Kevin Raymer

Well, it’s time to go home.

Greetings once again.

Everything continues to go well here.  Well, everything except for my stomach.  For the past week or so I’ve been on the not-so-regular side of the alimentary canal.  I just started myself on some antibiotics today in an attempt to make my upcoming travel a little more tolerable.  Please be prayin’ that all of this upset stomach stuff comes to an end prior to my departure.

So, the past few weeks have been quite busy.  Three weekends ago we hiked to a cave and did a little Papua New Guinean spelunking.  The cave was super cool.  There many tight fits, crawl spaces, and even a small water fall that we climbed down.  The water fall was pretty intense.  We tied a climbing rope to a large rock at the top of the waterfall and then traversed the 15 ft. waterfall in order to get down to the next level of the cave.  I must admit that I was pretty pumped to go down the waterfall and was even humming the theme to “Indiana Jones” as I went down.  I was just waitin’ for once of us to trip a booby trap and then run for cover as the giant boulder came tumblin’ through the cave!  Let’s just say that it was quite an adventure.

The next weekend I was on call.  My call wasn’t all that bad, but I was definitely ready for some rest once it was all done.  I think I got to do 3 c-sections and we seemed to have a rash of meningitis and cerebral malaria patients.  Oh yeah, I sewed up a gal that had a significant chop-chop to her right arm.  The chop was such that it did quite a number on her bone as well as both flexor and extensor tendons.  We took her back to the operating theatre a few days later to repair all her tendons and to drill some metal wires into her bone in order to stabilize the comminuted fracture.

This past weekend a couple of us attempted to conquer the tallest mountain in PNG, Mt. Wilhelm.  Due to some inclement circumstances (i.e. weather, road washout, and my stomach issues) we were not successful in summiting.  We did, however, enjoy an incredibly scenic hike to a mountain lake.  There were several beautiful waterfalls and grassland like I’ve never seen before.  It had these unusual looking prehistoric-like trees throughout and real “Jurassic Park” feel to it.  I was just waitin’ to see a philoso raptor jump out from the trees.  Man, it really was one of the most unique things I have ever seen.  Our hike back was more of an adventure than our hike there.  After we hiked to the lake, about a 3 hour hike, we hiked another 5-6 hours to a village to sleep overnight.  The next morning we woke up and hiked another 3-4 hours until we found a PMV (personal motor vehicle) to take us back to Kundiawa, were we left our vehicle.  A part of the road from Kundiawa to Mt. Wilhelm had been washed out with all of the recent rain.  This made our travel very dependent on PMVs and very difficult to plan.  We did make it back safe and sound, except for my beat up stomach.  Oh yeah, we also chowed on some very nice strawberries at the base of the mountain.  They were super good eatin’. 

Well, my time here is now coming to an end.  It has definitely been a time that I will never forget and will always cherish.  The medical experience has been outstanding and the weekend adventures have been unforgettable, but it will be the people that I will miss the most.  I feel that I now have many good friends here in PNG, and I hope that God will grant me the opportunity to return to see them again someday.  As one of the security guards told me today, “If we don’t see you soon, we will see you ‘on top’.”  ‘On top’ is heaven.  This is a special place full of special people, and I hope you too will be able to experience it someday.

“Not to us, O LORD, not to us, But to Your name give glory because of your lovingkindness, because of Your truth.”  Psalm 115:1

In HIM>

Kevin.