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The sun is peeking over the mountaintop; it streams in the door and through the bamboo poles and woven walls of the hut. Fog still hangs on the mountains reluctantly receding with the sun's rising. Golden rays start to warm the cold wood floor from the night of wind and rains that left the ground damp and chilly. A steady breeze still sneaks in through the gaps in the wood and door of the hut. Orange embers and charred wood from last nights fire barely glow within the ring of rocks in the center of the house. Above the fire, suspended in the roof is extra firewood left to dry and a hanging bilum with a few taro. Near the edge of the rocks, where the fire's warmth still reaches are six piles of various sizes of lumpy blankets with curly little heads of hair at the end. The eldest starts to stir. On the walls hang the family's wardrobe - a few shirts of varying sizes. At the edge of the door sits a large pot that was used last night for boiling kaukau and kumu. A couple of pineapples rest in a second pot which will be refreshing in the afternoon sun. The most useful utensil - mom's bush knife, lies close to her blanket where she just rose from resting in case she would have had need of it in the night.
While the littlest ones still sleep inside, mom prepares for today's trip to the garden. In her bilum, Yaniamo packs three more string bilums for day's gathering of roots and veggies. In another she prepares the blankets that will hold her youngest. Her baby, just over one year old, is a happy one, starting to coo and play and walk around in the hut. Mom has to keep a closer eye these days to make sure the little one does not come close to the fire or fall down the three steps outside the door. She is starting to like eating bananas, which makes for a yummy snack and sticky hands. Her little curls are thin, her abdomen nice and round, and a little bit of a runny nose and cough does not keep her from smiling when her siblings talk to her. During the day's walk, Yaniamo will carry her baby in a long piece of fabric tied and hung over her own head and down her back like a sling. The rhythm and gate of mom's steps will lull her to sleep again in a few hours while she lies warm on mom's back.
The eldest girl has her mother's strength; she rises and goes to the river to fetch a pot of water. She is old enough to have her own garden now. With ease she throws a bush knife to cut a new step in the dirt from where last night's rain washed out the path. It was only a few years ago her mother taught her to make her first bilum. They chose the bark together, rolled it into string, used the broken umbrella wire to make needles and carefully wove the string together into her first garden bilum. She has many memories of walking with mama to the garden, learning to plant the bright red tangets by the banana trees and sugar cane to keep the rats away, examining the leaves of the kaukau to know when to pull up the roots, and enjoying a cool cucumber as a snack as they worked on the mountainside. Since then Josila has walked many times with mama to pick kumu and carry it back balancing on her head. Today, though, she will stay back to look out for the younger three while mom is gone to the garden.
Mom's water broke yesterday morning; she thought she would have delivered the baby by last night. She thought she was bigger when she delivered her other children, but was still surprised when the baby did not come. Though her back pain is still uncomfortable, it is feeling better today, so she made the trip to the garden today before heading out for the haus sik (clinic) tomorrow. They will not go to the farthest garden, instead the closer garden should be sufficient. It is only about an hour’s walk from the house. She last hiked to clinic for a prenatal checkup about two months ago, and since the baby has not come yet, maybe they can help.
Tuesday
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This morning, Yaniamo and her husband prepare to leave for the walk to the haus sik; they will take their littlest and second born. Josila, the eldest, will stay and watch over the other three. Today they prepare their bilums for a long walk, perhaps planning to return in four or five days. In mom's bilum are a couple sugar canes for chewing on the way, a pineapple from the garden, and a few roasted kaukau from last night. Dad also carries his bush knife, a bag mixed with tapioca and taro, and on top a few precious bananas that survived last week's wind storm which blew over many banana trees. Since this is Yaniomo's ninth pregnancy, she knows well when she is close to delivering her baby. But this morning, while the pain is still present, it is not progressing. The journey will be two days' hike one way; they start in the morning from Wantu, then end in Ania tonight, then finish Wednesday. There are no hotels or boarding houses, but they wear all of their clothes in layers, which will serve as blankets against the wind and for resting at night.
