A Week In Review

I really don't know where the week went. It was Monday and now it's Saturday. That's so weird. Let me try and recap the week.

Heather, Lucas, Les & Diane Visit MMS
Monday being a holiday, Tuesday was our Monday and on our Tuesday/Monday we were blessed to have visitors from California by way of north central OH. Heather and Lucas, her 1 year-old son, traveled out from Grass Valley, California to visit Heather's parents up in the Wooster, Ohio area.

Karen and I met Heather in Spring of 2008 during our two month trip to the Grass Valley area. Heather and her husband, Justin, are part of one of the young adult Bible studies we spent time with during our California trip. A year and a half after our trip west, it was such a blessing to have Heather come east for a tour of the mission and to bring her parents along, too. It was great to see Heather again, to see Lucas, who wasn't yet born during our trip out there, and to meet Les and Diane, Heather's parents.

It was a beautiful day for a tour, we had great fun sharing our ministry, and we even wrapped up the visit with lunch at China Buffet down at the bottom of the hill below the airport. Good food, good friends, good fellowship. Thank you Lord.

Since then, Heather and Lucas returned to California, we're now facebook friends with Les & Diane, and we just marvel at how God makes connections between His children! Heather, Lucas, Les, and Diane--we look forward to the next time the Lord allows our paths to cross!

Randy Pearson Visits
Randy is a long-time friend of ours and a former missionary pilot/mechanic in Indonesia. Randy's also an MMS Board member and is part of the leadership of our sending church (Karen's home church) in Lancaster, PA: Grace Church at Willow Valley. Karen actually knew Randy and Shirl before I did through her own worship and church activities at Grace.

Randy drove the seven hours out for the MMS Board meeting Thursday evening, stayed over night with us, and then spent Friday morning at MMS getting to know some of the guys in the hangar. We hope to spend a week or so in Lancaster, PA sometime before Thanksgiving. It's been quite a while since we've been back there and there are so many people we want to visit with!

Paul & Kristin Gettle Visit
I've worked with Paul & Kristin for nearly four years now. My first contact with them was as initial inquirers into possible apprenticeship with MMS, then as applicants, then approved candidates and, for the past three years, I've been their supervisor as they raised the financial support necessary to begin service with MMS.

Well, praise the Lord, Paul, Kristin, and their three boys were in town for the week looking for housing as they're at 100% support! They're signing a lease on a house and will return to Alabama to pack up all their household goods to make the move up to Coshocton.

It was fun to have Paul & Kristin over Friday evening for hot dogs, sloppy joe's, Karen's home made macaroni salad, ice cream, and a taste-off between the Wal-Mart brand "vanilla oreo" and the authentic Vanillia Oreo. It was unanimous that the Wal-Mart budget brand fell far short of Oreo's vanilla Oreo. In this instance, it pays to pay the extra money for the real thing. Not so with Dr. Thunder (Wal-Mart brand) vs Dr. Pepper. I'll go with Dr. Thunder in that face-off and save a few cents a can.

At The Mission
Things are incredibly busy at MMS. We have more airplanes than we can fit into three hangars, five aircraft projects underway, two engines are being shipped to different parts of Africa, and there are two more airplanes waiting for a spot in the schedule. We look forward to Paul & Kristin moving to the area soon and another new family, Mark & Jenny Beckwith, will arrive from England in two weeks to get ready for apprenticeship. Sometimes its hard to keep track of it all.

Thank you for your gifts and prayers which enable us to serve. Lord willing, we'll be taking some pictures for the next blog post!