The Repair That Wasn't

After I returned home from an enjoyable fellowship breakfast with "the men," Karen and I organized our gear and hauled the new-school hardware out to the garage to finalize a plan to repair the top, right roller on our old-school wooden garage door. Everything hinged (no pun intended) on the new roller fitting in the old track.

Here's the old roller.

You may notice the wheel isn't perpendicular to the shaft or in-line with the track any longer. This can make for some exciting moments as I manually lift, raise, and push the door up into the open position and gently lower it back to the ground. Of course, if the wheel does finally separate from the shaft...things will happen kind of quick as that roller is the sole support for the door on the right side.

We had several repair ideas in mind and were rather confident that we could pull something together that would extend the life of the door a little bit longer, but as we spread out the "maybe this could work" hardware and sized the new "standard" roller with the old style "non-standard" roller and track...it was apparent the new roller was too large for the old track. No roller, no repair, no joy.

With the overall condition of the wooden garage door, the fact that no one makes hardware to fit it anymore, combined with the reality that all the other components are worn out as well, it proves to be more cost effective to "spring" for a new door. Get it? Spring? Garage doors have springs...

Lord willing, we'll have a light-weight aluminum door installed before the end of the month. And that will be a blessing.

Blue Sky Outside, Prepping the 182 for Paint Inside

With a fresh inch of snow on the ground today and flurries continuing on and off, tomorrow may be the first day in several where snow doesn't fall. But then there's supposedly a new storm building in the Gulf of Mexico that will swing north and then northeast crashing into the Jet Stream and by Monday we could be back in it all over again. We'll see. There are still many people in Coshocton County without power from the last storm. The snow was drifting with the strong winds we had. It was kind of nice to see some blue sky between the flurries.

Alaska or Ohio?

The Moody Aviation 182 restoration project continues to move ahead. With the new windscreen installed, the fuselage is getting taped and prepped for paint. The wings and control surfaces were painted earlier this month.

Scott tapes the 182 fuselage.

David removes paint from one of the 182's doors.

Latest Home Repair Project

On the home-front, it looks like I'll be out early for a men's breakfast and then return home to attempt a repair on our old-school, real wood, lift-it-up-by-raw-muscle-while-you-grunt style garage door. Trust me, they don't make them like THAT anymore! Praise the Lord I had my hernias fixed a year and a half ago.

The one top roller is 95% off the shaft in the rail and when it finally goes, the whole door comes down (like it did a week ago while I was under it but Tim arrived home across the street just as I was doing my "Atlas" impersonation under the door with nowhere to go but down and helped me reposition what was left of the roller back up in the rail). Of course you can't even order hardware for a door that old...but I have a plan...as crazy as it might be...I have a plan. We knew when we bought the house six years ago that the garage door needed to be replaced and, Lord willing, I can fix the door to the point that we can get several more weeks out of it.

Now, where did I put that duct tape?

Pre-Service Orientation, SOPs, and the 182

After a snow day yesterday, everyone returned to the hangar today driving on an inch or so of ice. The road up the hill to the airport wasn't in great condition, but it was good enough to make it to the top with minimal slippage.

I spent the day administering the first of two days of "pre-service" orientation to Andy Porter. Andy is our newest apprentice in partnership with MAF-UK. You might remember his evaluation visit as mentioned in a previous post from last June. Lord willing we'll finish the administrive portion of his orientation tomorrow and he'll be ready to begin his hangar orientation on Monday.

Here I am with Andy in the MMS conference room this afternoon.

Karen was in helping me today. She continued updating the world wall map of airplanes we've serviced, rapid responses we've made, and graduate prayer cards and pictures; organized and mailed program information packets to interested individuals; updated several SOP manuals, and handled related emails.

Karen updates an SOP manual.

And in the hangar, progress continued on the Moody 182. In the morning, Chuck and Gertjan removed the old windscreen and prepped the airframe for a new windscreen. This afternoon they installed the windscreen in place and began the process of riveting and securing it in place.

Gertjan works outside the fuselage while Chuck
works inside to secure the new windscreen in place.

