Exciting News! The Asas 206 Makes Its First Mission Flight Today!

I'm passing along a message from Rachel Joy, wife of Asas de Socorro Chief Engineer (and MMS grad) Ryan Joy, about the Cessna 206 we restored for them and which recently arrived at their base in Brazil.

Rachel has some exciting news to share--The 206 is to take off on its first mission flight today! From Rachel:

Hello All:

Ryan called home at 9am and all is set -- the new plane, soon to be PT-MMS, is in the water, fueled up and ready to take off for its first mission flight today from our base on the outskirts of Manaus. Tim is piloting the plane, this time headed over the Amazon, not the Caribbean! And Ryan is accompanying him!

Tim will do some training at the local airclub then they'll head to the Nhamundá River, where they'll pick up some missionaries in Kassawá, bringing them back to the city. If you want you can follow them on the SPOT at www.adsfrota.blogspot.com clicking where it says PT-MMS (novo avião). This is where I'll track them today! Lord willing, by 4pm, they will land back out at our hangar.

Hope to send you fotos from this first mission soon-told Ryan not to fall off the floats into the river with the camera!(He did that once a long time ago!) Ryan is excited to be able to participate in this first official mission flight for the new plane. Thank you all for the part you had in it!

Update to come. Working Together Till Jesus comes, Rachel

Lord willing, we'll have some of those photos to post soon!

38 Degrees and Rain: Post-Christmas Thoughts and Snapshots

Welcome to "Winter" in 2011...warm and wet. This is the warmest winter I can remember in the 15 winters I've experienced out here. I may even have to mow the lawn again...Of course, last winter was the coldest winter I remember (and one of the longest) so it seems it all evens out in the end.

Somehow another Christmas has come and gone...the speed at which life is passing is breathtaking, surprising, and at times...frightening. The less we have of time the more precious it becomes...but then in the context of eternity--what is time, really?

Time is one of God's graces in this fallen world as time has an end. One way or another this life WILL end. We will all run out of time on the face of this planet, time inside these bodies, and then real life begins free of time and free of disease, decay, and destruction (for some). Real life (for others) will be a shock instead of a reward. Either way, the new creation, the restoration process initiated by Christ's coming to Earth 2,000 years ago will be revealed to all, for all, and, after one final battle, will come into its perfect fullness.

And in the meantime we have symbols and shadows and glimpses...

Christmas is one such symbol, a shadow, a glimpse backward mixed with the promise of eternity future as our gift giving reflects the one True Gift...HOPE in the God-become-man, the promise of resurrection to a new life in Christ, reconciliation with God, and reward and release for those surrendered to Him.

Here are a couple snapshots of our own celebration this year.

Our $20 Christmas Tree bargain!

Tucker and Tanner receive their pre-Christmas-morning briefing: "No opening presents without permission!" "No growling or snarling at each other's presents!" "Remember, we kept your crates, so no ripping, tearing, shredding anyone else's gifts but your own or you'll find yourselves back in your cage"

Tanner likes to help by protecting EVERYONE'S gifts...

Tanner inspects the packages as part of his in-house security service.

Before any presents are opened, we always read the Christmas Story!

Tanner enjoys an edible canine Christmas Card.

Sometimes things get rather frenzied!

Tucker unwraps presents very carefully...

Christmas family portrait.

Thanks for your love, friendship, gifts, and prayers that enable us to celebrate Christ every day here in Coshocton County! May this New Year be one of Glad Tidings, indeed.

A Merry Christmas Celebration

The week before Christmas we were able to travel to Pennsylvania and enjoy celebrating Christmas with Karen's family. Four of the nieces and nephews weren't able to make it but we had a good crowd and a fun time. Here are some pictures of the evening. Merry Christmas!

Make your own free picture slideshow

Coshocton Flyer: November 2011

We're posting it a bit late...but here is our November 2011 Coshocton Flyer!

Depending on your computer, you may need to click on the image to open it and then right click to "view image" in order to enable the zoom feature...

Andy Swanson: MMS Apprentice Mechanic

Here's a video feature on one of our apprentice mechanics, Andy Swanson. Andy and his family are from Scotland and are missionaries with Mission Aviation Fellowship United Kingdom. We have the privilege of preparing each MAF UK's "engineers" for service on the mission field. I hope you enjoy Andy's perspective of apprenticeship.

Video: Mike & Isobel Dunkley

It's hard to believe but the whole video production side of my job has grown from ZERO in 2008 to nearly 50% of my time in 2011. And my knowledge of digital video shooting/editing/producing has grown from zero in 2008 to whatever minimal level of funcionality that currently exists which allows me to glue some pixels together and post them online with a bit of music and/or narration included. I NEVER would have thought I'd be doing what I'm doing. But isn't that how it is when we surrender our souls to Christ?

