December vacation with our High school students home for a short vacation was, as usual, disrupted by the arrival of babies. Besides village babies we had a ZGK family, the Veldhuizens, and the Brileys of SIL expecting twins. The Dutch baby arrived uneventfully on the 17th and the next night the twins were born. All was well until the second morning after birth when the smaller twin stopped breathing, until his mother stimulated him. This happened two or three times so we tried coffee as a stimulant. |We had no coffee in nice little easy to measure vials, so I got out some dried up instant coffee and gave some of that which seemed to help. Later that day the bigger twin did the same thing so he was started on regular doses of coffee, but both were under observation constantly. A nurse and another SIL helper came to help but it was a busy time. With the coffee they had no more episodes of not breathing, for 5 days and started to gain weight.

Ken decided he could be away for awhile and he took our boys, the ZGK dad and two of his children out for some waterskiing with the new 60 hp Yamaha outboard. They had a lovely time and were on the way home. Upon turning into the Taki river, with George still on a ski, Ken had slowed down a little, and was ready to stop the engine. He pulled back on the throttle, forgetting that the throttle on the new engine worked backward. So the boat went into a high speed spin, throwing Ken out. It then hit the bank, which was just underwater, went over 2 small dugouts (which the occupants had hastily vacated), threw out the three Veldhuizens, but Andrew, still in the boat, pulled the emergency stop cord and stopped the engine. Later Ken was told the stop cord should have been attached to him. So there were two frightened children, a father with a cut on his forehead, two smashed dugouts and a broken paddle, for which Ken paid, even though the owners said he didn’t need to do so. Andrew was uninjured and Ken just bruised his pride. That was not a dignified way to get out of a boat! He was able to restart the engine, and the boat was undamaged. No one sued him.

The next day was Christmas. After a nice chicken dinner at noon, we planned to attend the Tamnim village service and feast in the evening. Then it seemed unwise for me to go in case of problems with the twins. Ken was supposed to show a film strip on the nativity, but there was another equipment failure. So Ken came home and figured out that the problem was the 12 volt battery which someone had hooked to the trickle charger backwards. It was the battery we used for lights if we had a night delivery but fortunately it had recharged before it was needed for a delivery. There was no film strip shown that evening.

Do you wonder about the twins? After consulting with specialists in Australia, through the phone in the Manokwari TEAM office, it was decided they should be investigated in Sydney, Australia. We were advised that they should fly as low as possible across two mountain ranges to Sentani and should have Oxygen. The SIL pilot who came for them succeeded in staying below 6700 feet and they were given O2 above 4000 feet. Brileys requested help from the Australian Embassy and they waived all the rules. So they flew by SIL Aztec to Cairns and commercial to Sydney. The specialist in Sydney put them both on monitors and one of the twins has a polycystic kidney which will need to be removed at some point.

PS. 2020 Both boys have done well in the years since those precarious days.