Kudjip Nazarene Hospital

Nazarene Hospital
Box 456 Mt Hagen WHP
Papua New Guinea

March 2008

A delegation from a (very) major international organization visited Kudjip several years ago as part of an effort to rethink their strategy for providing aid to PNG. They were frustrated by the lack of national progress, especially in regard to health and education, despite the considerable financial assistance they had poured into this country over many years. After six hours of observation, questions, and discussion, the team leader pulled me aside and asked, 'Somehow NHM has found a way to make this (health care) work, something we haven't seen anywhere else in PNG. Off the record, if money were no object, how far could you go? How much health care could you manage?'

I was tempted momentarily to espouse a grandiose vision in hopes this major donor partner would endow us with the financial resources to make it a reality. But light broke through my foolish pride and ambition. I answered him, 'Money is not the object. Committed people are the key to our success.' He sighed in agreement, recognizing that money, of which his organization had plenty, could not buy the changes PNG needed.

In recent days, I heard a similar question, this time from PNG's head of state, Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane. He was here as the guest speaker for the graduation ceremonies of Nazarene College of Nursing. Afterwards, sitting across the table while eating lunch, Sir Paulias questioned me about the different missionaries serving at Kudjip. After listening carefully to my responses, he closed with a final question, 'But why? Why do you do it? Why do you leave your homes to serve here in PNG?'

" Why? Because we take Jesus seriously."

Jim Radcliffe is a wonderful father, husband, son, friend, musician, scholar, athlete, missionary, teacher, preacher, physician, and much more. Among the people of PNG, though, Jim is best known as a surgeon, or 'dokta bilong katim.' For the past 23 years, Jim has given himself and his considerable surgical gifts to bring healing to the sick and hurting people of PNG.

Such sacrifice is costly. Jim's intense investment of himself in each patient exacts a heavy toll when outcomes are not good. The needs are endless. Demanding work-loads and long hours, many in the middle of the night, often exceed the limits of one's physical and emotional strength. It is a rare missionary who can persevere under such pressures.

Jim isn't perfect. Especially when he is tired, Jim can be grumpy, quick-tempered, and occasionally something less than sweet-spirited. But everyone who has been on the receiving end of Jim's 'moments' has also received his follow-up apology, heartfelt and deeply sincere, always before the setting of same day's sun. I could only wish that I kept my own relationships so clear and uncluttered.

One cannot overstate how much Jim, his wife Kathy, and the Radcliffe family mean to this mission. And so it struck us especially hard when Jim suddenly became ill in January of this year. Severe tonsillitis, fever, cough, and chest pain were certainly enough to cause concern. But then several joints became swollen, hot, and painful, and when a chest X-ray showed enlargement of Jim's heart, we were faced with uncertainties about his future as a missionary. The possibility of losing Jim Radcliffe was, for me, staggering.

Jim is one of the world's leading experts on a disease known as 'pigbel', rare outside PNG, but a very real killer of young children here in PNG. During the height of Jim's illness, we had two youngsters in hospital with severe pigbel, Alista and Gason. Both needed surgery, both needed Jim Radcliffe. Jim took a generous dose of Tylenol and Advil, propped his left leg with swollen ankle on a short stool, and performed the operations, removing 30 inches of dying/dead intestine from Alista and freeing the adhesions from Gason's bowels. Both children recovered and returned home with deeply grateful parents.

We consulted several excellent physicians in the USA by email about Jim's illness and received some good advice. Jim is doing well. His symptoms have resolved, his heart size has decreased (good change), and he is once again a major force on the basketball court.

Day in and day out Nazarene Hospital is far better because of this amazing man with a serious commitment to Jesus.

Photo Album of Recent Updates in our Kudjip Family:

Great Progress on New Hospital Construction