Ginn Family Missions

October 15, 2024.

Written by Abigail

Before we moved to PNG I found it odd that the people here don’t have a linear sense of time. After having lived here for the past 8 months, though, it makes a lot of sense to me. There are no real seasons, the weather is essentially the same day-to-day, and you can plant a garden year round. And thus, it seems like just yesterday that we wrote our last blog post, and yet it was already 2 months ago. Time can be a funny thing.

At the end of August, all the missionary families that had been on home assignment or sabbatical returned to station, along with several new teachers for the MK school. So station has been abuzz with new activity and new faces. We have really enjoyed reconnecting with our missionary friends and making new ones too. My work schedule has not really changed much since the early summer. I have been consistently rounding each morning and have been particularly enjoying my time in the special care nursery. I have dedicated palliative care time on Tuesday mornings, and I’ve gone out to see a patient each Tuesday for the past 2 months. I continue to love and appreciate this program more and more. I’ve started taking some of the other missionary women out with me when I go on palliative visits, which has been a lovely way for me to share these special patients with others. It has been a very valuable ministry for me to be part of.

In addition to my patient-care responsibilities, I have been working on some on-going quality improvement (QI) projects at the hospital. We are in the process of redesigning our special care nursery and introducing some new equipment. Most recently, I developed a protocol for our new infant warmers and have been training the staff both on how to use the warmers and the protocol. Medical education is a particular interest of mine (along with those adorable babies) so this project has been a lot of fun for me. In the coming months, we will be conducting some specialized training on delivery room resuscitation for babies and introducing some baby CPAP machines as well. Lots of excitement for our tiniest patients.

When I’m not at the hospital, I’m hanging out with Henry. His language has blossomed over the past 2 months and his current favorite phrase is “what dis?” He is such a joy and he continues to be so observant of his surroundings. He loves all things with wheels, digging in his sandbox, our neighbor’s cat Hannah, and finding berries on our berry bush. He also loves to donate his left over food scraps to our chickens.

Over the summer I also started to get into the art of sourdough baking, so I’ve been doing a lot of bread baking (and eating). It has been fun to experiment with new recipes and share these creations with others.

In about 3 weeks I will be taking my hospice and palliative medicine board exam. I have been studying for the past several months and am very ready to be done with this exam. I’m looking forward to getting my evenings back. The hospice and palliative medicine boards are heavily adult focused, and much of that clinical knowledge has been a particular challenge for me to learn and remember. I would greatly appreciate your prayers as I take this exam, specifically for endurance during the 8 hour computer-based exam and for a good night’s rest beforehand.

Your continued generosity and support has enabled me to fully pay for my board exam, study materials, and will enable Brian and Henry to stay in Australia with me when I take my boards.

In the next few days, we will be traveling to Greece to attend a conference held by World Medical Mission for their Post-Resident Physicians. We are looking forward to the time of renewal and rest in addition to visiting with our dear friends who are serving at mission hospitals all over the world. After the conference, we will be spending some time with Brian’s brother and his wife in Greece too, so we are looking forward to that reunion too and eating delicious Mediterranean food. We appreciate your prayers as we will be traveling over the course of 2-3 days with a toddler.