It's so interesting to see how my role at MMS has changed since my arrival in Coshocton back in February of 1997. There'll be more on my changing role in our upcoming newsletter.

But the video adventure continues with the audio side attracting a bit more of my interest...

Audio challenges aside, here's a short video feature I put together for Mike & Isobel Dunkley. Mike and Isobel have served as staff with MMS since 2005.I hope you enjoy your introduction to the Dunkleys!

Video: The RTS Flight of the Gabon 207

Here's the video of the Gabon 207's Return To Service (RTS) flight:

The Gabon 207 Returns to Service!

After seven months of restoration and repair, Steve Straw, Air Calvary's pilot, lifted the 207 into the perfectly blue sky over Coshocton this afternoon for the aircraft's initial flight. After testing every aspect of the aircraft's performance, Steve brought the 207 back to our hangar, loaded the last of his gear, and flew the airplane to Pennsylvania to share it with several church congregations.

Prepared for departure

Fueling up

Off to Pennsylvania

Next week, Steve will bring the airplane back to MMS and drop it off as he returns to Gabon ahead of the 207. Another pilot will fly the 207 to Kansas to be fitted with long-range fuel tanks for its own flight back to Gabon, Africa in the near future.

Lord willing, I'll be able to put some video of the flight together late next week.

Thanks for all your prayers, gifts, emails, and encouragements over this project. It's always a joy to see a badly damaged aircraft return to service in an "as new" condition.

A Saturday Report In Late October

The month of October is nearly over. Oh my. That's a bit hard to wrap my head around. The World Series is underway (or so I'm told). I realize the NFL has started playing games again but when your state is home to the Bengals and Browns...does the NFL really matter? And I've noticed the weather is getting colder, darker, and damper which means it won't be long before it's COLDER, DARKER, AND FREEZING.

So as the leaves fall from the trees, as the clouds come in to roost for the next six months, and we put a new filter in the furnace...we appreciate the few warm, sunny days left in 2011 by spending time on our back deck, which gets the full sun, and getting ready to augment the heat of our heater with a bit of real wood for the fireplace.

Karen and Tanner enjoy some fall sun.

I enjoy my one-day-a-year use of a man-tool.

Thanks for letting me borrow the saw, Tim!

The fall is a great time for reflection and I was blessed to get away on a personal retreat earlier this month to enjoy a long weekend of silence and solitude. Here are a couple snapshots of the scenery from one of the hikes I took as part of my retreat. If you haven't broken out of your routine for a while...I can't encourage you enough to get away, catch your breath, and to simply sit at God's feet. You'll be amazed at what He says...if you get quiet enough, long enough, to listen for His still, small voice.

Beginning of the trail

On the trail

Along the trail

Reflection

These are tiny, delicate flowers growing in the anarchy of a field of wild grass.

God's attention to detail is beyond our comprehension.

Hangar Snapshots And A Video!

Summer has temporarily returned to the Midwest with clear sky and temps into the 80's. It's kind of nice as the past weekend was wet, cold, and rather dreary. Right now there's blue sky as far as the eye can see and sun so bright you have to squint when going outside.

The trees have started to turn color with some gold and red leaves mixed in with the green. It gets very pretty up here when the trees reach peak color. Yes, we're officially in fall and it's a great time to have all the hangar doors open. They'll be closed long enough soon enough, I'm afraid.

Here are a couple snapshots of progress on the Gabon 207 and the Wings With The Word 402. Also, we sent another mission airplane back into service today, the Brigade Air 172.

The Gabon 207

The 207 is very close to flight. The wings are on, the control surfaces are hung, and the interior is being installed. Lord willing, it'll be back in the air over the next couple weeks.

Hanging one of the propellers on the Cessna 402

The Cessna 402

The Cessna 402 is back on its wheels, its propellers are in place, and is only a few more structural repairs away from rolling out into the sunshine and leaping into the sky.

Speaking of leaping into the sky...

Brigade Air's Cessna 172

Brigade's 172 was back in our hangar for annual inspection these past couple weeks. With the inspection completed the 172 is once again enjoying some air time.

Video
Here's my latest video project:




Have a great weekend, and thanks for your interest and involvement with us as we prepare people and planes for worldwide mission service.

Nine Years and So Happy (A Belated Posting!)

This week (August 22-25) marks nine years of marriage for us. What a blessing! Keith made it a very special celebration this year. We went out for a nice dinner and there, already sitting on our table, was this lovely flower arrangement! He had already been there, chosen our table and "planted" beautiful flowers! I was totally surprised and we enjoyed a relaxing and delicious dinner at the local Thomas' Steak House. That's the place we like to go for something special.

