Rapid Responses!

When we came back from Scotland in October, I had some really good intentions of keeping the blog posts regular… It seems like the last couple of months have flown by, so my apologies for turning regular into “once a month”.
As Heather said a week-an-a-bit ago, I had a fantastic opportunity to spend the first couple of weeks of December down in Florida on a “Rapid Response” trip. MMS’s mission statement is to “prepare people and planes for worldwide mission service”, and for the most part, that means having apprentices work on mission aircraft at our hangar here in Ohio. The training is fantastic, but if it lacks one thing it is the chance to work in an “operational” environment, maintaining planes that are being used on a daily basis. Sometimes it isn’t possible to have aircraft transported to Ohio, and the opportunity comes along for apprentices and staff to travel to the plane to carry out the work needed. This kills two birds with one stone, giving mission organisations an opportunity to benefit from MMS’s service, whilst giving apprentices valuable experience working in other “field” environments.

One of MFI's DC-3's prepares to leave the hangar

Missionary Flights International have been offering a regular service to missionaries operating in Haiti and the West Indies since the 60’s. As well as a Cessna 310, the MFI fleet is made up of 4 DC-3 aircraft. These planes were built from the 30’s through to the end of WWII, and as you can imagine for aircraft that are in their 70’s, they take a lot of looking after. Of the 4 planes MFI operate, 2 are turbine powered and 2 have the original type radial engines. The turbine planes are more powerful, able to carry more payload, faster and more economical to run, so it makes sense that they are the ones normally flown. When the opportunity came up to sell one of the radial engine planes, the need to carry out some major maintenance became a bit more urgent. As MMS have a long history with MFI, we were asked to go down and help out with this work.

Old engine on the right, new engine on the left, and 400MF behind.

Myself and Chuck flew down the Monday after Thanksgiving, and got stuck straight into removing the engine from the left wing of N400MF. Most of our fortnight was spent on transferring brackets, hoses and accessories onto the new engine, and getting the new engine ready to hang on the wing. When we run out of parts, there were lots of other jobs to do, with some airframe repairs underway in the tail of the plane. On our last day there I was able to get involved in a 100hr service on one of the turbine planes, then help out with an oil change on the Asas de Socorro float plane which stopped off in Florida while on it’s flight to Brasil from MMS in Ohio. (See below for Keith's video on that)

It was a busy two weeks, but a fantastic opportunity to get a taste of another organisation’s ministry, and the way they operate. Working on these old aircraft was made even more special when I discovered that one of our good friends from Pitlochry Baptist Church (and one of the people who first got me interested in MAF) was one of the pilots who ferried N300MF to Florida from England in the early 80’s!

N300MF

The New Year will probably be bringing another Rapid Response trip, provided all the visa applications currently in progress go to plan. JAARS http://www.jaars.org/ have a large base in Papua New Guinea, where they operate a variety of aircraft in support of Bible translators and other missionaries who serve in that part of the world. They recently had one of their aircraft damaged, and myself, another MAF apprentice, and one of the MMS Staff, have been asked to go and help them carry out the repairs needed to get the plane back into service. That will be a slightly longer trip (3 or 4 weeks), and the internet won’t be as “high speed” as it was in Florida. Please pray that Heather and the kids will be well while I am away from home. Abi and Matthew were a bit out of sorts while I was gone earlier this month, not understanding why dad was working “at the hangar” but not coming home at night. I will be literally on the other side of the world this time away, so having the kids settle well while I am gone will be a real blessing to Heather, and a reassurance to me. I can’t even imagine still being in my old job on the ships with my wee family left at home!!
Right now we are busy getting packed up for our Christmas holiday. We are going to visit our good friends in North Carolina for the week, returning next Saturday. We’re all looking forward to catching up with them again, and to celebrate the birth of Christ together.
Wishing you all a happy Christmas, and all the very best for 2012.

A baby changes everything!

November has flown past and I can hardly believe it is less than two weeks until Christmas day! We enjoyed two wonderful thanksgiving meals with friends near the end of November. One was with our church (about 300 people), the other was with out MMS friends here (about 30). We have now been in the states over a year and Andy and I still have our Scottish accents, but alas both our children are talking more and more like Americans! :0)

Andy went to Florida for two weeks with another colleague and returned on the 10th of December. They were working with Missionary Flights International in Ft. Pierce. Andy will write more about this in the next blog.

I did not anticipate how hard it would be to find time to blog while he was away but as you can see it did not happen. Being a single parent is tough and I only had to do it for two weeks! Part of the reason it was so tough was due to the fact I am expecting our third child and being in the early stages of pregnancy with two little children by myself was a challenge and we often shared the same bed time! I am so thankful I have an amazing God to depend on and I truly experienced his amazing strength and grace throughout those two weeks. Andy arrived back on Saturday and has a few days off to recover from his long working days. We are really enjoying some family time together before he goes back to work tomorrow.

We are looking forward to Abi's first School production tonight - The Gingerbread Man. She has been entertaining me for weeks with the songs and she is so excited about being on the stage.

Matthew has been quite unsettled without his dad and is glued to his side at the moment in case he should disappear again! LOL!

It was a wonderful experience telling the children on Saturday about there new expected sibling due to arrive next June and quite humorous listening to their reaction. Abi is so excited and is already working on some names! Matthew is just not sure what to think - if he can't see it then it doesn't make too much sense yet.

The mother and toddlers I am starting up is going really well and we have provisionally been offered premises at the Job and Family Services department in the town. This will be finally be confirmed in the next few weeks and we will hopefully be able to start mid to late January.

Andy will post soon about his Florida trip. Sorry there are no pictures with this blog like the others but please bear with us as we adjust to the changes going on and the run up to Christmas. :0)

Thank you for taking the time to read this and share in the adventure with us.

Love from Heather, Andy, Abi , Matthew and bump! ;0)