Tuesday, 21 January 2014

Flexibility! (...and some dates for your diary!)

Although I like to say that I am a pretty flexible guy, the truth is that I like to  know what the plan is! The last couple of months, since we arrived back from the States, has seen us having to be pretty flexible with our plans!

We had originally planned on staying in Blair Atholl, up in the Scottish Highlands, for our time in the UK, but after loosing Heather's dad, we felt staying closer to her mum would be the right thing to do. We had to change around some of our original plans, but in reality it has meant we have been much better placed for dealing with the logistics of the many meetings, medicals and vaccinations we need before we all go to Africa.

We have also had a few more churches interested in what we are doing than we are used to for our time back in Scotland. Normally we are only back in the UK for 3 weeks or there abouts. That works well for being able to visit the 3 churches who we have been partnered with since we started in Ohio. (3 weeks means 3 weekends!!) This time home however, we are / have been sharing at 9 different churches! It makes for a busy schedule; in January we are speaking at a different church every Sunday, and at two mid week meetings, as well as trying to catch up with as many friends around the country as we can! It has been great to be able to share our story again though. We have had the pleasure of sharing with people who have never heard of MAF or what we are doing before. We have also shared with people who have been following our news since the beginning of our time with MAF, but who have never heard the whole story of how we ended up where we are now! Even though I can't imagine ever putting "Public Speaking" on my list of things-I-do-for-fun, I am becoming more comfortable with it, and am always amazed at how much encouragement comes from it. All that said, we double booked ourselves last Sunday, and caused a bit of confusion for some people - if you had to change your plans because of our mistake we are sorry!

Queen's view, Loch Tummel - travelling around the country has it's bonuses!


Future Plans
We are still waiting for any news of the approval of my work permit. We can't book flights until the permit is in place, and we had hoped that by mid to late January, we would have tickets booked and dates set for travelling to Uganda. If there is anything we have learned over the last few months though, it is that God's timing is perfect, and we are sure that it will all work out. In the meantime we are adjusting our plans to match the situation. There are a few factors at play, including limited housing that will be available to MAF on our planned arrival date and the kids schooling (and whether they should stick to just 2 continents in one school year!). Taking all this into consideration, we are now planning on me travelling to Uganda myself when the work permit comes through, and then Heather and the kids will follow on once the school's finish for the summer. Maybe not a perfect solution, but probably best considering everything that is happening in our lives just now.

Even though we don't have a definite date for leaving, we have a little send off get together booked for early February. Andy and Kevin at the MAF-Scotland office have been a great support over the years and we appreciate Andy sorting everything out for a send-off / commisioning / social evening at the Costa Coffee shop in Cumbernauld's Antonine Shopping Centre before we leave for Africa. We would love to see as many of you as possible on the evening! Please put the following info on your calender!
Location:   Costa Coffee, Tryst Rd / Antonine Centre, Cumbernauld. (Just beside Tesco's!)
Date:   11th February 2014
Time:   7pm - 9pm

If you stay a little bit further north, we are also planning on having an evening in Pitlochry on 12th February, as an opportunity to say good bye to our friends there. It will most likely be an informal get together with coffee, tea and lots of opportunity to chat, but we haven't ironed out all the details yet - watch this space and we will update the blog when our plans are a bit more solid!

Having learned from last week's faux pas, here is an up to date list of where we will be for the next few weeks. It would be great to see you if you can make it!!

26th January - Crown Terrace Baptist Church - morning service 11am
29th January - Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh - midweek prayer meeting 7pm
11th February - Costa Coffee, Cumbernauld - 7pm - 9pm
12th February - Pitlochry - Details tbc
16th February - Dunoon Baptist Church - morning service 11am


Saturday, 18 January 2014

Change of details for tomorrow

Hi folks.  I know we had put on our schedule in December that we would be sharing at KBC tomorrow morning,  we were asked if we could share at the beginning of January instead.  Andy is now sharing at Forfar Letham &Dunnechan church tomorrow morning the 19th.  I will be attending KBC at 9.30 tomorrow morning with the kids so if you would like to please speak to me or contact us and we can hopefully arrange to meet at a different time.  We meant to update the blog before today  but completely forgot.  Sincere apologies.  If you were planning on coming to KBC tomorrow to hear us share,  please redirect the sat nav to Forfar ;0) Thanks
Heather

Friday, 3 January 2014

Happy New year!

We hope you all had a great Christmas and your start to 2014 has been a good one!

We have been enjoying the chance to spend some quality time with all our family after being away from home for the last 3 Christmases. We had Christmas with my family up in Gardenstown on the north-east coast,  and then saw in New Year down in Glasgow with Heather’s family.

Although my parents now live in Dunoon, my mum is originally from Gardenstown, and we were able to spend Christmas in the old family home, which having been in the family for generations is now a holiday let. It was a nice relaxing time, with no mobile phone signal, no internet and weather that stayed dry enough (if a bit cold and windy!) for us to get some walks along the shore and around the village. My mum had been brought up in that house, and for the first couple of years of married life mum and dad stayed there with my Granda and my Great grandmother. Myself, Heather and Eilidh even slept in the same room that I had shared with my parents for the first 10 months of my life! Below is a picture (left) of 3 of the 4 generations who lived there 36 years ago, with my Granda missing as he was behind the camera! The picture on the right is from this Christmas!! I really enjoyed the chance to reflect while we stayed there.


