Ginn Family Missions

Brian Ginn

Time Away

We have much to catch you up on since our last post. At the end of October, we left for a Restore Conference hosted by our employer, Samaritan’s Purse, just outside of Athens, Greece. This was a much-needed break and change of scenery. While the consistency of sunshine and warm temperatures in PNG is nice, going somewhere and actually feeling a change of seasons was refreshing. The conference itself was wonderful. We were able to reconnect with our colleagues in the Post Residency Program – other physicians and their families who are serving at other mission hospitals around the world. It’s a good reminder to know that other people half the world away are facing the same struggles that we encounter daily – medically, culturally, and with living far away from home. Each day of the conference had morning sessions for us (while child care was provided) and the afternoons were free for us to enjoy. It was hosted at a resort right on the Aegean sea – I could walk from our room to the beach in about 3 minutes. And don’t get me started on food. I love Mediterranean food, specifically Greek food, more than any other and PNG is significantly lacking in this (i.e. there is nothing resembling passable Greek food). Having three meals a day of all the Greek food I could eat was magical. 

On our first full day in Greece Henry celebrated his second birthday! He got to eat his favorite foods, play with new friends, go swimming in the ocean with Papa, and had 60+ people sing Happy Birthday to him.

After the conference concluded, we met up with my brother David and his wife Viviana, as well as our friend Claren. The six of us spent the next week split between the Greek islands of Crete and Santorini swimming in the ocean, viewing some amazing historical places, and of course eating more Greek food. Since David and Viviana live in the UK, Claren lives in the US, and we live in PNG, it’s rare that we get to see each other much so this was a special treat. 

On the way back to PNG we spent two days in Australia where Abigail took her Hospice and Palliative Medicine board exam. She is still waiting for the results, but is glad the test itself is over. Henry and I had more fun going to a zoo of native Australian animals.

Visitors

We were hardly back home in PNG for a week before my parents came to visit! This trip had been planned for months and they were both very excited to be here. They spent three weeks with us and were able to get a good sense of what our daily life and work is like here. I had the pleasure of Mom and Dad both accompanying me to see several surgeries in the operating room. My mom, a retired hospital laboratory technologist, also got to spend a little time in our hospital’s lab to see what capabilities we have and how things are run here. They also were able to join Abigail on some of her home palliative visits where she sees patients with chronic or life-limiting illnesses and their families in their homes and villages. Outside of work, we drove a few hours away to a bird sanctuary high in the mountains and saw several of the many species of fantastic and extravagant birds that call PNG home. Two Sundays we also went to small local churches. More than anything it was wonderful to just be together and for Henry to spend lots and lots of time playing with “Gamma and Gampa” as he calls them. 

Another familiar face that we got to see was a relatively unexpected surprise visit from Dr. Jim Radcliffe. Dr. Jim was the only surgeon here in Kudjip for most of his 30+ years of service. His son, Ben, is currently one of my surgery colleagues. Jim certainly had an impact in my early educational career; seeing him operate and treat patients in this hospital back when I was a college student in 2012 and 2013 had a lasting impact on my drive to become a surgeon and my call to full-time missions. Being able to operate with him as a colleague was one of those full-circle moments that we get so rarely in life. Turns out, when one has practiced surgery in a very different setting like PNG for thirty years there is much wisdom and insight one can share with a young surgeon who has been here less than one year. 

Christmas and Gifts

The weeks leading up to Christmas have looked very different for us this year when compared with years past. There’s certainly no chill in the air and a forecast of snow is impossible, but Christmas decorations, music, and parties are not lacking. Each one of our hospital wards and the emergency department is decked out with garland, lights, and tinsel. At one of the stores in Mt. Hagen, an inflatable Santa stands over 20 feet tall next to an equally tall [artificial] tree while inside the store blasts American Christmas music. There have been a number of holiday parties including a stationwide one for all of the missionary and national doctor families. 

Despite the festivities and excitement, the medical needs of the people here do not pause for the holidays. It’s been an especially rough past few weeks. I’ve had multiple patients die, some from preventable causes and others from ones that might be more easily treated in the US. One was a long term patient of mine, a six year old boy who I first saw back in April for a massive intraoral mass that turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma. We put a tracheostomy in him as the cancer was nearly obstructing his airway. He responded amazingly well to chemotherapy. I saw him every month and wrote his chemo orders, but following completion of the regimen, the cancer seemed to come back quite rapidly. He was admitted to the hospital with neurological symptoms that make me think he had metastasis of the cancer to his brain. It’s a sinking feeling knowing that we’re fighting a losing battle, especially in someone so young. That sinking feeling is felt most poignantly when I go to the pediatrics ward one morning and see that his bed is empty, and the nurse confirms that he died during the night. Another young man, maybe eight years old, last week came in with a depressed skull fracture from a large tree branch that someone cut down falling on his head. Despite me taking him to surgery urgently to elevate the bone and drain out the blood, he died a few hours later when the swelling in his brain became too much and his brain herniated. 

Though such cases stick out in my mind, there are still many mundane and remarkable cases of lives being saved and sicknesses treated. Just as we often feel downtrodden and like we’re fighting a losing battle, Christmas reminds us of the birth of our savior and that even when we fight losing battles, the war is already won. 

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

1 Corinthians 15:55-58

Take heart as we reflect on God’s gift to us in his Son at this time of year! Continue to pray for his people. Please continue to pray for us as we seek to minister. And say a prayer of thanksgiving for God becoming incarnate to save us from sin and death!