April 2021

Meeting needs without SPAM

(above) day one of hiking, before our smell caused social distancing.

Hiking is overrated. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy hiking, but I just find it overrated. Hiking is just walking on dirt for hours on end with little water, TP, and way too much SPAM. I know that there are beautiful overlooks and bonding times around the campfire, but all of these things can be recreated at a campground or a hotel with a space heater.
Last fall my friends and I partook in the age-old quest to venture into the woods for no reason and after three days of personal fermentation, we left dehydrated, dirty, and tired. We hiked on a trail named North Fork Mountian Trail, and admittedly, it was beautiful, and I truly did have a good time.

In March, a friend of mine asked me if I would like to fly in his small Cessna from Coshocton (where MMS is located) to pick up his wife in Virginia. The flight was smooth as silk, and about 45 minutes in, we flew over the same trail my friends and I hiked last fall. I looked down to see if I could spot any stinky, smelly, and thirsty human beings below, simply to wish them well as I drank from my ice-cold water, in my freshly cleaned shirt. Flying is simply better than stinking and eating SPAM.

At the end of April, I will be part of a team headed to Zambia to perform what MMS calls a “Rapid Response trip”. Flying Mission (yes that is their name, and I love it) is in need of some urgent avionics upgrades to their Cessna airplanes. This is no small task, and Flying Mission reached out to MMS for help. Our MMS team leader, Mike Dunkley, has years of avionics experience and was just this year voted the FAA mechanic of the year. HE IS THE BEST PLANE FIXER UPPER IN ‘MERICA!

I am really excited about this trip. Flying Mission’s focus is to aid in building the local church and supporting bush clinics in rural Zambia. To aid in the work of meeting people’s Spiritual and medical needs is one of my passions, and that is why it might appear as a recurring theme in my newsletters. The road conditions in rural Zambia are improving, but journeys that can take days by ground, can be done in only hours by air. Air travel makes it possible for teams of visiting medical specialists to maximize their time in Zambia. The roads also have a nasty habit of taking out suspension when you least expect it, which is a bummer. Flying is simply better than being broken down along the road, car parts exploded in every direction.

So please pray for us, and pray for Maria and the children as they stay in Coshocton. Drop her a text, or send her a cake, or whatever people normally do. Just please don’t send SPAM.

Quick update about the end of February, March, and the beginning of April

My current project at MMS is the overhauling of an engine for “Pilots for Christ” This engine is the one installed on an aircraft called a Bonanza, pictured above. Overhauling an engine is a long process, but when done correctly should allow the engine to fly safely for the next 264,000,000 engine revolutions. In addition to overhauling the engine, I had to make custom engine mounts for our test stand. It felt really good to do some steel fabrication again like I use to do at my old job.

Pilots for Christ flies sick patients around the USA free of charge, and it is an honor to be able to overhaul this engine for them.

We got a zoo membership at the Columbus zoo. So now many a beautiful Saturday is spent walking among the fascinating critters there. Freddie saw that they had a train there, and from that moment on he was single-mindedly focused on getting a ride aboard. The 30 min wait was “worth” the 3 min ride 🙂 Aira loved the goats in the petting area. Maybe because she identities so much with them. They, like her, eat almost anything that can fit in their mouths, and they, like her, tend to smell a lot.

We got our first camping trip in for the year. We are a camping family. Campers are an interesting group. Some people have large 200 ft. RVs with seventeen slideouts and an inground pool. Meanwhile, others are of the hard-core crowd that only take a tarp and knife to the forest. We are somewhere in the middle, and no matter how you camp, burning marshmallows with your children is a great experience.

BABY WATCH:
Maria is doing well with this pregnancy, but she does feel slightly sicker. It is my hope that that sickness is a sign of twins. Maria does not have the same hope.

Prayer
Pray for the team of us headed to Zambia. We will need a clean Covid test three days before we leave, so please pray that they all come back negative. We are planning on leaving April 22nd
Pray for Maria and the children as I am gone for three weeks on this trip.
Pray that Maria and I will know how to reach out to our neighbors here in Coshocton. There is hopelessness in Coshocton, and pray for us as we share the hope of Christ with our neighbors.

Praise
Praise that Maria is feeling better. She is feeling way better now that she is past the first trimester.

Till next tme,