by John Algate
The science of vaccinations has been known and accepted since 1796 when Edward Jenner famously used cowpox to inoculate against the deadly smallpox disease. From there science made slow but inevitable progress driven by inquiring minds and the desire to ease human suffering. In 1914 a vaccine was developed to protect against pertussis, a disease more commonly known as whooping cough. In 1926 diphtheria joined the list of preventable diseases, followed in 1938 by tetanus. After World War Two these three vaccines were combined and given as the DPT vaccine – what is now better known as Triple Antigen. Pharmaceuticals were being produced on an industrial scale thanks to technical advances. Costs fell, making them readily available, and vaccinations were progressively developed for a range of other common diseases like measles, mumps and rubella. Few services Jessie provided during her 35 years as a missionary nurse saved as many lives and prevented suffering as much as the vaccination programs she organised and administered.
Trying to set up a DPT clinic in a village is easier said than done. The Korupun area has never had a campaign of any kind for its babies. So there was much interest and speculation about it all. In one village we used the school building, in another a central place in the village and in another a flat rock where we could put things out of the mud. Everywhere we went there were milling, sweating bodies wanting to see everything. Kids elbowed their way to the front so they wouldn’t miss a thing. No one left till all the babies had been vaccinated because they wanted to see whose babies cried and whose were brave and which ones kicked and screamed to get away. Fathers, grandmothers, aunts and uncles all sharing in the excitement, peering in windows and standing on rocks to get a better view.
As I left Korupun to go to the mountains the people said to me to be careful as the people up there are all making bows and arrows and a war could be breaking out anytime. Be ready to duck. In spite of a threatening war between the two villages all the ladies and their babies in the village turned out in full force. The four and five year olds were disappointed because they couldn’t get a needle or should I say their parents were disappointed. Several times I had to move a black woolly head out of my way so I could see to put the needle on the syringe as some little kid was peering into my pot of needles. I almost injected the wrong child when one stepped in front of me as I was about to give a shot. Another knocked the syringe out of my hand as they tried to get close as possible to see how I did it. All in a day’s work! Needles to them are something special.
We have heard that there is whooping cough in the next village. I am trying to get as many babies as possible started on their course. A real miracle that the vaccine was available and we had the connections to get it into the interior right away. We will try to arrange for the helicopter to get us out to some of the more distant villages as soon as possible.
Speaking of injections makes me remember one old man who came to the clinic with a tooth abscess and a very swollen jaw. When I told him to turn around to give him a shot of penicillin, he very crossly informed me that he didn’t have a pain in his bottom, it was his tooth and he wanted the shot there. I guess he thought I was very dumb. (August 1981)
Recently a girl said to me that ‘the month of death’ was here again. She had her child clasped in her arms as if to defy any sickness to ‘hit’ her child. Looking back I see what was meant by that statement. It seemed that during the months of August and September each year there is an epidemic of some kind leaving a trail of death and sadness in its wake. This year it has been a very bad flu epidemic where practically all the children between one and 14 years have had it in one form or another. They stagger into clinic with red glassy eyes and a temperature over 102 degrees. They are immediately given a bucket bath to try and reduce the temperature and fever (wearing no clothes does have its advantages). After they are dried off they receive their lemon juice, soup and medication. Some mornings we have had over 100 children through the clinic and have used up to 1000 aspirins in a week.
The afternoons see a never ending procession of people to my door to receive their soup rations. Most of these children stop eating and drinking when they are sick so the soup is a bribe to keep them hydrated. I have certainly made gallons of soup over the past month and I think I could receive a diploma in soup making. This afternoon a mother came to the door with her child clasped in her arms. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do as the child was already dead. I was trying to comfort the mother when she said: ‘It isn’t your fault. It’s God’s business and He has taken my child to heaven. He knows best.’ Do pray for these people in the harshness of their land and the constant loss of their beloved children. Do pray too for the clinic workers as they try to cope with so many ill children. There have been 12 deaths in the next valley. (September 1985)
In 1986 Sue Trenier and Jessie combined with various clinic workers on an extended vaccination trip around Lolat.
We went by helicopter divided into four teams and all walked in different directions. Some walked for three days, some two days and Sue and I walked to the closer villages, three hours there and three hours back. It was very steep, wet and slippery. They were all laughing because I was so slow! We had to climb up from the river to the heli-pad. The boys had to pull me over the big rocks as my shoes would not grip. We got home just on dark as it started to pour with rain. We vaccinated 63 children for TB. In all we did 400 children for DPT, polio and measles. We gave out Vitamin A to the kids over 12 months. [I was aching all over]. When we got back the people had prepared a feast for us to say thank-you, we were embarrassed because they can’t really spare the pigs but we couldn’t refuse.