One of her husband's uncles lives in Ania, and he lets them join his family for the night. The path is at points muddy and slippery over the rocks, others sections dry and narrow, some parts with log bridges, and other times requires crossing rivers. After a long day of crossing over the mountain ridge, the boiled kaukau and kumu is a warm welcomed meal. The next day brings another 6 hours of walking to reach the nearest haus sik (clinic) in Kunai. They pass only one other haus sik on the way at Kanabea, but keep walking by because they do not have any family near by that would let them stay with them or bring them food if she was admitted to the ward to await delivery. Their home in Wantu is considered "bus stret" meaning no school or aid post for medicine. As they walk they will not pass another market until Wednesday morning to buy a few more taro, kaukau, or maybe a bag of salt.
Yaniamo's first pregnancy was twins; she may have had her mother helping her with her first delivery as a new mom, but both babies died. The second pregnancy was also twins, this time one little boy and one little girl. The girl lived. She, Josila, is now the eldest staying at home looking out for her siblings. None of the babies would have names, and even the girl that lived until she was about a year old and starting to walk. Therefore these three remain nameless, yet known by their Creator. And though they never left the bush, they were seen and loved by Him. Mama's third pregnancy was a single baby, who also passed away after birth. She has walked in grief before, and this time she is afraid and wondering why her baby has not been born. Does she have twins again? Last time she was bigger, and she does not feel like she is a big as last time she delivered. Her husband has married two other women in addition to her, the last wife also being a "glas meri" or witchdoctor. Did the other wife put some sort of curse on her which is causing all these troubles with her delivery and baby?
Wednesday
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Late afternoon, they walk through Kotidanga, her back pain only worsened from the journey, but encouraged that they are close to their destination. Thirty more minutes walk until reaching Kunai. The roasted kaukau they ate this morning no longer fills their bellies. They find a porch full like it was two months ago when she walked down for a prenatal check up. Her vitamins she was given were finished a month ago. In the haste of leaving, two days ago, she left her health card in Wantu. Her husband and two kids follow her inside. Now in the heat of the day, her littlest wears nothing, smiling and riding on big sister's shoulders. The nurses move around in haste with other patients, then sit down to hear her story. She understands some of the Tok Pisin that fills the air between translators and nurses; they ask lots of questions. In Kamea she can hear and answer easily. The same nurse that saw her last time appears, and comes to discover Yaniamo is not close to delivery as hoped. She is only 2cm dilated, and she is no longer having any labor pains. It could be a while yet before baby comes; and the baby is not aligned for delivery yet. To Yaniamo's dismay, there is not a medicine to keep her water from leaking, and the baby eventually turns breech. Now everyone just waits. A grateful father quietly stands at the door offering the last two bananas and a pineapple that have made the journey with them. It is a gift of gratitude.
Following week:
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Each day, Yaniamo made the ten minutes’ walk from Ipamangi village to let the nurses check her and her baby. Each day, progress is slow. No one is sure when the waiting will be over, and they prepare the best they can for a breech delivery. Monday night, the pains suddenly increased, and Yaniamo alerts her husband and one of the translators, Linda, who lives in Ipamangi. In the middle of the night, they walk up to Kunai, anticipating this will be the night. All night the nurses watch and prepare, but the labor stalls. Why is this taking so long? Why is this baby not like the rest? The following day, she walks laps around the clinic, watching other patients come and go. The nurses keep checking and saying that the baby's heart is good. But now worried faces dart across the room, because during labor her baby has gone back to transverse and now with less fluid. They are all saying there is no way the baby can be born this way. They start talking about going to Kerema - a big coastal town, one of which she has only heard stories. She and her husband do not have any family there. Where would they stay if they went? How would they feed their family while they were there?
