April 2025 coffee date: Hello again from PNG 🇵🇬

David has been in PNG now for two weeks and I flew in to join him this past Saturday. Something that I am so grateful for is that flying into PNG to join the ship feels like coming home.

We’ve spent the first few months of 2025 working from a very wet Townville; it rained everyday for 27 days straight at one point! David spent most of his time making sure our campus was in good shape despite all the rain (attending to many leaks, mould issues, etc) and preparing spaces for guests and events. The start of the year is always report writing season in my world so I spent a decent amount of time in spreadsheets looking at our data from 2024. While we enjoy being able to go to and forth from Townsville, it’s always nice to get our feet out from behind a desk and be back on the ground in PNG.

Dental assistant training

Something exciting happening from our Port Moresby campus this year is that we’ve just kicked off dental assistant training again! In the past we’ve been able to offer an Australian recognised Certificate III in Dental Assisting and it’s been something we’ve wanted to get back up and running alongside the dental trailer program. There is a huge need for more dental workers in PNG so this is a way to continue to invest in the local capacity in the field. 

Alongside the three students undertaking the course, we’re also upskilling some of our staff who work (or want to work) in our dental operations. David really enjoyed being a DA last year when we spent two outreaches involved in the dental trailer, so he flew in early to be part of the training and begin exploring what being more involved in this area could look like. We’re a little way off it still, but our hope is that David may be able to be involved in the dental clinic when it runs again from the ship – in the short term we’re still working out the details but taking this first steps first!

Ship outreaches

While David has been all things dental at our Port Moresby campus, I’ve been a few minutes downtown on our ship getting ready for ship outreach. We’re due to sail back out to Western Province at the beginning of May and we’ll be out till mid June. David will be back in the lab and our PHC teams, and I’ll be getting some more training as I work as the Clinic Manager.

A few highlights from the first outreaches of 2025 that I’ve loved hearing about: 

Our team was able to be part of the celebration of the release of the Bamu language translation of the Bible! The Bamu River is one of the main rivers we work in, and the release of the printed translation in their language was a big milestone; for some of the translating team they were holding their translation work that has spanned decades. We were able to help physically transport the Bibles and be involved in some of their initial distribution.  

We also have a team that has been continuing to record the Bible in the Bamu language on the ship, in a little makeshift recording studio ( a very well padded bathroom!). Once the project is complete, this translation will be available on solar powered audio playback units, which will mean people can hear the Bible in their mother tongue. It’s exciting to see these two projects coming to life, and how they can be used together.

Continuing to expand into a new location! At the end of last year’s outreaches, our teams spent a few days in the Fly River, bringing clinic to some villages on the islands in the river mouth we hadn’t been to before. It’s an area we’d been asked to expand into, and we spent our last few clinic days of the year finding villages (sometimes they’ve moved since the last satellite picture!), introducing ourselves, finding anchorages, and seeing what our involvement could look like for this year.

The aid post that is meant to service the area has been closed for many years, and we saw significant need. Our teams in quarter one were able to build on last year’s ground work, and expand to bring clinics to more villages in the area. 

The upcoming months are looking like they will be quite full ones but we’re so grateful to be able to continue being a part of everything happening in PNG. Thank you for your support and your part in helping make that happen.