Reflecting on 2022 and Looking to 2023

Local school in PNG

In 2022, we were able to do the following:

  • We started the year by attending a local school dedication to continue to encourage guardians and children to focus on education as the key to a bright future. A good education is the key to ensuring that children, and especially young girls have a safe future.
  • We assisted women in crises situations:
    • We orchestrated an emergency evacuation for a young single mother being stalked and brutally assaulted by an angry ex. She was living in a very remote island location, so this required us to organize transport by sea, airplane, and truck to get her out to us. We helped her settle into a safe home with family where she is now earning a small income for herself. She is close enough to one of our centers enabling us to periodically check in with her.
    • We continue to assist with housing for another single mother that was abandoned by her alcoholic and abusive husband. She is doing very well and will soon transition out of our program.
    • We have been providing safe-housing for a single mom living with the effects of HIV. She was previously homeless and is orphaned in every sense of the word, with no living immediate family members. We are counseling her and advising her regarding employment so that she will eventually be able to transition out and be in a secure place of independence as well.
    • We did crises counseling and assistance to a young wife who was badly beaten and cut by her husband when she did not agree to him taking a second wife. We helped her seek medical help, file a medical report and police report. We ensured that she had safe housing with family members who will support her and her children. She is also living near one of our centers where we can continue to follow up with her and encourage her.
    • On any given day, we can have youth and young adult girls who need a listening ear or some type of intervention come sit and talk with us. I think of two in particular who were being trafficked by their families. Poverty will drive people to do drastic and unthinkable things…even to their own children. Pray for us and for these girls who experience trauma that many of us will never understand. Pray that we can reach them and have wisdom in how to best help each one.
Jennifer working alongside a woman and her children
Alex getting surgery

While medical work is not our main focus, we do try to help as we are able, especially with life-saving interventions. We assist the most with malaria. In 2021, there were over 620,000 malaria deaths world-wide and Papua New Guinea has “one of the highest levels of malaria prevalence outside Sub-Saharan Africa, with 94% of the population considered to be at risk” (Frontiers in Epidemiology).

In 2022, we conducted approximately 120 rapid malaria tests, and distributed approximately 35 rounds of malaria treatment, all free of charge. When we did not have supplies of medicine, we wrote out prescriptions that could be taken to local clinics to be filled. We also distributed paracetamol tablets (pain and fever reducer) and oral re-hydration drink packets free of charge to malaria patients.

We conducted one major medical undertaking last year. We were able to bring a husband and father of 10 children to America to have life-saving surgery. You can read about that in our September 2022 newsletter and about the results of that surgery in the December 2022 newsletter.

We cannot thank you all enough for your ongoing prayers and generous giving. As we look to 2023, we continue to move forward in faith that God is going to grow our base of staff, volunteers, and donors so that we can continue to rescue women and children from abuse, enslavement, and trafficking; to give them a future filled with hope.

Gratefully on behalf of myself and our staff & volunteers,

Jennifer Wesner

Director