I asked Keith a funny question. Since we have two wedding anniversaries each year, can we call this our 18th anniversary? That's right, we have two wedding anniversaries! As many of you already know, our Ohio pastor and his family traveled with us to have our wedding ceremony on the beach at Kitty Hawk, NC on August 25th. However, since Pastor Chris didn't have his license to marry us in NC, we had an informal wedding celebration in their living room on August 22nd before we left! So, our marriage certificate says we were married on August 22nd with a note at the bottom that says, "and on August 25, 2002 at Kitty Hawk, NC"! So, guess that means we can celebrate all week!

Thank you for the love and encouragement through our years of dating and marriage. We are so blessed by all God has given us...each other, friends, family, work to do and strength and health to do it.

The Asas 206 Takes Off!

We're in an exciting time at MMS with three major projects all coming to completion within weeks of each other. The wings are going on the Gabon 207 so it can be ready to fly in October, the landing gear repairs are being completed on Wings With The Word's Cessna 402 so it can fly next month as well, and the amphibious Cessna 206 for use in Brazil by Asas de Socorro, is now flying!



It's fun to see the airplanes fly!

Heading Into Fall

Karen's spent the week in VA visiting with her sister, Brenda. Today she's headed into PA to take part in a baby & baby shower for her niece-in-law(?) Lina, married to Matt, Brenda's son. Matt & Lina are having TWINS! Karen's already made their baby blankets and crocheted them little baby baseball caps.

So I'm at home, shopping, busy doing laundry, and baking cookies (break & bake CC). I discovered one of our favorite regional ice creams on sale for half price at Bakers IGA, our locally owned grocery store!

Tucker and Tanner are sleeping in their beds. Tucker REALLY misses Karen. With the two Alpha Males (one human, one canine) running the show, she appears to be a bit intimidated.

Tucker

Tanner

But we're not doing too bad. I followed the instructions on the cookie dough, "cook for 10-11 minutes OR until golden brown" and kept putting them back in the oven for two additional minutes at a time because, they weren't "golden brown" yet. Well, believe it or not, cooking chocolate chip cookies twice as long as it says on the package STILL doesn't turn them "golden brown". They just immediately turn BROWN, DARK BROWN when you finally take them out of the oven. The second batch I cooked for 11 minutes and didn't pay any attention to the color. You know, the second batch looks like chocolate chip cookies. The first batch just looks like chocolate cookies...

And the laundry? I know enough to put the whites in one batch, the dark colors in another. Warm on the whites, cool on the colors...but the batch of whites was really small so I put the water level on "low." Good idea. But then on the second load, which was a FULL load of my shirts, I loaded up the soap and the clothes and the load...still on the "low" water setting.

When I went to move them to the dryer...they still really smelled of soap and just didn't feel right to an experienced laundry monger like myself. I threw them in dryer anyway and set the temperature to TOAST. I like my dry laundry DRY.

It was when I started the next full load of clothes that I realized the low water level setting...moving it to HIGH for this load I pulled everything out of the dryer and set it aside for a re-wash. No harm, no foul, just a few more gallons of water into the rinse cycle of life.

Thanks for your prayers as we fend for ourselves...Lord willing, Karen will be home on Monday!

Saturday Update, MMS, and Video

We were going to be visiting in VA this weekend but health issues with our host family and flood issues with other expected travelers from PA led to our staying in OH.

Karen's in the basement sewing. I'm upstairs in the "Cabana Room" typing. The Cabana Room is our little in home "hideaway" where we've created something of a soothing, tropical motif. It's kind of our own little indoor oasis where we can escape for some alone time...some clear head and heart time.

Geoff & Celia Linkleter
With our change in travel plans we were able to get up this morning and welcome Geoff, Celia, and Miriam Linkleter to the United States. The Linkleters are the latest family to come over from England for apprenticeship with MMS. They're staying a few doors down while they locate long-term housing.

We took them on short walking tour of the neighborhood to include: Collins Market (our local, old-style, still has a real butcher, family market), the Farmer's Market at the Coshocton County Fair Grounds, and the Cheese Cake and Old Fashioned Donut Shop just across from the fair grounds. Now there's the ticket...homemade cheesecakes AND some of the best donuts in Coshocton County all under one roof.

Miriam, the Linkleter's 4 year old daughter enjoyed a popsicle from the market and an M&M cookie the size of a manhole cover from the cheesecake/donut shop. It was sunny then, but now it's clouded over cooling things down to the low 70's with a cool breeze.

