In Training: August 2010

The child lying next to Kelli in the dugout canoe convulsed as another seizure racked his small body. “Come on, let’s keep going!” she yelled to the pilot of the canoe and the boy’s parents over the noise of the outboard motor. In a desperate whisper, she added, “Oh God, let him live!” If they could just get him to the airstrip, he had a chance.

Since arriving in the remote upper reaches of Papua New Guinea’s Sepik River valley, Kelli, a young AFM missionary nurse, had struggled with the overwhelming task of singlehandedly running the May River medical clinic. On call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, she had faced a barrage of wounds, problem pregnancies and unfamiliar tropical diseases. How much longer could she go on like this?

The seizure ended. The little boy’s breathing stopped, and his pulse weakened. Kelli struggled awkwardly to reposition herself in the canoe and began rescue breathing. Not knowing what Kelli was doing, the boy’s parents became agitated. She checked his pulse again. It was gone. She added chest compressions. Now distraught, the boy’s parents begged her to stop. “He is dead! Let’s go back. Let’s go back!” Unwilling to admit failure, Kelli continued CPR for a time before slumping over her lifeless little patient exhausted, drained and defeated.

Now in the full grip of grief and despair, the boy’s parents broke into an awful wailing chant, swinging their arms up and down and banging them against the sides of the dugout canoe in an effort to exorcise their pain and express to the spirit of their son how sorry they were.

There on that jungle river, Kelli felt an overwhelming weight of suffering and death pressing down and threatening to crush her, an experience shared by many missionaries before her and likely to be shared by those who walk in her footsteps.

But let us remember that Christ has already drained the cup of suffering and death and has risen victorious. We stand on the threshold of a time when we will say, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Please help us bring this message to the Ama people.
—John Lello