Sue Trenier has fond and vivid memories of these expeditions, often working with teams of Nationals from the Eastern Highland’s church district to train medical workers and run immunisation programs:
‘There was a period when Jessie and I were doing quite a lot of village work together, not only in the Kimyal or Hupla areas where we served but also in Yali and Momina areas. Early on I found out what a great thing it was to have Jessie with us on the team!!! This one time the pair of us were sleeping in a small school building, our sleeping bags squeezed in. She would leave the organising part to me to get the people gathered, get the workers in teams etc. and she would join in the activities and the training. She would disappear though after a bit, and to our amazement, when we returned to our habitat, she would have prepared the most amazingly interesting snack/lunch or whatever. She might have cheese and biscuits and coffee, or cuppa soup (so welcome in those cold mountain areas), a bar of chocolate or special ‘something’. How she did it I do not know, but that always revived us. These treats all came in the endless packets/parcels which her wonderful supporters sent her regularly.’
Mothers seemed to understand, almost instinctively, that the new medicine could achieve what local custom could not, and protect their children from harm, even if the highland children, like children everywhere, were less sure.
‘Don’t be afraid, it’s only the healing lady. She won’t hurt you,’ were words that were often repeated this week to uplifted, tearful faces as I continued to give the second series of DPT injections against whooping cough to the children. Whooping cough is a mean killer up here and there seems to be an epidemic every four years. I like to keep a jump ahead if the vaccine is available. Not everyone will cooperate unfortunately, but the people are learning to trust us more and more and they prefer needles to any other kind of medication. Every morning we have a roll up of about 140 children. I would have been glad of some earplugs as most of the kids didn’t agree with their mothers that the ‘wesena gel’ didn’t hurt. (March 1986)
I came back to Korupun to find a virulent type of flu raging, which knocked the whole population down. It wasn’t just flu, but all kinds of complications that set in afterwards that really laid people low. The clinic was a hive of industry with a trail of woebegone people passing through. I made up gallons of soup to give to the people who had stopped eating, to try and keep them drinking. We
all had our turn of being laid low with it. There have been six deaths in our outlying areas where they didn’t come in for treatment. The Swart Valley was really hard hit with over 60 deaths among the Dani population. (March 1987)
Last week they brought me a little three-day-old baby with a bad case of pneumonia. That afternoon it stopped breathing so I quickly did mouth to mouth resuscitation, artificial respirator, stimulants and a lot of prayer. It finally started to breathe again and is now doing just fine for such a little strap of a baby. I have also started using gum leaves in boiling water as an inhalation and it works very well. (May 1989)
The whole population has been laid low with it (flu) and we have had a busy clinic for weeks. The worst is over but we’re now starting to get complications that follow in its wake. We have used over 15,000 aspirin this past month and now the flu is steadily making its way to our outposts. We have not had a death here thus far. One evening, just on dusk, a boy came to tell me that there was a baby who was near death in one of our villages. I knew it would be dark by the time I got home so I put a torch in my pocket and set off up the mountain. I was thankful to get there in the last of the daylight. I was glad I had gone as the baby had viral meningitis which often follows the flu. I slipped and slithered down the muddy waterlogged path in the pouring rain. I was absolutely drenched.
Each morning it is quite a sight to see 10 babies and their mothers sitting in two circles on the floor of the clinic all covered with sheets. The inhalation pots sit in the centre of the circles whilst the babies breathe or scream in the eucalyptus inhalation. The noise is deafening, like a lot of lambs separated from their mothers all yelling at once. (September 1989)
‘Yetty, will you look at this child, and this one and this one? Whatever is the matter with them? Their faces are all swollen.’ For the first time ever, we suddenly had an epidemic of mumps in the valley. Children looking like chipmunks and adults looking as if they had suddenly gained 10 kilos with their round faces. No one was really ill, just miserable. (October 1991)
I was woken at 3 am by someone pounding on the door. ‘Yonas’s little three-year-old was desperately ill. Could I come?’ I hastily pulled on a track suit, grabbed my emergency bag and off into the night. Sadly, by the time we got there she had already died. It appears to be a virulent type of gastro-enteritis – healthy one day and gone the next. Another little one died last night which is so sad. We have heard on radio that 20 people have died at Lolat (two days walk from here).
We were really sad about Yonas’s little girl. (He did my washing and does radio). The whole village mourned for her and before the funeral the village cooked potatoes to give to everyone who came. A special honour. Sijeit preached. They kept the body two days which was unusual – so everyone could see her and the mourning went on day and night. Sijeit started his message by saying the night before he had a dream. That he was walking with this little girl along the trail when suddenly she started to drift into the air like soap bubbles you make from children’s ring bubble maker. He stood watching her disappear and then a voice said, ‘Don’t wait for her to return to you, she has come into heaven with me. Don’t cry. She is happy.’
In between all this a 15 year-old unmarried girl delivered a baby. No one knew she was pregnant (amazing in this culture). That almost sparked off a war except for the cool head and handling of one of the fathers involved. Pig payments had to be paid to the girl’s family.