Jake & Cayton Heath
At MMS, I was excited to call Jake & Cayton on Thursday to give them the go-ahead to make their move to Coshocton in December. Jake & Cayton have spent the past two years raising the financial support necessary to begin apprenticeship with MMS and are finally at the point where they can start packing their gear to make the move from Redding, CA to Coshocton, OH.

They'll arrive fresh from California just in time to experience their first Midwestern winter. Considering they intend to ultimately serve with a mission agency in Florida...they'll need to benefit from every REAL winter they have a chance to endure.


Candidate Evaluations
Last week I was also pleased to confirm two upcoming candidate evaluations. The Pottners (Wisconsin) will spend a week at MMS in October and the Everts (Ohio) will spend a week at MMS in November during which I'll oversee their evaluation as apprenticeship candidates.

Video Production
I'm still working video production into my MMS routine as able. It's amazing to me how long it takes to shoot, edit, sound track, title, narrate, and produce even a one minute clip. While video is a nice distraction from my otherwise steady diet of administrative duties, it does present its own challenges. The learning curve never stops, and I now have two computers in my office. One for my administrative responsibilities and the other for all the video work.

Speaking of video...here's the latest clip I put together. No narration in this one, just a sound track and titling. I hope you enjoy it.

Home-Front Update

Labor Day Greetings from Coshocton, Ohio, where the weather is finally a bit cooler and the moisture from Irene floats overhead.

It's so hard to believe it's already September and that Fall 2011 is on our doorstep. We certainly won't mind the cooler weather after slogging and sweating our way through this past summer.

Pepper Relish & Salsa
Believe it or not, we actually were able to cobble together a few pints of salsa from our garden after all though we ended up focusing more on making relish by picking the green tomatoes that weren't going to make it to ripeness before rotting.

We were also blessed to have one of the MMS families donate two batches of tomatoes to us. So, thanks to Mike and Isobel, our salsa season wasn't a total bust. But because our peppers also failed so miserably we were blessed to support the local farmer's market to supply what we needed to go with the tomatoes.

Preparing to slice and dice green tomatoes, onions and Bell peppers for relish.

Karen loads up the relish jars.

Home Project: French Drain
To help pull water away from our house I recently installed a french drain. When heavy rains coupled with already saturated ground, sometimes we'd have some water weep into our basement. The drain eliminates the "ponding" that used to occur along the sidewalk beside our house and directs the runoff down over our berm and into the street. It's been tested several times since I dug it in and it's working great!

Cutting the sidewalk concrete.

Placing the pipe in position.

Local Flora & Fauna

A bumble bee enjoys one of our Purple Hyacinth Bean flowers.

Another bumble bee enjoys one of our Mexican Daisies.

While our veggies didn't do all that well, our flowers along the deck have thrived creating quite the gathering place for friendly honey bees, butterflies and bumble bees. With our little bird feeder nearby and a couple families of Cardinals nested across the street (and rabbits and squirrels and a neighborhood skunk) there's always some sort of suburban wild life activity going on around here.

In fact, Mr. Skunk and I had a close encounter early the other morning when I stepped off the front porch on my way to the mission as he came around the corner of our walkway from behind the bush and we both ended up trying to occupy the same piece of cement. There was all of 18 inches between his nose and my left ankle.

He was caught by surprise as much as I was and I graciously offered my verbal apology for disrupting his (her?) morning rounds, slowly stepped out of his path, and gave him the right of way. The skunk accepted my apology with great aplomb, gave me a nod, and continued on his pre-dawn journey across our front flower bed and beyond...

The STC Kodiak Visits MMS

Spokane Turbine Center's Kodiak arrives at MMS.

Last week there was an air of excitement around the hangar as Spokane Turbine Center brought their Quest Kodiak in for a visit. After spending the weekend at Missions Fest, in Lancaster, PA, as part of a missions display, the STC crew stopped by our hangar facility to renew relationships, tour the facility, and provide flights for MMS personnel and family.

STC provides flight training for Kodiak operators and provides mission-specific training for mission aviation organizations around the world. We partner with STC through providing maintenance on their Kodiak when they're in the area.

The Kodiak is the first airplane designed by missionaries for mission aviation and is a unique blending of high technology and real-world utility. More and more mission agencies are purchasing Kodiaks in order to put them to Kingdom work in some of the most remote and challenging locations in the world.

Through STC's generosity, many of our families were able to enjoy their first flight in a Kodiak. Thanks, STC!

Some of our family members prepare for their flight.

The Kodiak exits our ramp for the active taxiway.

STC's Kodiak takes off.

The Kodiak, coming soon to a mission aviation program near you!