Now that we are back in Scotland for a while, I have been speaking at various churches about the work we are now involved in. One of the pictures I often use in presentations is of a particular DC-3 that Missionary Flights International used right up until very recently. It was a feature in the hangar in Fort Pierce, Florida when I was working there during my apprenticeship, and was a real encouragement to me when I realised that Les Brown had piloted this same plane across to the States back in the 80’s to start it’s missionary ‘career’ at MFI. (Les stays in Pitlochry, and was one of the people whose influence led us to joining MAF.) Even though Les might have looked at flying the plane to Florida as routine work for an experienced pilot, the legacy of that work and Les’s obedience to God, was being felt for decades after by people in Haiti and around the Caribbean who benefited from the support that MFI brought them.


All this reflection, and the fact that we have just finished 2013 has me thinking about the year just gone, and all that has happened. Here are a few of the highs and lows of 2013:

January: Unfortunately last Christmas came with more than its fair share of bugs, and I spent the whole of the Christmas break in bed. January was mostly spent recovering and getting back into a work routine.

February: This month’s highlight was a trip to Dryden Ontario to work with Northern Youth Programmes. My facebook status at the end of the trip said: Our last night in Canada, eh. Looking forward to seeing H and the kids again, but going to miss Dryden. In the last fortnight I have been to an ice hockey match, ridden snowmobiles, dug snowmobiles out of waist deep powder, driven on an ice-road, eaten walleye, deer and moose (all shot or caught on the property here), helped bore holes on the lake for ice fishing, milked a cow and re-skinned a 206 wing! My kind of fortnight!!


March: March in Ohio is generally still a bit on the cool side, so Heather especially was glad of the chance we had at the end of the month to pack the family into the car, lock the house up for a month, and set off south to Florida. As part of MMS’s training, apprentices spend a month or so working in an operational hangar with MFI before they finish the programme. Being gone for so long meant it was a good opportunity for the whole family to go and enjoy the experience!

April: Most of April was spent in Florida. It was great to work with MFI and be involved in everything they do down in that corner of the world. Working on the “flight line” is very different to working on the longer term projects that are normal at MMS, so it was good experience to get. As the whole family came with me this time, we were able to spend some time on holiday down there as well, checking off the usual tourist destinations!


May: At the beginning of May, Heather and I did a little sketch at a church family night (apparently we were the best fit for two Scottish rappers…) After 2 ½ years in America I finally had an excuse to wear my kilt!

June: The kids are on their summer holidays, and in Ohio, that means summer camps! Abi went to  Camp “Invention” where she learned all about how things work, and Matthew had a football (that’s soccer!!) camp which he enjoyed! Both kids enjoyed some swimming lessons, and we tried to squeeze in some family time too!


July: The 4th of July saw Eilidh celebrate her 1st birthday (and the rest of America celebrated along with her, if all the fireworks were anything to go by!!).  My weeks were filled with steadily building hours in the hangar and studying (a bit!!) for exams. At the end of July, we had a weekend away in Cincinnati, partly as a treat for our 10th wedding anniversary, partly as a nice family weekend away before Heather and the kids went back to Scotland for a while, and partly just because we needed a wee break! We didn’t see a huge amount of Cincinnati, but we enjoyed a good look around the Creation Museum!


August: Heather and the kids made the trip back to Scotland for 2 weeks to spend a bit of time with her family. It was a great break for them filled with special memories, which became even more precious later in the year. My time in Ohio was spent on finishing up in the hangar and preparing for my exams. I also managed to make a trip with some of the other MMS staff over to Smoketown, Pennsylvania to take part in their annual Missions festival at the airport. MMS were a featured organisation at this year’s show, and it was a great opportunity to speak to so many people about mission aviation, as well as to meet and catch up with lots of other people from across the mission aviation world.

September: The first half of September saw me completely immersed in exams and study, but thankfully I passed the last of them on 16th Sept and qualified as an FAA Airframe and Powerplant mechanic. A satisfying end to my 3 years as an apprentice at MMS, but tinged a bit by the thought that my time in the hangar there had come to a close. I really enjoyed working in Ohio, with some incredible guys - we made some lifelong friends there who were hard to say good bye to. The end of September was focused on preparing for Heather’s trip to Uganda. While she was gone, my mum took a trip over to help with looking after the kids, so we were able to enjoy some time with Granny about! We made a few day trips while she was there, and spent a bit of time exploring Amish country for one last time.

MAF-Uganda's hangar

October: This month started with Heather in Uganda for her look-see visit, looking at schools and housing in preparation for us moving over in 2014. It was a good trip with lots of confirmations that God is in charge of the plans! Heather came home certain that we would settle well there and excited about what our future holds. October also brought our last Coshocton County Fair, and with it the opportunity to say farewell to my very tired Toyota van which had been a faithful run-about for the last year. In true Dukes of Hazzard style, I entered it into the rough truck race, complete with custom Scotland flag paint job, finished high enough to win my entry fee back with a little more on top, and then run it until November when it made its last trip to the scrap yard! Win, Win!!

November: The most stressful month we have had in quite a while! Packing up to move house is stressful no matter what. The stress is multiplied when you move to a different continent. We tried to get rid of a lot of stuff before we left America, but there was quite a lot of stuff that we wanted to take with us to Uganda that is much easier to get in Ohio - trying to find the balance wasn’t easy, especially as we were saying emotional good byes to all our friends in the States at the same time!
The end of our time in America came with the sad news that Heather’s dad had passed away. Although he had been ill for some time, his death came as a shock to everyone. Thank you so much to everyone who prayed for us, and Heather especially, at this difficult time.


December: We're back in Scotland and enjoying catching up with friends and family. We are busy speaking at a number of new churches, although we have tried to keep December relatively free so that we can settle the family, and check off a few items on our list of optician, dentist and doctor appointments.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support during this last year! We are indebted to everyone who supports us in whatever way, and we appreciate you very much.

Watch this space to see what excitement the next 12 months brings!