Ginn Family Missions

November 20, 2025

Written by Abigail Ginn

Some of you will be familiar with the passage from Ecclesiastes 3 with the same title as this blog post, “A Time for Everything.” I won’t include the entire text here, but I wanted to include several verses that have been weighing on my heart lately. Specifically, you will read Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 4, 7, and 11 below.

“There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak.” The writer of Ecclesiastes then says in verse 11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

About a year ago at a village in PNG, I stood up at one of my long-term palliative patient’s funeral and read this passage in its entirety. At the time, I didn’t know how some of those exact phrases would become a part of my daily existence. I’d like to tell you part of my story over the past year. I feel like I have spent much of it weeping and mourning and feeling uprooted. It is a story that includes heartbreak and grief and mourning and many unanswered questions. It is also an unfinished story, but one that leaves me with lots of hope for what may come with “time.”

In January 2025, we had a second trimester miscarriage. The weeks leading up to our eventual miscarriage were fraught with medical complications and emotional/mental exhaustion. This child was deeply desired and already so loved by us. The death of our baby left us heartbroken and deeply grieved. Grieved not only for the death of our second child and the dreams that came with expanding our family, but grieved that we were a world away from our own families. In a setting where we daily encountered the immense suffering of our patients, we were struck with our own suffering.

I think this trauma felt extra challenging for me because I was unable to compartmentalize the “personal” from the “professional.” I was cared for in the same hospital that I worked at, my colleagues became my nurses, and my friends became my doctors. I had a really hard time walking back into the same hospital to care for patients that I myself had been a patient in only days before. For me, these feelings were further compounded by the fact that I’m not only a doctor, but I’m a mom and a wife and a daughter and a sister too. I could now empathize with my patient’s sadness and grief in a way that I could not before.

The following months brought many really difficult patient deaths, for both me and Brian. Patients that we had prayed for and done everything we could to offer physical healing. We constantly felt defeated and drained. We also had so many questions that remained unanswered, and perhaps were unanswerable. The challenges seemed to compound for us and we found ourselves feeling restless and angry and doubting if we were even making a difference in the place we felt God had called us to serve.

We have spent many days, nights, and weeks trying to discern what is best for our family when our 2 year term is up. There have been decisions in our lives and marriage that seem obvious to us and come easy, but we truly feel and felt the weight of this decision. I find much joy and personal fulfillment in the work that I do as a doctor in PNG. And I love that I can be at home with Henry too. We love the weather and being able to garden year-round and play outside every single day. We dearly love our friends and colleagues who have become like family to us and we have such a heart for the people of PNG. We are deeply committed to the mission of the hospital because we know that patient’s lives are being changed by the care and love they receive at our hospital.  

We have also become increasingly aware that we need to take some time away to process the personal and professional challenges that we have experienced and address how we can move forward. And not only move forward, but be refined and formed into better versions of ourselves. Our term in PNG has ended and we have returned to the U.S. for this next season. Many of you will have questions about “what’s next” for us. We have those same questions and at this time we don’t have many answers.

We remain so grateful for our time in PNG. I feel that the people and patients I met helped me more than I ever helped them. We also feel immense gratitude for you, our supporters, who have prayed for us and thought of us and given us financial support over the past 2 years. You will never fully understand the ways in which you held us when we felt so broken.

We do not know exactly what the next few months will look like, and we are thankful for some time and space to process and heal. We are hopeful that we will soon be living in the “time to laugh and time to mend.” For now, we are enjoying quiet moments with family and friends. If you see us out and about, we welcome the opportunity to catch up. We’re not ashamed of what we have experienced this year, but we do ask for continued prayer and sensitivity, particularly as we are in the midst of this big life transition. For the first time in months, we feel a burgeoning sense of hope for what is to come. And, surprisingly, we are okay with not knowing all the details.

This specific blog post was written from my (Abigail’s) perspective. Brian also had many challenging and heartbreaking experiences this year, but those are not my stories to tell. If and when he feels that he is able to share some of those stories, I am confident that they will touch your heart.