For the past few weeks, things at the Nazarene Hospital at Kudjip, Papua New Guinea, have been a bit gloomy. Some of the gloom has been due to the rain, power outages, wet shoes, and darker days, but a lot of the gloom has been because the hospital received confirmation that our budget for the year was going to be 40 percent less than we received from the Papua New Guinea government in 2015. 

A 40 percent reduction in our budget isn't something that we can easily make up from other areas. As we have shared ideas for how to continue offering the same medical services as in prior years, every idea has a downside.

• We could cut our staff by 40 percent and then cut our services by 40 percent, but how do we serve the people of Jiwaka who need our help? 
• We could raise fees enough to make up the difference, but how do we serve the poor, the hurting, the ones our hospital always tries to make allowances for? 
• We could cut our staff salaries, but how will we retain staff when they can find another job where they would get paid more than we can afford to pay them? 
• We can decrease our spending, but what do we do when the government runs out of medicines or supplies? Will we choose not to buy life-saving medicine?

After lots of emails, discussions, meetings and prayer, we choose to do a little bit of everything. We increased fees, decreased spending, cut staff by not replacing those who leave, and cut salaries by not raising them to the government level for 2016. We made a plan and have ideas of what steps 4 through 6 would be if we still need to do more as we re-evaluate our budget and finances each month to make sure we are not overspending. 

For the rest of the story, see Engage magazine.