Saturday at 368 McClain

We were blessed with an unstructured Saturday. Tanner and I got up early and took our customary 3 mile walk first thing. After it was coffee on the deck (warm sun, cool breeze) and study time. I'm currently working my way through three books: Abiding in Christ, The Complete Green Letters, and Spiritual Mentoring. Karen and I are leading the young adults through Abiding in Christ Sunday mornings.

After that Karen and I ran to Auer Hardware (I needed an exterior exhaust fixture for a fan I'm putting together to vent a small spray booth in the basement) and Aldi's (Karen needed two metal shelves that were on sale) and stopped by a friend's house to visit and play with their dog.

Coming home I put the vent on the fan assembly and then worked on missionary stuff (record keeping, note writing, emailing, support tracking) while Karen worked in the basement doing laundry, sorting "keep/don't keep" items, rearranging, and building then filling the two, 5 tier shelves from Aldi.

Once I finished the missionary stuff, I trimmed Tanner's nails, and headed outside to mow, edge, and trim the yard. Now it's time for dinner and a movie. We do Netflix which seems to serve us rather well.

Speaking of movies...we went on a "date" last night and watched our first 3D movie: Legend of the Guardians. It's that animated owl movie. The 3D effects were great and the computer generated images were fantastic but the story was really weak.

The movie seemed like a patchwork of Lord of the Rings, Finding Nemo, Surf's Up, and Star Wars....a lot of the movie reminded us of the other movies.. and if any one of those owls would have said, "gizzard" one more time I would have walked out. You know, like "trust your gizzard, boy" or "he has a lot of gizzard" or "may the gizzard be with you"... It was a certainly an enjoyable experience, but I wouldn't rush out to watch the film for the plot.

We did have dinner at Aunt Anne's Pretzels which is always fun. I'm a Pretzel Dog fan and coming from Lancaster, PA, Karen's a big pretzel fan.

Things up at MMS have been really busy, somewhat stressful, and everyone seems to be running flat out. The Cessna 337 is nearly finished and Williams Chang is bringing his King Air in on Monday for another "phase inspection." These are always an "all hands on deck" experience with lots of things to get done in a short amount of time.

Thanks for your prayers that enable Karen and I to provide the administrative support that keeps our mechanics focused on airplanes!

Video: A-10 Repaired and Returned to Service

The Air Force mechanics completed their repair of the hydraulic leak on the A-1o's left main landing gear late last evening. Before returning the aircraft to service they needed to test the repair by jacking the aircraft off the ground and then raising and lowering the landing gear.

When it came time to "swing the gear" the Air Force team honored MMS by inviting Dwight to conduct the test.

Air Force mechanics jack the A-10 off the ground.

Dwight prepares to raise and lower the landing gear.

MMS Hosts an A-10 Thunderbolt

It seems that after the airshow one of the Air Force A-10 Thunderbolts developed a hydraulic leak on its left main landing gear. Imagine our surprise when we came in Monday morning to find a ground-attack fighter inside Hangar C. Maybe I should say found it "filling" Hangar C.

The Air Force brought in a crew of mechanics to return the aircraft to service and they've been making the repair for two days now. This afternoon they hope to do a "gear swing" to test the repair and, if all goes well, return to their base.

Here's a video of the A-10 giving a flight demonstration Friday evening.

Here's the A-10 inside Hangar C.

Here's the A-10 outside the hangar.

If all goes well this afternoon, I'll be able to post the gear swing and maybe a departure video tomorrow. We'll see...

Birds of a Different Feather at MMS

Friday evening several "birds of a different feather" came to roost overnight in Hangar C. With "Wings Over Coshocton," the Coshocton County bi-annual airshow, kicking off the next morning, MMS opened Hangar C so the air show pilots could store their airplanes indoors. These aren't your typical missionary aircraft!

Prior to pulling their aircraft onto our ramp and positioning them in our hangar, each pilot flew a good portion of their aerobatic routine for a select audience of press representatives, VIPs and maybe a missionary or two who had chosen to hang around after hours.

The Air Force brought two A-10s as part of the show. We'll have more on the A-10 in tomorrow's post.

Dave Dacy's Super Stearman in action.

Super Stearman at Hangar C.

Iron Eagles in action.

One of the Super Christen Eagle 1 aircraft flown by the Iron Eagle Aerobatic Team taxis up to Hangar C.

Pitts Special outside Hangar C.

An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt takes off from Coshocton.

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Saturday's Final Salsa Session for 2010

It wasn't the largest producing tomato crop of the year but with all said and done, we did end up with 40 pints. We even did a little bit of pickling as well. We started early with the slicing, dicing, chopping, cleaning, and blanching. Everything went smooth and we even experimented with the third batch of the day. Short of tomatoes we added two cups of fresh peaches...left over from the peach jam session the night before. With all that taken care of we picked the remaining onion; jalapeno, banana, and bell pepper slices; and three cucumbers.

Crop on the counter.

Additional ingredients in the crisper.

The stove is ready to cook three batches of salsa.

Here's a clip of Karen in her Salsa Kitchen

Finished products.

We'll let you know how the peach salsa came out.

Home Made Peach Jam Before Salsa Session?

Karen's in a canning frenzy right now. Everything's ready to go for the last salsa session tomorrow and she's in the kitchen right now whipping up some fresh peach jam...oh man...

Karen gets organized

a little lemon juice on eight cups of fresh peaches

Eleven cups of sugar!!

And you have 13 half-pints of Karen's Penn State Peach Jam...OH YEAH...

