Billy is one of at least one dozen student missionaries from 1,000 missionary Movement who are assigned to Papua Mission. Billy is working along one of the deadliest river in the world. I’ve already written several blogs about this area in the past. Try reading my blogs about the Mamberamo River. Here’s one called Super Eddies -- A river that Flushes Like a Toilet Bowel, also Simon the Persecuted comes from this River area, and Snakes, Crocodiles, Malaria and Dengue Fever and finally The Sequel to Snakes, Crocs, Malaria and Dengue Fever.
Whenever Adventist Aviation gets a radio call that one of our Pastors or their family or Bible workers or student missionaries are sick with Malaria, or Dengue Fever it’s usually not good. At 3:30pm this Friday afternoon I heard the plane take off from the runway just outside my office. I thought to myself, “What’s Bob Roberts doing flying out of here at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon.” Thunderheads were all the way around us and Aviation closes by 5:00 p.m. all days but even more so on Friday because Sabbath comes by 5:45 p.m.. To fly anywhere round trip is usually at minimum 2 hours. But perhaps Bob had a short run and needed to go before the weekend. I didn’t think of it any longer.
By 5:20 p.m. the airplane was landing again. A few minutes later my Cell phone and my house phone and the campus intercom were all going off simultaneously. “Pastor your missionary from Dabra is here.” I scratched the back of my brain. Was I expecting an missionary from Dabra? “What Missionary were we expecting from Dabra?” I asked.
“It’s Billy. He’s really sick. . . You need to run him to the hospital and get a blood stick so you know what strand of Malaria to treat him for.”
Since I’m not a medical person I made him walk/hobble with me to my house. Ruth decided that her own blood test using the kits we have would probably be more accurate. Within 20 minutes the results were back – Tropica Malaria or Cerebral Malaria – the Deadly Killer. If not treated it can do wonders on your imagination. Read my posts from a while ago when I saw rainbows coming out of my sons neck. Within an hour of him coming to us we had him on a bed with medicine in him.
Now 24 hours later Billy is eating, playing our guitar, watching a video and looking like his old self. We sent him into the jungle with Malaria medicine but it wasn’t for this strand of Malaria. I said to Ruth, “We really need to do a lot of training on how to treat for Malaria.” You can get really sick really fast. So glad Billy is fine but there have been 6 other of our workers along the Mamberamo River who didn’t fair so well. We wait until resurrection morning to see them again because there’s still a Deadly Killer on the loose. That’s why they still go to warn the world of the Deadliest of Killers who can be conquered by our King Jesus.
Pray for Billy and the dozens of other works we have in this and many other difficult places in Papua.
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