Thanks for your gifts and prayers which make our service possible. We're thankful for each one of you and trust you feel very much a part of our ministry! Please leave a comment if you'd like. It's always encouraging to hear from you.

Snow Snapshots

The winter storm did hit...with snow, freezing rain, sleet, rain, slush bombs, then more snow as the temperatures dropped again. It's always a bit worse when it's 30 degrees and raining...and then it snows several more inches on top of that.

With everything sheet-ice this morning, and the county at a level-two snow emergency, with the airport shut-down, and most businesses, MMS was also closed. Karen and I worked at home for the day. The storm appears to be over so we'll give MMS another try tomorrow. Lord willing, the main roads are in better shape than our neighborhood streets are...

Here are some snapshots from this afternoon:

Our barrel in the front yard.

Looking at our neighbor's yard across the street.

Looking next door across our back yard

Our clothes line

And when snow is falling, Karen is baking!

Hangar Update & Weather Report

While Karen and I were working in our basement last week, work continued to move forward at MMS with three aircraft projects. In fact the Honduran 206, the Brazilian 206, and the Moody 182 fuselages are all being prepared for paint.

The Brazilian 206 is in the foreground, the Moody 182 in the background.

The Honduran 206

First, all three fuselages were relocated in Hangar A. After the initial paint removal came the detailing. After detailing came the pressure-washing. After pressure-washing came the etch and Alodine process which readies the aluminum for new paint.

David uses a dental pick to carefully remove paint around rivet heads.

Scott hits the Brazilian 206 fuselage with the high-pressure washer.

The Moody 182 after etch, Alodine and final rinse

It's a labor intensive, time consuming process requiring pains-taking detail work to find and remove every fleck of paint around each rivet head, in each corner, along every seam, and on every external surface.

But it's time well spent in doing the job right. We desire to make every effort to ensure that the result of our work not only meets our own standard of professionalism, but more importantly also pleases our Lord whom we serve, and the missionary organizations we support.

Weather Report
Can it really be a blog without a weather report from Ohio? We're under another winter storm watch for the next 24 hours. We received an inch of fresh snow this morning and then had another inch fall since I left the mission and it's still coming down. Temps aren't bad. It's a warm 23 right now.

Vacation's Over and We're Back on the Blog

We had a great vacation in our basement. Really. It was great. We recommend it for all you married folks out there. Go in to your basement for a week and only come up to eat and sleep. Your marriage will never be the same. Ha!

All kidding aside, that pretty much was our schedule for the last week. But taking the week off allowed us to accomplish quite a bit toward de-junking and organizing our basement. We carted things off to Goodwill, we carted books off to the library, we carted things out to the trash, we repaired, we built, we moved, we organized, we sorted, we dreamed, and we made a couple new plans. We did keep the dogs.

It feels good to get organized. There's something spiritual about establishing order from chaos. First the basement, then the garage, then our lives...

I was even able to build a workbench and creat a Man Corner in the basement. That's an idea that took six years to come to fruition. All in the Lord's time I guess.

If you'd like to see additional photos, click here.

There's still plenty to do down there. Especially in the category of sorting nuts, bolts, washers, screws, cotter pins, and other hardware odds and ends accumulated over the years, but praise the Lord we have another week of vacation in February! Will we spend that week in the basement too? Stay tuned!

Blog Vacation

I'll be taking a vacation from blogging this week. Lord willing, I'll pick up new posts sometime next week!

A Lap-full Of Cocker Spaniels

We're taking it easy today on the front-end of a week's worth of "stay-at-home" vacation. There's still plenty of snow on the ground though we're in a heat wave of sorts with the temps climbing into the mid 20's for the next couple of days.

The plan for next week is to finally tackle a project we've intended to address for the past six years: cleaning out and straightening up our basement. It's not like it's a total wreck or anything, but Karen's and my theme for this year is "Clean Out in 2009" and the basement is a wonderful place to start.

