It’s been a
whirlwind of routine (is that a thing?) since we finished with Christmas and
started back to work. But the exciting stuff is happening at the hangar!
- Two of our
pilots have left for their Kodiak training in Spokane, Washington (at Spokane
Turbine Center). When they return in a few weeks, they’ll begin flying with the
training pilot.
- The training
pilot and his family have arrived and will live here for 6 months or so to get our
pilots trained and transitioned into the Kodiak.
- Josh and
another pilot are doing “observation flights” with the training pilot until the
other pilots return from STC. As you can imagine, the pilots have to take turns
training. While this is good because it means we have staggered the
experience/learning/training times, it means that Josh is ground-bound for a
while longer, yet.
- Kodiak #2 has
been cleared for it’s journey to Papua New Guinea! It has left Arizona and is
currently being outfitted and readied for it’s trans-Pacific flight. We expect
it to arrive here in about 2 weeks!
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| Kodiak #1 looks so nice in our hangar! Can't wait for #2 to join it! |
As you can see
there is a lot going on in the aviation department! New airplanes, new
training, new options for our tribal missionaries, and even a new tribal
airstrip in the works! God has provided so much and opened so many doors – and while
we can easily forget His goodness when things don’t look like we expected, we
are humbled and grateful for the blessings He continues to provide!
Now, in other,
less exciting every day kind of news…
We had a second
Christmas a little bit late. My siblings-in-law sent several gifts via another
missionary which arrived just after the new year. We did Christmas all over
again… we burnt candles, sipped hot chocolate, and had a wrapping-paper “snowball”
fight when we were done. And this time I avoided the emotional meltdown over
inanimate and everyday items that happened last time.
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| Me and Carla getting all of the kids sorted before getting their immunizations. Poor things don't know what is coming. |
The medical
clinic where I work had an immunization clinic for the kids in the surrounding
area. My job was to take down their initial information – name, age, and
village. They each got a card with the immunizations they would receive, and
then they went right down the line getting the shots they needed. In all, we
saw about 150 kids. Despite the normal kids-getting-multiple-shots crying,
everything went really smoothly and it was nice to be a part of keeping our
community healthy.
It’s been
raining steadily every day for a few weeks now. I’m not sure if we can
officially call the drought over – but I think it’s safe to say that the danger
we had before has passed. Gardens are growing again, and the river is back to
it’s normal levels again. It’s easy to forget what a blessing a tiny raindrop
is, until it’s not raining anymore!
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| Beautiful dahlia's are growing everywhere from all the rain! My friend Veronica brought these to me. |
Thank you for
continuing to pray for the aviation department here, especially as we have so
many exciting things coming up! It’s so much more fun knowing we have a great
community serving with us all around the world!
Labels: aviation, husband, josh and erin verdonck, missionary aviation, missionary life, new tribes mission, new tribes mission aviation, ntma, papua new guinea, quest kodiak