Where is Time Going?

Another outreach has come to a sad end. This was a one of a kind outreach, we pioneered new places in the Central province. All three stops we made have never had service from the medical ship so it was a great time for us to build relationships, and provide many, much needed services. I was apart of another amazing dental team. The only people who had dental knowledge was the Doctor and myself so it was fun training everyone for their different roles: registration, post-opp instruction, oral health/hygiene education, dental assisting and sterilizing. Picture of our dental team:

After a lovely sail (not, I get horribly sick every time), we arrived in Fife Bay. Oh before I forget, so many of these places that we have visited are literally paradise. They have white sand beaches with crystal clear water, gorgeous scenery. Well, when we arrived we received a very nice welcome on shore which consists of songs and key leader. The dental team headed back to the ship and we prepared for the day.

On this day we had 7 children come with their parents. The Dentist, Rory, was excellent with children and I had the privilege of treating many of their parents. One lady was named Rosalie, and she came on the ship with her daughter, Olive. I saw Rosalie and it was very obvious that she chews betel nut, and she also admitted to it. I went over the effect that betel nut has and how it can even lead to death, due to cancer. She was very aware and told me that it was something she wanted to stop. It is hard because betel nut is a huge cultural custom. So I told her that I would love to clean her teeth and help her with this new start. I cleaned her teeth and got to know some more about her. Afterwards, I gave her a mirror and she seemed shocked. She was very quiet and kind of looked away from the mirror in confusion. I kept showing her the before and after photos and you could see this glow inside of her!! I even showed her daughter and she was so happy for her Mommy. Here is lovely Rosalie and my awesome assistant, Erin:

A funny story… this week I was able to use this amazing instrument called a sandblaster. What does it do exactly? It literally blasts sand onto the patients teeth. It was donated by a Dentist who did an outreach in PNG and realized the need for something more powerful to get the betel nut staining off the teeth. Well I had a patient in the chair and told my assistant, Abby, that we were going to try it out on this case! I look into the mouth with my loupes on (glasses with magnifying lenses), and I can only see the tooth itself because of the magnification. I begin to use the sandblaster and I was absolutely blown away. It immediately took the stain off and I was so excited, it usually is a very long process to get stain off. So, I continue in so much excitement! Then I realize, maybe I should look up and see if the sand situation is okay. Well, to my absolute surprise, the patient’s ENTIRE face was covered with sand (thankfully they were glasses to protect their eyes), Abby’s lap was covered in sand, and so was I. I freak out and tell the patient how sorry I was. I started laughing hysterically because it was such an insane amount of sand everywhere. The patient and Abby start laughing as well. Thankfully he was a good sport about it! I love being able to laugh with patients, especially when it is such an awkward situation. So all was okay and we learned ways to minimize the sand. Here is a pretty cool picture of me JUST using the sand blaster:

All in all it was a great outreach!! In 5 days we saw 58 patients, did 174 procedures, extracted 77 teeth, did 64 restorations, 30 teeth cleanings, gave out 308 toothbrushes, and 184 tubes of toothpaste.  We now head into our very last outreach in the Milne Bay province. We will be headed to an island called Woodlark that has never had services from the medical ship before. I will even be headed to land a few days which I am very excited for!! Please keep us in your prayers as we will be sailing in open ocean water (usually we have been along the coast so it is “smoother” sailing), which means that it could be a very crazy sail as in, I have a high chance of being best friends with the toilet. We will stay in Woodlark for a little over a week then head back to Alotau which we are ported at today. In less than 3 weeks, I will be back in Australia which is crazy to think. Time is flying by!! Thank you again for the support. Here are some pictures taken by our awesome media team:

Outreach 1 Completed

WEEK 7

I have been in PNG the last 7 weeks which seems so surreal. A year ago I would have never imagined that I would be here. I love the fact that the people here in PNG are having such a huge impact on my heart. This past week we were in central province for a day and headed back to Port Moresby.

