The Weekend Arrives

At The Shop
This past week ended up being something of a blur. Maybe you can relate? Karen worked three days up at the hangar last week. Those three days were very helpful to me as our CEO, Training Manager, and Director of Office Administration were all out of the office.

I spent the bulk of my week working with three of the four families who are raising support to begin service with MMS. Part of my responsibility is to supervise their support raising process. The fourth family is being supervised by MAF-UK. It's exciting to be able to have a direct role in helping them build the relationships necessary in order to serve as missionaries. Thank you for support of us which allows us to train and supervise others in raising their own support.

Recruiting was another main focus of my week. While we don't actively "recruit" folks for MMS (we trust God to lead the right people to us), another of my responsibilities is to facilitate the information flow, and provide direction and counsel, to those around the world who've expressed an interest in serving within mission aviation either as pilot/mechanic or as a maintenance specialist. I'm in contact with about fifteen people in that status right now.

Should that interest turn into opportunity, I'm the one responsible for scheduling and overseeing the application, evaluation, and orientation process for candidates. We currently have two candidate evaluations scheduled: one next week for a couple from Tennessee and one in early September for a couple from California.

In between were the daily meetings, emails, phone calls, tours to lead, photos to take, the MMS blog to write, and a new organizational table-top display to complete.

At Home
We're still adapting to life without Hope (Karen's furry friend of 15 years). While without Hope, we still have the two Cocker Spaniels. And today was their ears, paws, and claws maintenance day. You can imagine how much Tucker and Tanner LOVED that!

We've had some rather serious storms the past few days. No damage, just lots of rain, lightning and thunder. There was a threat of tornadoes but none materialized.

I'd planned to post photos of our garden for several days now but by the time I'd get home on the bicycle, what sun there'd been was lost behind heavy overcast. With the last storm blowing through early this morning, we're enjoying "mostly sunny" conditions right now. Hot, humid, breezy, it finally feels a bit like summer in Ohio. Karen's missing winter, I'm happy as a clam.

So, here are some garden photos to enjoy:

Tall purple things

Day Lilly and tall purple thing

Looking east: Bell peppers and tomatoes.
The local bunnies ate two of our pepper plants in the center.

Jalapeno and banana peppers

Looking west

It looks like it's going to be another good year for Karen's Side Street Salza!

Preparing People (and Planes)

Our ministry at MMS is two-fold: 1) to prepare people to serve as missionary airplane mechanics while we; 2) maintain, modify, and repair missionary airplanes.

This past week was the culmination of the "preparing people" part for two of our apprentices, David Mozombite and Gertjan Kamphorst.

Both David and Gertjan completed their requirements to take the FAA written exams and passed them in May. Just last week David and Gertjan also passed their oral and practical exams allowing them to receive their FAA A&P mechanic's certificates.

This is an exciting and somewhat stressful time for the apprentice families as they complete service with MMS, take and pass the exams, and begin their transition to service with an aviation ministry beyond our hangar doors.

David Mozombite
David and Amy are transitioning from MMS into service with South America Mission. They've been assigned to SAM's flight program in Bolivia where David will serve as a maintenance specialist. David (pronounced da-Veed) is originally from Peru. They have three children: Isaiah, Lilly, and Asher.

Gertjan Kamphorst
Gertjan and Glenda previously served in Papua New Guinea with MAF-Australia. They came to MMS so Gertjan, a pilot, could also become a mechanic. This has opened the door for them to serve with MAF-US. They'll soon be moving to Nampa, Idaho to complete their orientation and standarization for service with MAF. They have two children, Johan & Marielle. Gertjan is originally from the Netherlands and Glenda is from the Philippines.

As it's exciting and somewhat stressful for the families who are leaving, it's exciting and sad for those of us on staff remaining behind. It's exciting because the goal of investing our lives in each of these families is so they will move on to effective mission service with other organizations. This is exactly what the Kamphorsts and Mozombites are doing. And yet, after living and working so closely with each of these families for so long, it's sad to say goodbye to our good friends.