Life, births, deaths, marriages and problems go on as it does everywhere. (January 1995)
Bit by bit, government services came to the highlands, supplementing, complementing and occasionally displacing the work of the mission public health programs.
We were all called out to a government seminar in Wamena for the WATCH Program which is ‘Women and their Children’s Health Project’. This program has introduced rabbits, chickens, fish etc. to the area to try and upgrade the health of the women. Unfortunately the men have taken most of it over and it hasn’t really helped the women. However they are trying. (May 1995)
Whilst she (Beatrix Watofa, an Irianese mission candidate) was here she upgraded two workers on the microscope. They checked over 450 specimens. Now we are busy giving out medications for all the parasites she found. Very few people had negative results so we trust they are healthier (including me) now they are not feeding so many inside friends. (February 1996)
23. Translating the Bible
Many Dani folk ask for work so they can buy a small portion of scripture translated for them, and stencilled off. This is a slow and expensive task for us but the joy in the faces of these folk as they read it is worth it all.
The written word is such a routine part of everyday life that we tend to take it for granted. But words, particularly written words, have a power about them, a power that many West Papuan Nationals quickly recognised with the coming of the missionaries and the black, leather-bound books they carried, read, pondered and prayed over. By the time Jessie first touched down at Karubaga translators were already busily working on selected verses of the Bible to share with their Dani converts – though a full translation of the Bible was still many years off. To many Dani the words the missionaries spoke had magic about them, magic they were eager to learn and understand, and this magic was embodied in their written words.
Akkenok is sitting by the stove reading his ‘Kywone’ or ‘Living words’ which is what they call the scriptures. He has made a cover out of some cardboard. They are only duplicated copies so are very precious….These folk have very little translated for them and what they have they love and memorise and tell it to others. (1967)
The only schools in remote parts of West Papua at this time were mission schools. They identified the best, brightest and most promising students they could find and set them on an express pathway of learning, including enrolment at Bible school. The Bible school students were destined to play a big role in the life of the young church, but more than that, they would become the new intelligentsia – the first tentative links between old faiths and new religion, tribal traditions and the modern world. Little wonder that their graduation was the cause of great excitement.
Everyone was in a fever of excitement. Graduation was looming. The very first graduation of our Bible School students who have studied for three years was about to take place. They will then move back to their own villages and communities to be a help and encouragement to their elders and pastors. (May 1968)
In this multi-skilled vocation everyone had a role to play in every aspect of mission life, including Jessie.
I have been helping out in the examination of the graduates from our literacy schools. We have 20 schools here at Karubaga. When each class has finished the 12th primer they are examined to see if they have learnt well. They are then given a diploma if they pass the test. Much encouragement is needed for these shaking students as they wait their turn to be examined. By keeping a close eye on the graduating students we are able to keep a high standard in all our schools. Some of them have memorised all the books and can fool their teachers, but when it comes to an exam they are lost if it is not well learnt. (February 1972)
Dani is just one of more than 250 languages spoken in Papua. Every time missionaries encroached on a new area or reached new people the process of communicating, teaching literacy, and translating the Bible and other texts began anew. Indonesian was the official language; English was the first language of most new missionaries while each tribal group had its own language and a smattering of other nearby languages and dialects to allow communication with their neighbours. It was a linguistic melting pot.
The core skills set out in this position description taken from the World Team website in 2016 could have equally applied to missionaries entering unreached parts of West Papua half a century earlier.
‘Use your translation skills to help deliver the scriptures to people in a language and form they can understand. Many tribal languages are unwritten, leaving entire people groups with no Bible they can read.
You can help people grow in faith as they receive the scripture in their heart language. Plus you’ll have the joy of developing deep relationships with national translators you work with. You may also help develop literacy programs or serve as a translation consultant and advisor.’
In 1980 when Jessie moved to Korupun she was asked to supervise the literacy program there.
In June I will be attending a Literacy Workshop to help me teach the Kimyal people to read and write in their own language. Because of the change in the Indonesian cathography (alphabet) we are having to change quite a few letters in the Kimyal alphabet to make it as close as possible to the Indonesian. The Christians are very keen to learn, especially as Elinor gets more and more of the scriptures translated. There was great excitement a few weeks ago when she finished the book of Titus and gave it to the people. The elders have been begging for more scriptures as they said they knew by heart all that had been translated and they needed something new to share with the people. Because their way of life and thought patterns are so different to ours it is important that they learn what the scriptures say regarding certain matters and that they learn to make their own decisions in the light of it and not just accept what we say as final. (June 1980)
We are praising the Lord that we have the rough draft of our new primers (books to teach the people to read and write) finished. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will be able to get the stencils cut and a trial number given out to teachers. (August 1981)
Jessie’s experiences with the Kimyal language were no doubt similar to those of her colleagues Kathryn and Paul Kline who began working among the Kimyal in 1969. One of the first tasks of any missionary working in a new area among new people was to learn the local languages. The task could be as complex as it was necessary. Kathryn Kline shares some of her experiences with the Kimyal language.