I had a wonderful patient named Anne. She arrived to the dental clinic with her Husband and Daughter. She was very grateful and waited years to be seen. It was quite interesting because her teeth were perfectly fine but she could definitely use a thorough cleaning. She was very excited when she heard she would be able to clean her teeth. During her cleaning, she shared part of her life with me which was great because I'm not used to people being able to speak English.

After her cleaning, the moment came for her to look in the mirror. She was ecstatic, she could not put the mirror down and kept saying, "thank you, thank you." She continued to look in the mirror and run her finger in her mouth which I was unsure why. She proceeded to tell me that it always felt like sand was on her teeth and she was trying to feel if there was anymore "sand." I explained to her that this was the bacteria on her teeth and the importance of removing it. A picture of Anne's family and I:

 

It is moments like this that I really hold onto. I will admit that being in the dental clinic is much different. We have patients come in but due to language barriers, we can't always communicate. So they come in, get work done, then leave. Whereas if I was on land doing community engagement things, I could build relationships and play games, ext. But I know that I am called here as a dental hygienist. So people like Anne, really bless me because I know that she is blessed by services that she has never been able to receive.

On Wednesday, all of our volunteers left which concluded outreach 1. It was definitely a busy 3 weeks. Here is a glimpse of what was done in the lovely dental clinic:
212 patients seen
454 procedures done
212 teeth pulled
115 fillings
101 cleanings
437 toothbrushes handed out
236 toothpastes handed out

It was a life changing time for each one of us in the dental clinic and man did we have such a fun time as a team. I will treasure the many relationships that were made! Here is a video that you can hopefully watch which recaps our outreach: https://www.facebook.com/facebook/videos/10153415714906729/

Here are some other pictures from the outreach (taken by our media team), sorry if the layout is odd:

For the remainder of the week, we had our last week of lectures on the ship. The lecture was on Bible Study. It was definitely very insightful and I look forward to using what I learned for studying! Now we head into Outreach 2 in the Central and Milne Bay Province.

Please keep us in your prayers!!

Some of the fun dental cases that I have worked on:

PNG Fun Facts

WEEK 6

It has been a long, eventful week. We have spent majority of the week in the Bamu river. It is the poorest area of the Western Province. Every day we stopped in different villages bringing health care and offering dental services. 

A fun time for me was going off the ship to gather dental patients. As I got off, I immediately sunk into the mud and thought I was going to loose my shoes (I have a great picture of this). I went into the village and brought 8 patients back. Throughout the days, I took care of many patients and really tried to just love on every person I encountered.

So some fun facts...

-I was asked by a patient if I was from PNG (this patient was from PNG). He said that I look like someone from Central Province. Well, today we arrived in Central Province and I can see why. My hair is pretty wild over here, I feel like Simba. Plus, I have gotten pretty dark. So, I thought it was cool to go "home" today lol.

-Sea sickness is no joke. Literally I bounce off my bed at night because the waves hit underneath our boat. It reminds me of a massive earthquake every time. The toilet and I have become buddies, unfortunately! (I know Mom, I need to try the oils)

-I have come to love apples, which I never care for back home. 

-I get new dental assistants every day, for the most part. I am extremely grateful for them but I will admit that when they accidentally put the patients saliva all over my leg, it's not too fun. 

-I would say that 95% of PNG people have never been to the Dentist which means I get to do some INSANE cleanings. I have so many fun pictures to show, which may make some of you want to vomit. One of my assistants was looking away, gagging, as I did a cleaning. It was such a bad case that I literally felt like I was opening a Christmas present, it brought me so much joy. I definitely think this is the right field for me.

-During clinic, the alarm went off to evacuate the ship. In this case we are called to go to our meeting spot for evacuation. For a second there I was a little worried. We gathered all our patients and headed over to meet. Come to find out, #1 the alarm didn't go off for too long as it would in an emergency and #2 it was a false alarm.