Our "Clean Out" theme isn't limited to just physical stuff...it's inclusive of our daily lives and our spiritual walk in Christ. It's time to get rid of the junk, lighten the load, clear some space, and remove the weeds blocking our path. We hope to look at every item, determine why we have it, and decide whether it or not we need to keep it. And if we're keeping it...for what purpose is it being kept? False hopes, old dreams, distractions, fears, and worries with whom we've become friends...out, out, out. It it's not moving us forward, it's holding us back. Out, out out.

Please pray for us in this process and, if you're ready, join us in it!

Winter Scenes of MMS

I thought you might enjoy some of winter snapshots of MMS I took earlier this morning.

MMS Hangar facility and parking lot.

The main entrance to MMS.

Looking past Hangars A & B to Hangar C.

Looking back along Hangars A & B.

Facilities Manager Dave Shelly plows snow from the ramp in front of Hangar C.

Dave Shelly at 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

As an update, it's currently nine degrees with a high forecast for tomorrow of 7. It is a bit cold out there right now.

Last Week's Winter Storm Hit Today

The snow started falling this morning and hasn't stopped. We had six inches on the ground by the time I made it home from the shop. What's nice about this snow is it's actually "nice" snow. It's not the more typical Coshocton County snow which (in this native Californian's opinion) could be placed in the "bad" snow category.

Nice snow falls gently, stays white and clean and fluffy, is easy to drive on, light to shovel, and tastes good.

Bad snow (more typical around here) is wet, packs instantly to ice, is usually followed by rain the then ice and then a freeze before more snow, is treacherous to walk or drive on, is difficult and heavy to shovel, and tastes like either the local paper mill or the coal-fired power plant.

Here is "nice" snow falling at MMS earlier today.

One thing about snow is that Tucker and Tanner really enjoy it. It was getting dark by the time we made it outside so the video is dark as well, but I tried to capture some of their excitement in this clip.

Tanner and Tucker have a romp.

Our high temp tomorrow is forecast to be 11 degrees and Friday's high is supposed to be 9 degrees. Compared to our friends up north, we're in a heat wave. A bit of advice to all our friends in California and down Georgia and Florida way...remember to put on your sunscreen and wear a wide-brimmed hat.

Monday On Top Of The Hill

While the big winter storm didn't hit Coshocton, it wasn't exactly summer around here over the past couple days. We did receive an inch or so of snow on Friday, it rained nearly all day Saturday, Sunday it started to snow in the afternoon and it kept up overnight to deposit another inch on the icy layer below. More snow showers are predicted through the week with overnight temps dropping to the single digits as the week progresses.

As I look to summer I appreciate how nice it will be to not have to dress in four or five layers of clothes every day. But then, if you watch the football playoffs on TV, maybe all we really need to wear in this weather is a coat or two of black and gold colored paint. Maybe silver and green. Maybe not. I vote for layers of clothes over layers of paint.

Karen and I are off to Columbus airport in a few minutes to pick up Andy Porter, our newest MMS apprentice. Andy's from England and serves with MAF-UK. He came over in June of last year for a week of evaluation and then we spent a week with him over in England in July as we went through the MAF orientation course. Check out our July archives for related stories and photographs.

Over the next three weeks, Karen and I will work to help Andy adjust to the local culture and prepare for hangar service. We look forward to having Andy as part of the MMS team for the next thirty months.

Proverbs 31 Woman

Here's a photo of my Proverbs 31 woman down in the basement rewiring one of the living room lamps. Me? I'm more oriented toward "keeping the economy moving" by going out to buy a new lamp. Karen's all about first trying to keep our economy at home. Amen! She is a wise and talented home manager.

Karen rewires a lamp.

Sandwiches, Service, Exercise and The Ultimate Meal

Karen and I enjoyed another day of serving together at MMS today.

My day started with a meeting with Dwight. Karen came in around ten after picking up the MMS mail. After my meeting with Dwight, I came up with a summary of yesterday's SMT meeting and transcribed the minutes from the meeting, handled emails, took photos, wrote the post for the MMS blog, and as the afternoon came to a close I dumped the trash, vacuumed the carpet and cleaned the restroom on the administrative floor. Fifteen years of experience as a school custodian prior to moving to Grass Valley and then Coshocton continues to pay off.