In the next 24 hours, many phone calls were made after office hours; more than five physicians were consulted in four different countries for possible treatments. Hospitals, organizations, and directors were all contacted for help. Phone networks and wifi turned on for just a few hours at the right times in a country without consistent electricity to allow communication. Unrelated businesses overnight arranged and sponsored an emergency evacuation for this mama's life to be saved. Overnight - one short night - mom and dad sat in the clinic with nurses taking turns caring for her, and all were unsure of what the next day held. Yet, in the mean time, her flight was being coordinated, logistically arranged between bad weather at the coast, stops for refueling, navigating the Gulf Mountains, ensuring surgeons would be available and ready since it was still holiday season—and all of it completely out of our control. But by God’s grace, at noon the following day, she boarded the helicopter with her husband, two children, and two medical staff to be flown to Kerema, where a surgeon awaited her arrival. It was a gift of grace.
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Now a grateful father, unsure of where he was being taken, unsure of how this flying machine carrying his family worked, unsure of what would meet them at the hospital, unsure of where he would sleep for the next couple weeks, unsure of all the talk around him in a foreign language, waved goodbye to us. We who were strangers a week ago, we who sat up in the night together over a bowl of rice illuminated by flashlights, and who walked up and down the clinic porch for hours waiting - we were now friends. They trusted us to walk two days for help a week ago, and now as they left the only thing familiar to them, they flew with strangers toward a big town in a noisy machine, just for the hope of surgery.
He waved through the little window right before the helicopter took off - a man who could never pay for the flight that was saving his wife's life, who will never in his life hold enough money to pay for their passage, who has never driven a car and has only walked, and who was utterly incapable of saving this life. Now his life has been vividly interrupted by One so much greater than he. He did not have to accept the helicopter, it was a gift, one that will never be repaid or even possible to repay. It was a life saving gift.
To me, this has been a reminder of our salvation. God has extended a gift, one that we do not deserve, one that we can not work for, one that is beyond our ability to pay, one that we cannot understand fully the depths of His love.
Through this week, we got to see a incredible demonstration of God's love for Yaniamo; He moved heaven and earth as they say, to bring her another chance at life. But even more than her physical life which He has preserved, God cares for her soul. One day she will face eternity. No one else will be able to redeem her from her sins, no one will be able to wash away her guilt, no one can pay money for her to go to heaven, she will stand before God alone and give account for having received or rejected Him.
In all normal cases, a mom of 10 could easily deliver her own baby at home. As she reminded us, she is an experienced mom and knows what labor pains are like. She knew when the water broke early and the baby was not born, something was wrong. And through the last week, the Lord abruptly interrupted their lives. Instead of carrying on as usual, they hiked for two days to see us, then spent a week thinking she was about to deliver, and now they will spend at least another two weeks in Kerema in recovery, and another week hiking home. Instead of delivering at home with fear of a third wife's curses, she sat with pastor's wife and heard the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ, instead of thinking God has abandoned her she sat up late at night in the clinic with Linda and Manandi and Margeret praying with her and her family, instead of carrying the weight of grief alone, she learned of a God that gave his only Son to be a Man of sorrows and pay the price of sin for us. A month of interruption - a month of being uncomfortable - a month of unfamiliar places and faces - a month to consider life and death. How grateful I am that the Lord allows these times to get our attention.
Have you also considered your life? Christ has died sacrificially to redeem you from your sins, how deeply and truly He loves you! Our sin is wretched and is an utter separation from a holy God. You are thoroughly incapable you are of saving yourself, and yet God's gift of salvation is free if you will accept Him. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
And this is our prayer for Yaniamo - to know Christ - to not run from the interruption, but see God's extension of grace revealing Himself. What is the Lord doing in your life? May we truly come to understand the gift we have been given. It is incredible, mind blowing, and beyond our farthest ability. He is God, and He is good and just and loving and holy and worthy to be praised. His gift to us cost His life; it is a gift of life.