-There is a huge language barrier, for example, I began cleaning a lady's teeth and all of a sudden my assistant, Jacienta, says very kindly, "um Gabby, I think she is in pain." I responded, "what? That's impossible. where I am cleaning there should not be any pain. Why do you think that?" She responds, "Well, she is squeezing my wrist." I look over and the patient has a death grip on Jacienta's wrist. I stop immediately and call the translator over, who mind you has explained at least 5 times that I would be doing a cleaning. Well come to find out, the patient is thinking that I am pulling her teeth in an area where there is no pain when in reality, I am just cleaning her teeth. It took about 3 more times for him to explain after this so that I could continue.

-I get called Doctor all the time. I just accept it.  

-We can't show our knees because it is culturally inappropriate so it is a struggle trying to get out of these boats when mud is everywhere, trying not to slip and to also make sure your cupris do not ride up.

-I absolutely hate the feeling of mud on my feet. It's absolutely awful. I need some rain boots to wear out here.

-Hair braiding is the fashion here on the ship since all the village people love to put their hands in our hair.

 

Well, these are some fun highlights. Things are going well. I will say that I struggled this week with wanting to come home because I definitely miss all of you tremendously. It makes me sad to know I am missing out on so much back home but I know that this is the season God has in store for me right now. 

With that said, Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful Momma. I love that even though I am almost 25 years old, you check up on my and want to make sure that I am okay. You have been such a huge supporter of me all my life and I know that your prayers for me in this season, are really working. I love you Mom and I miss you!!! Thank you for being such a selfless example to me. 

XOXO

The Last 5 Weeks

Friends and Family! It has been so long. Sorry I have not been able to post earlier, it has been very busy here in PNG plus lack of internet service. This is going to be a pretty long post so that I can update everyone up until this point. From now on I would like to post stories that I come across, so a lot shorter.

WEEK ONE

We landed in PNG and stayed in Port Moresby for one week, unsure of what was going to happen. As you previously know, we were supposed to go to Balimo but with our visas taking so long, we were not able to get a flight. So, for the week in Port Moresby we waited for direction. 

A wonderful PNG woman who we all called Auntie Michelle, accommodated 8 of us at her home. We got to build relationships with her and her family which was truly a blessing. We had mangos (DELICIOUS) a couple times a day since they had a massive mango tree. We also had many common PNG foods such as fried fish, tuna fried bananas, bread fruit, kau kau, pumpkin, rice, and noodles. It was definitely interesting for me seeing that I am used to always eating the same thing back home. I am LOVING pumpkin which is interesting because I cannot stand it back home! 

We enjoyed a four square gospel church on Palm Sunday and it was very different, lots of jumping up and down plus loud singing! It was definitely a good experience. Throughout the week, we had received possibility of another location that we could go to. As a team, we prayed and decided to spend our next two weeks on the island of Daru.

 

WEEK TWO AND THREE

When we arrived at Daru, we immediately realized how small of an island it is. We could walk from the airport to the church we were staying at (we didn't do this when we arrived but we did when we left). We stayed at a Christian Life Church (CLC), and were immediately welcomed with beautiful handmade flower leis. We got to enjoy a lunch and meet a lot of people in the church. Immediately we felt at home.

We all slept on the stage of the church where we lined up across and set up our mosquito nets every night. We had two outhouse-type bathrooms. It was a toilet with a long drop dug into the ground. As well as a place to take bucket showers. All of these were new living circumstances for me! As far as food, we had a small electric burner. There was electricity at the church and it is a prepaid system. So you put 20K (kina) in through a cell phone and that lasted us about 4 days. 20 kina is equivalent to about $7 US. 

During the week we did many different things. One thing we did  was visit the local hospital. We split up into two teams. My team went into the OBG ward where we helped distribute medicine and pray for the mamas who have just had babies. We also went to three primary schools throughout the week and did many different programs. We would sing songs, teach bible verses, and perform skits such as David and Goliath. The kids always enjoyed our visits and laughed at everything we did. 