The 2010 Salsa Season Draws to A Close

Well, it seems like the 2010 Salsa season is coming to a close.

With the nights getting cooler (44 degrees tonight) and the days getting shorter (dark by 8:00 PM) I harvested the latest batch tomatoes on Saturday, removed all the green tomatoes, and cut the plants back to the minimum branches to pump all the juice we can into the remaining tomatoes in anticipation of a final Salsa Session this Saturday.

Deep in the Side Street Salsa Garden going after the ripe tomatoes.

Taking a break while working the fields...

The crisper is almost full of tomatoes which is actually more than we had when we cooked up the first two batches two weeks ago so this could be a bountiful harvest after all. With 20 pints already put up, it'd be great if we could get 30 pints out of what we already have and what we'll pick this coming Saturday morning. We're having warm days with lots of sun which is good.

Lord willing, the last few tomatoes on the plants will ripen and be ready for the salsa pot by Saturday!

We will need to buy all the additional fixings except banana peppers. We still have a bunch of those, but as far as jalapenos, onions, cilantro, and bell peppers...we'll need to depend on the local grocer.

If you think of us this Saturday, you know where we'll be-- hard at work processing the final batches of Karen's Side Street Salsa for 2010. We'll keep you posted on the final pint count.

Preparing People for Worldwide Mission Service

As HR Director for MMS, I focus on the "preparing people" side of MMS' purpose statement: "MMS Aviation prepares people and planes for worldwide mission service. " Karen works closely with me through each evaluation and orientation.

In July, Karen and I oversaw a candidate evaluation of a family from South Carolina.

August 22-25 we oversaw the candidate evaluation of Geoff & Celia Linkleter. The Linketer's have a 3 year old daughter, Miriam. They're from England and are coming over as part of our training partnership with Mission Aviation Fellowship, United Kingdom. They did well through the evaluation and we accepted them for service.

Celia, Jeff, and Miram Linkleter.

Here's Karen keeping Miram company in the MMS conference room while Geoff and Celia underwent their final interview with the MMS Selection Committee (of which I'm part).

Once we finished with the Linkleters, the next week we rolled right into a special candidate orientation for a family entering service with Harvest Aviation down in Wachula, Florida. Seth, Lizzy, and Levi Canady came up to MMS from North Carolina. Harvest is a small mission (staffed with several MMS graduates!) and asked if we'd be willing to help them by taking the Canadys through our three-day support development seminar. We were glad to do so. Karen and I have done this for several smaller missions over the past few years.

This also provided Karen with some "infant time" as Levi Canady was only five weeks old! With Karen's background as an RN in obstetrics, this was right down her alley.

Karen and Levi in the receipting room at MMS.

During orientation: Lizzy, Seth, and Laurie (seated), Karen w/Levi, and me standing.

Laurie is a new addition to our orientation team. She's married to one of our staff and has a background in public speaking, story telling, and making presentations. She and I are working together to expand our orientation and help our candidates better learn the skills they need to effectively share the story of how God is working in their lives.

Now we're preparing for another candidate evaluation this month! The Wissmann family arrives for evaluation September 13-18. It looks like Karen might get some more infant time during orientation!

The Wissmann Family

Thanks for your prayers and gifts as we work with these young families to: 1) discern whether MMS is where they are to serve, and 2) to then orient them to begin raising their financial support.

The Ford Aspire Has Been Replaced!

Many of you were aware my little 1995 Ford Aspire had seen better days. We'd saved up a decent amount toward a dependable used car but in researching the market and determining an appropriate car, discovered that what we thought was a decent amount was about half of what we'd actually need. Just when we'd accepted the fact that we'd need to nurse the Aspire along for another year or two, a donor contacted us and gave a gift enabling us to have a local dealer (who specializes in finding cars for missionaries) begin looking for the right car at wholesale auctions.

Three months later the Lord provided the right car, at the right price, inside our budget! Special thanks to the special donor who helped met our need for dependable, long-term transportation! We continue to praise the Lord for His perfect timing in providing this car.

It's a 2008 Hyundai Hatchback with 24,000 miles on it. It's totally clean and has a bit more zip than the old Aspire. There's an amazing amount of room inside this little car. It's a 5 speed standard transmission with roll-up windows and manual door locks. I LOVE roll-up windows and manual door locks...and it's still under factory warranty for another three years!

I expect to be driving this car through 2025!

First Batch of Salsa in 2010

Things have been rather busy around 368 McClain these past few days. Let's get you caught up on the salsa story. Last Saturday's blog featured getting ready to make the first salsa batch of 2010. A week later we're just getting around to posting the pictures!

It wasn't a huge batch, only twenty pints all together but it's still TWENTY pints (which works out to about twenty weeks of salsa as I typically eat a jar a week). When cooking up the first eight pints we added 1/4 cup of finely chopped cilantro. The second eight we played it straight. The third batch we had more fixings than tomatoes (bell peppers, banana peppers, onions, and jalapenos) and so ran the four pints with half the tomatoes but the full complement of fixings and added a half tbsp of basil. Ever tried Italian salsa? That's kind of what the basil batch tastes like. It might make a very interesting pizza topping...

The raw materials of Batch A in the pot and on the stove.

The salsa kitchen with resident chili chopper and Cocker Salsa Cops.

Quality Control

Karen canning the salsa

Lord willing we're going to eke out another salsa session before the vines go bad and the weather goes cool. It's going to be close...it'd sure be nice to get another 20 pints put away.

Stay tuned to the blog. I hope to get everything caught up here over the next few days.