From the Field

When pts come into my room, the first question I ask them, is what is wrong, why have they come.  Often the watchman tries to answer for them, but I really want the patient themselves to to share what they are feeling, not to hear it through the watchman, but this time, only the watchman could speak.  The watchman told me that the patient woke up the yesterday and hasn’t been able to talk since. In front of me was a 50ish year old man who was a pastor.  He could understand everything I was saying, but he couldn’t speak.  He most likely had a stroke that affected his speaking, something called Broca’s aphasia.  Sometimes it gets better on it’s own and sometimes it doesn’t. As I prayed for him, it made me think of Zechariah who went into the temple, saw an angel of God and came out being unable to speak, until John was named after he was born.  I prayed that Samson will speak again, that one day he will be able to communicate again to his church, his congregation and share all that God is doing in his life.  Pray with me.
Source: Can't speak from Erin Meier – Asia Pacific

  We never quite know what the patient who comes into our exam room is going to tell us or what we are going to find on exam.  A women complained of having something coming out of her bottom.  Assuming it was going to be a hemorrhoid, Bill looked and instead found a squiggly worm poking his head out to say Hi.  After successfully removing the work, he told me to go and look in his trash can.  Seeing it in the trash didn’t quite do it justice, so Bill picked him up and proudly showed him off.  I am glad that was in someone else.
Source: Not very appetizing from Erin Meier – Asia Pacific

As I was leaving my house to go back to work after lunch, I noticed a flower in the middle of the grass.  I stopped and looked at it closer because it wasn’t in a flower garden area, but in the middle of the grass.  I showed it to the McCoys and they said they had been cleaning out some of their flower pots and threw some of the bulbs on the ground, and one of them apparently bloomed. As a missionary it is good if you are able to bloom where you are planted.  At times you can feel like a discarded bulb – like you are just thrown out and that you don’t matter because no one back home keeps in touch with what you are doing, or you can feel that you are in a new place without the comforts of “home” to help you grow and thrive.  Despite the challenges, part of being a missionary is to learn to make do in your new environment, your new home with the resources available to you, different as they maybe from what you once knew, if you are going to survive. It has been almost 8 years since I first came to PNG.  At times I have definitely felt forgotten and discarded and alone, but I thank God that I have learned how to adapt to the resources, the people and the culture and have been able to survive and thrive here.  I am thankful for the chance…
Source: Blooming where planted from Erin Meier – Asia Pacific