One of the greatest highlights in Daru for me was being able to spend 4 nights, doing a program each night, at the boarding high school. There is one high school in the western province and only 20% of kids from primary schools get in since you have to have excellent grades. There were about 300 students and each night we did something different. We told them all about ourselves, did skits, shared the love of Jesus, and really empowered them. I had the privilege to speak on 1 Tim 4:12 which talks about the power of youth and how we are called to live a life that is going to bring life. As I spoke, I really felt as if I had more passion than ever. I was not nervous one bit and I knew that I was called to speak on this topic. The importance of having value and actually doing something with our lives is something that is near to my heart so, it was great being able to share this! We had a great response from the youth these days and even had a guy publicly proclaim that he was going to live his life fully for God (they are all extremely timid in their culture so this was a big deal). 

At the church we stayed at, we ran a missions training week that lasted 4 days. It is like a mini DTS where we taught youth about different topics such as identity, nature and character of God, relationships, the gospel, prayer, hearing Gods voice and a few others. This was a time for us to interact and dig deep with the youth who were at the CLC church. The week went great and each youth at the end felt ready to say "yes" to God and see what he had in store for their lives. One of the girls I prayed for really had it on her heart to study God's word and being truth to people who believe in evolution, which I have never heard a youth express this so it was exciting. I know God did some amazing things during this week. 

We had a pretty busy two weeks in Daru with programs and one thing that I really enjoyed about the stay was being able to build relationships. Many mamas and kids live at the church and/or stayed there while we were there. So we were able to build amazing relationships that I will always hold near to my heart!!

WEEK FOUR

This was an exciting week as the MV YWAM PNG entered into PNG for the very first time. We were able to wave the ship in and get on board! I am staying in a room that has two bunk beds, with 3 awesome room mates. We have hot showers and  a toilet which is soooo nice compared to our last weeks in Daru. 

During this week we had lectures on Missions and studied the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20. We also prayed into the direction we see God guiding us in which for me was really exciting! 

During this week, our volunteers arrived which totaled all of us on the boat to 87, from 13 different nations.   There were many Doctors, 2 Dentists, nurses, midwives, paramedics, teachers, deck hands, electricians and general volunteers.  We had orientation and split into teams. Surprise!! I am part of the dental team, lol. There are two dentist, two assistants, a sterilization guy, a dental hygienist (me), clinic leader, and two people who educate patients about oral hygiene. 

WEEK FIVE

We sailed off to the central province and western province (Daru) to break off into all of our teams and serve the people. We had two different welcomes where they dressed up and did cultural dances. Unfortunately, I get very ill while being on the ship with sea sickness but it just depends on the day. 

While working in the dental clinic, I have had many amazing cases! One case in particular was a guy named Augi. He, like many, had severe beetle nut staining from chewing it. Beetle nut not only stains teeth but is also a carcinogen that can lead to oral cancer. As he sat in my chair, he informed me that he had stopped over a year ago and was not sure if the staining could ever be removed. I cleaned about 5 of his teeth and showed him in the mirror what it looked like and he was shocked! He began to tell me that he is a pastor and has always been very self conscious about his teeth seeing that he wants to be an example to his community. He was so excited to see the final product so that he could finally smile with confidence. When I finished, I showed him and he was ecstatic. He couldn't stop smiling and looking in the mirror. To see how blessed he was, meant so much to me. It reminded me that I got in this profession for moments like this, when I could give back to those who do not have the resources. Many people I treat have never seen a dentist and will probably never see one again.

We also had the privilege of going back to Daru where we stayed at for two weeks. It was great being able to reconnect with people and see their huge smiles. Many of them were able to come back to the ship and get a tour. I also had the privilege of treating the youth from the boarding school which many of them were familiar faces to me. 

So these are highlights from the past weeks. There is so much more but it would take forever to write. That's why I look forward to being able to share with you all in person as well. I wish I could post photos but as of now I can't due to limitations of service. But when I can, there will be many pictures added to the post. Thank you again for all of your support and prayers.