat could come out and get me.
At noon I talked to our manager. He told me to standby on the radio and he would check with the boat manager to see if that would work. A couple of hours later he called to inform me that the helicopter was sitting at the center. It dropped another translation team in their village that morning and was doing some commercial work in the area for the next couple of days. He could come get me right then. I was feeling so weak and wiped out, I realized I couldn't wait for the boat, nor could I handle 18 hours in to Alotau on the boat, especially if the seas became rough. So I agreed. An hour later the helicopter was there. I could barely walk to it. I had to leave everything out for the men to pack for me.
We arrived in Alotau around 5:30 pm. The manager had arranged for an Australian doctor in Alotau to come see me. He spent about a half hour talking to me and explained to me that I was severely dehydrated and needed to go to the hospital for IVs. My blood pressure was too low, my heart rate was too high. My blood sugar was out of whack, I had sharp pains shooting through my head, along with a few other things that indicated I was badly dehydrated. I told him I would start drinking more water. He explained that I couldn't drink enough water to overcome this one. So I agreed to go to the hospital the next morning. He politely told me, "No, you need to go right now. This can't wait." So I ended up spending the night in the emergency room in the Alotau hospital. I was given two and half IVs. Around 1 am the fever dropped to normal, my mouth was no longer dried out, my blood pressure went back to normal and my heart rate dropped to normal. The blood sugar levels came down as well. The difference was dramatic.
I was discharged the next morning around 5:30 am. As I came out of the hospital, I was feeling so good, it was amazing. But as I got outside all of sudden I felt very, very weak and tired out. I didn't want to call our manager at 5:30 in the morning so figured I would sit on the bench and wait a bit. I looked down and the bandage they put on the IV insertion point had come off and my blood was spurting out all over the place. The nurse who admitted me saw it and ran inside to get something to bandage me up. Even a week later, my forearm has a huge bruise where the IV was.
I think I may have started dehydrating soon after I arrived at Nubogeta. I wasn't used to the extreme heat and it was probably already adversely affecting me right from the start. The dengue fever made it worse. The rash finally did come around Wednesday after I arrived in Alotau. The lower half of my legs had the typical dengue fever rash. It too has cleared up. The good news is that once you have dengue fever, you don't get it again. The bad news is that there are 4 strains of it - this was my second. So the good news is that I can only get it 2 more times. The bad news is that each time a person gets it, it gets worse. Now there is something to look forward to!
After a week of eating and resting and really doing nothing at all, I am finally feeling much better. Thank you for praying for me throughout this. A number of times in the village the men came and prayed over me. I think they recognized that Satan doesn't want this translation completed. As continue to get closer to finishing, it seems more and more obstacles are coming our way. Even still, we were able to finish the first draft of 1 Corinthians.
