DTS Outreach PNG [YWAM Ship]

After four weeks in Darwin (which you can read about here, here, here and here), Toma headed back to Canberra to be with his family, while Tim, Janet and I jumped on a plane to Papua New Guinea, ready for the next stage of outreach: serving with the YWAM Medical Ship.

Here are some photos, documenting just a fraction of what I experienced during that week.

Pacific Link

Relaxing  on our first day onboard, after our overnight flights

Exploring the ship

We ate breakfast and dinner on the upper deck

After a day of rest, we had to get stuck into our training and orientation. We were assigned teams that we would work with for the entire week, and each team was assigned a clinic to work at. This way, we could establish relationships with each other and the local nurses, and learn to work for the best of our clinic.

My Primary Health Care Team. Tim's and my orientation was to open our pharmaceutical bag and immediately look at each other, back away, and say, "Who signed us up for this?!?!?!"

PNG style - love it!!!!

Tim working with Rachel in the pharmacy corner

With the lovely nurses in the TB ward

I didn't have much to do one day...and this is a sign of my homesickness at that point of the journey

I will always, always associate PNG with cute kids!!

Tried to make friends with this boy every.single.day that week, and FINALLY on the last day, he started playing with me! We had such fun!! Such a dear boy, who accompanied his extremely ill Mum (TB) every day to the clinic

The YWAM ships website has some pages and stories from the Port Moresby phase of the journey.

Louisa is an amazing lady who coordinated my team's time at the Kaugare, and you can read her story here.

If you read this, you'll see a few snippets of what happened during our time in Port Moresby, as well as see some records of what the YWAM Ships have been able to do this year.

This is a segment from EM TV PNG, which gives a good overview of the aim of the YWAM Ships ministry.

YWAM wouldn't be YWAM without work duties!

Pretty sure I'll never complain that "my bedroom is too small!" or "there isn't enough room!" again!

It wasn't all work! Here is Kim and Phil entertaining us one night on deck. Kim is a former Australian Idol contestant, and blogged about her experiences with the team. Here is one of her posts. She also posted a few photos...can you find me??!

My heart for PNG grew even more during this week with the YWAM Ship

It is SO good to look back and photos and remember the privilege of this experience! I will always be grateful for my time in PNG, the amazing teammates I got to go with, and my Heavenly Father Who truly revealed Himself to me during that time.

~Rachel