Monday Catch-up

Friday Night
Friday night we attended a free movie under the stars in the lot where the Park Hotel used to be on Main Street here in Coshocton. Abandoned for years, the once high-end Park Hotel burned down several years ago. It was a big fire (as the first floor was a Sherwin/Williams paint store). The local firemen did a great job saving the businesses connected to the hotel and by that saving the whole city block. All that's left is a dirt patch where the hotel use to stand.

Recently a local contractor donated sod to make a green island in the sea of brown dirt. This sod is the seating area for the "theater under the stars." Karen and I had great fun attending the first event which started at 9:15 PM. The event featured the movie "Shrek" and it was a fun time of families on blankets, folding chairs, popcorn and sodas. Karen brought some hot chocolate. The movie was shown on a smooth section of a remaining wall that had been painted white. The movie was free and popcorn and sodas were available for donations.

Here's the theater.

We'll probably be there again this Friday night.

Saturday
Saturday we worked around the house in the morning, attended an open house for one of the MMS kids graduating from high school in the early afternoon, bought mulch and then spread the mulch in our expanded salsa garden through the evening. We'll get some photos of the garden posted before too much longer.

Sunday
Sunday was another great day of worship at Fresno Bible Church. Karen has back on the worship team for the past several Sundays. It always a little more fun when I'm drumming and Karen's singing. I play the drums every week, the ladies rotate on and off every six weeks.

After worship we came home, loaded our bikes on the Honda and headed off on an adventure to explore Dillon State Park outside of Zanesville. It's about 28 miles SW from Coshocton. Tucker and Tanner weren't too happy with us being gone all morning and then leaving for the rest of the afternoon.

Tanner and Tucker are unhappy about us leaving again.

Dillon State Park is associated with a reservoir and, unless you're a serious mountain biker (which Karen and I are not) the trails are a hospital trip waiting to happen and a great opportunity for some sort of disaster show. The area was pretty, they had nice facilities and you can fish, but it really isn't what we were looking for as a fun place for middle aged missionaries to ride a bicycle for fun.

We did enjoy a picnic.

The view from our picnic spot.

It was a different way for us to spend a Sunday afternoon, we met some nice people, and learned a little bit more about east central Ohio.

Rainy Day In Coshocton

Until I started this post, I was writing the minutes from this morning's two hour staff meeting. Karen is updating and inputting MMS mailing list data. Josh is measuring engine parts for the CMML engine overhaul, Mike is weaving electrical wire for the Moody 182, and Chuck is cleaning a fuel pump. Tim is writing an airplane maintenance log book entry which will allow GCI's 172 to return to service. Dennis just installed a new battery in a local airplane, Dwight and Dave just finished leading a group of children on a tour through MMS, and Andy and Tim F. are still working with the Brazilian 206's horizontal stabilizer.

There's activity in the hangar but it's quiet activity. No rhythmic pounding of rivet guns, no high-pitched whine of an air drill, no teeth-jarring screech from a cut-off wheel on aluminum to compete with the soothing drip of the rain from the hangar doors and building edges. The grass is green outside. The trees lush with leaves. Nearby, groundhogs peer from the tree line's perimeter and squirrels dash from branch to branch as trapeze artists of the furry sort.

Thundershowers rolled through this morning turning into a warm summer drizzle this afternoon. It's a good soaking rain that we've needed here in Coshocton. Corn's in the ground and up about six inches. The soybean plants have broken through the soil and stand a little shorter than the corn. The hangar doors are open to take advantage of the gentle 76 degree breeze. A radio station plays through a computer on a tool box near one of the airplanes. And it's easy to want to sleep.

But no one's sleeping. There's work to be done.

GCI's 172 sits in the rain on the ramp outside Hangar A waiting for its maintenance logbook entry to be completed.

Looking to Hangar C from Hangar B. GCI's 310 is on the left.
The Brazilian 206's horizontal stabilizer is on the right.