YWAM Ships, Papua New Guinea, Ruth Davidson, August 2023

Ruth Davidson

In August 2023, I headed off to Papua New Guinea (PNG) to undertake 5 weeks of medical mission as part of my elective. I am a final year medical student and I wanted to combine this opportunity to use the training I’ve received so far with mission work. I travelled to Madang which is a northern coastal town in PNG to work with the YWAM Ships Medical Team who travel to rural communities providing primary healthcare being the hands and feet of Jesus. Their goal is to reach the isolated communities in this area by bringing healthcare and the good news of the Gospel.

I was part of the medical team, and we had members join us from many different countries and bring with them different skills. It was awesome knowing that God had called each of us here to PNG for his purpose and there was great comfort in knowing this. As part of our outreaches, we travelled to many different villages, islands, one school and two rehabilitation centres providing primary healthcare. We were like a GP practice on wheels!
PNG is a culturally diverse country with over 800 languages – 400 of which are in the Madang province alone! One of the first things that struck me about PNG was how hospitable people are. It is a warm culture so relationships are integral to them. On my first night on base, I was being welcomed and greeted as “susa – sister” by all these strangers who soon became family!

As part of my orientation, I had been briefed on some of the conditions that we were likely to be treating. Some of the most common ailments were scabies, grille, back pain, cough, malaria, malnourishment, wounds, and worms just to name a few with many referrals for cataracts and suspected TB. I had never encountered many of these conditions during my placements in the UK, however, by the end of my five weeks with the team I did feel more confident in recognising symptoms and knowing the best treatment needed.
I was very grateful for the wisdom of the other team members and ultimately for God for his protection to us in our travels and from some of the contagious diseases we were encountering. What I really loved was being able to pray for patients at the end of consultations – something that you could never do in the NHS. I was greatly encouraged by the strong faith of some of the people we met. One stand-out example was a man at the City Mission Centre which is a rehabilitation centre for men who have previously been involved in crime, drugs, alcohol or being homeless and are trained in skills and taught about Jesus. This young man who had been saved since coming to this centre asked for prayer for his brothers at home who are still involved in “bad things” he said. How amazing is the power of the Gospel. Lives are being changed.

A Typical Day
Depending on how far we were travelling to a village, we would normally leave from base between 7:00-8:30 but being in PNG, things did not always run on time! Sometimes if we had a later departure time, we could join with the YWAM staff and students on base for worship or intercession which was always a wonderful start to our day.
When we arrived at the school or village, we would be greeted by the village leader or pastor who sometimes would already have brought chairs and tables for us to use for clinic. We would set up our supplies, divide up the teams for the day and begin with a time of prayer. Then it was straight into seeing the growing crowd of people who had gathered!
We would break for lunch where we always packed rice and tuna – a good way to overcome your fear of tuna! Often, the villagers showed us great kindness and would bring fresh fruit for us – from papaya to coconuts, it was so refreshing with working in the heat of PNG! We were very grateful for these gifts.

Clinic would run generally until late afternoon (or until we had seen everyone) so some days were longer than others. We would return to our house where often it would be straight to base for dinner at 6PM with the rest of the staff and students. With having had a full-on day at clinic, it was a matter of taking it in turns for showers and off to bed for us to recharge for the next day!
For the weekends, we had our time off which was very needed and some of the options included going to a local “resort” where we could go swimming and relax in a more secure setting, play games, read and just general hanging out with the team. Swimming in these turquoise, warm waters was so special and you could even try snorkelling if the conditions were good! There was a gym close by that you could go to with others if you wanted to work out in the humidity! On Sundays, there was the option of attending one of the local churches to experience the PNG people singing which is amazing! Otherwise, the weekends were a slow time, to catch up with family, friends, laundry and prepare for the next week of outreach.
Challenges.
Culturally in PNG, women are not seen as equal to men and are often subject to abuse by their husbands or fathers. I had been aware of this from my orientation but nothing prepares you for treating a lady who has been beaten by her husband or a little girl with sores on her foot from her father. This was so hard emotionally as these women would say how they were injured so casually as though it is normal and unfortunately in the PNG society, it all is too normal
The medical work was very diverse and challenging at times with young children very unwell with malaria, or dealing with the effects of poor treatment which causes chronic problems for some patients. With our limited resources, there were times when we could not treat the patient and this was hard, however, I was reassured of the verse in 1 Corinthians 15:58 that our work in Lord Jesus will not be in vain.

Advice for Others
Start your elective planning early – things do take a lot longer than you think! YWAM Ships were very responsive to my emails, providing information and answering questions before I officially said yes! It is a great elective for anyone interested in medical mission and who has an interest in rural healthcare. YWAM Ships are hoping to have the YWAM Ship Liberty operating in 2024 so the medical outreach can reach more communities and islands. This will be a different experience to the one I had, in terms on living and working on a ship but many things would be similar too.

My time in PNG was an incredible experience. I grew so much in my understanding of their healthcare, grew in my faith and have left with more brothers and sisters in Christ.
I was very grateful for COST (Christians in Overseas Service Trust) and MAP International who helped financially with this elective. There are lots of scholarships/ funds available for Christian medical student going on elective overseas so they are worth researching! As we said a lot in PNG: God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good!