One thing I'm really missing is the exercise of riding my bike to the shop. Since the weather's too funky and cold to ride, I've committed to walking two miles with Tanner every day as soon as I get home (weather and schedule permitting). I didn't waste any time getting out there today as we're under a winter storm warning for the next 24 hours. An inch of snow is already on the ground.

Tanner and I head out for our walk in the falling snow.
He loves to eat the snow.

Dinner tonight is one of my favorite missionary meals in the whole world. Hot dogs. All beef. Is there any other kind? Over my many years of perfecting the art of hot dog dressing...I've recently come across a new combination that is working wonders for my palate. I cover the bottom of inside of the hot dog bun with Salad Dressing, slather the top with Wasabi mustard, nestle the hot dog in between the two and then cover it with a hot-pepper relish made by Cindy, one of Karen's freinds in PA. Oh man... is your mouth watering like mine?

Have a great weekend! We'll see how much snow is on the ground in the morning.

Karen's Komments: Got Mail?

During the usual work week at MMS someone stops daily at the post office to bring the MMS mail up to the hangar. Two days a week that somebody is me. It's always a blessing to find a full mail box. There is just something nice about hearing from folks you know, don't you think? At MMS we have the added blessing of receiving mail that contains the support that folks send to keep MMS, and each of its families, serving to further the Gospel. Every day that mail gets opened, date-and-deposit stamped, and sorted according to the donor's preference for their gift. In a usual week, Rena does that job on Tuesdays. On Fridays I do.

However, this was no USUAL week. With the new year comes a different routine. But,then again, it's not really routine at all! Having agreed that none of us would go in to MMS to sort mail during the ten days that MMS was shut down over the holidays, we had a "Santa-sized" load of mail when we returned on Monday!

This happens every year so we expected it. I grabbed my great big ragged LLBean canvas bag and headed for the post office. As I checked through the envelopes in our over-stuffed box one gentleman looked over and said to his friend, "I'm glad I don't have to sort through THAT mess!" I looked over and with a smile replied, "It's all good stuff". His friend looked at me, (having seen the address on the envelopes) and said, "MMS Aviation?" I nodded and he replied with a wink. It's nice when you find someone in our little town who understands and appreciates the ministry of MMS.

Well, getting on with my story--with my canvas bag so full its very structural integrity was in question, I arrived at the mission and Rena was waiting as promised. Sorting this much mail takes more than one of us! So we thought up a plan of attack and started in, chatting all the while about what our Christmas celebrations were like. Before noon we felt like we had it pretty well on the way when Chuck walked in asking, "Where should I put this?" Chuck was holding a white corrugated box that had a familiar look to it. I'd seen them before. It was another large postal container! Recovering from the shock, Rena and I asked, "What's in there?" As it turns out, the MMS post office box had gotten so full over the break that the postman filled a bin with the REST of the mail and so kindly delivered it in his truck. WOW! The blessings were overflowing!

After about 4 hours we got the mail sorted. By Friday, Rena and I should have all the gifts entered in the computer and be caught up and back to receipting two days a week as usual. It's a fun week really. Fun to see the Lord's blessing on His work at MMS, fun to see the familiar names who are the faithful in giving, fun to see the names of those who have given special year-end and Christmas gifts and fun to be at the hangar refreshed and catching up with everyone after the break.

Rena and I working on sorting mail.

On Thursdays I change my focus at MMS from accounting to Human Resources. I'll get back to catching up with receipts tomorrow but today, as every Thursday, I was the HR assistant. This is still a fairly new role for me and I'm still learning. So far I help Keith with keeping statistical worksheets, answer requests for information about MMS, answer the phones, and write thank you notes for the organization. I also track support for those raising support to come to MMS and send them the information so they know who has made pledges, and help Keith with orientations and interviews and whatever else comes up that needs doing. I love being able to serve side by side with Keith. It's truly a blessing. Many have said that working with your spouse can be challenging if not down right dangerous but Keith and I have not found that to be so. We look forward to the days we are both working in the office.

Copying the pages for the MMS Ministry Information Manual.

Binding the information manuals.

So, that's my week. What have YOU been up to since the holidays have passed? I hope you are finding that your days are full of the joy of the Lord as you walk with Him. He is so faithful!

The New Year Continues

Time is really slipping away. I can't believe it's already Wednesday. I joined facebook over the weekend. The learning curve is proving to be substantial and fills the evenings as I develop my page, make contacts, and learn all the various aspects of the application. I can see where it will be quite a tool as we continue in ministry, nurture existing relationships, and develop new relationships. It is a great way to stay in touch with a large group of friends without having to travel beyond the keyboard. I look forward to how the Lord is going to use it in our ministry.

It's been the normal start to a new year at MMS. The guys in the hangar spend the first couple days counting all the parts, raw materials and supplies. Then we spend most a day, like today, reviewing our SOP manual page by page. It's a good process, it facilitates communication, and also provides the opportunity to discuss and make changes where changes are necessary.

Karen's been very busy at MMS this week but I think she's going to blog about that tomorrow evening.

Administratively, things are always busy and transitioning from one year to another always has its challenges. A couple exciting things on the horizon: 1) We'll pick Andrew Porter up at the airport next Monday. Andy is the next apprentice to come over from MAF-UK, and 2) in March Bat-enkh Lkhamsuren is coming back over from Mongolia to stay with us for a month. Bat lived with us for six months in 2004 in preparation to test for his mechanic's certicate. He serves with Blue Sky Aviation over there. It will be fun to have Bat-enk back with us.

We're looking at a week of snow flurries. We had some freezing rain yesterday and sleet and snow today. There's about an inch on the ground right now.

We had a really good worship team practice tonight. The song set is powerful and we're familiar with the music so it's going to be fun, fun, fun.

We'll, it's time for us to call it a night. Thanks for praying and paying for us to serve. We couldn't be here without you being there. May God's blessings be upon you.

Red Green Construction Project Part 2

The weather on Sunday was really terrible so we had to wait until this afternoon to take the photos of the completed, new and improved dog ramp.

It may not look like much, or it may look like too much...but it is what it is and it's working, so we're calling it good. However, for this really to be a true Red Green Construction Project, I am going to need to work in some serious amounts of duct tape, some automotive parts, something from the kitchen, and maybe a golf club or two...

Hope and Karen by the newly walled ramp.
Tanner is exiting the ramp.

Hope safely travels up the ramp to the deck.

Looking up the ramp with Tucker and Tanner at the top of the chute.

Red Green School of Construction Part 1

Welcome to the new year and the first Red Green School of Construction project for 2009: turning our dog ramp into a cattle chute. No, we haven't traded Hope, Tucker, and Tanner in for cattle, but all things said and done, I think the newly modified ramp does look a little like a cattle chute. But that's getting ahead of the story.

Hope's hips have become a bit more problematic in that her hind legs sometimes get crossed and she trips herself. She's 14 years old, grey around the muzzle, harder of hearing, and we think harder of eyesight lately. But we'll all probably be that way to when we're the equivalent of 98 years old.

Thursday night Hope went down the ramp into the yard. Unfortunately on her return trip up the ramp her hind legs got crossed and she fell off the ramp. This was the first time that had ever happened. We heard her hit the house and rushed out to her aid. We helped her regain her wits and catch her breath before leading her out and guiding her safely up the ramp and into the house. Nothing was hurt except her canine sense of decorum.

So Friday I was off to Coshocton Lumber to buy the wood necessary to raise the sides of the ramp from six inches in height to 36 inches to prevent any further falls. It took me all the afternoon and into the dark to get the rough (and I do mean rough) construction pulled together. Lord willing, I'll post pictures of the "finished" product tomorrow.

Sizing up the project.

Cutting the OSB sheeting.

Would you trust this guy to work on YOUR dog ramp?