A Trip To Columbus, Cleaning Up After The Cockers, and Spring Arrives in Coshocton

A Trip To Columbus
Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of making the trip to Port Columbus International Airport to meet Andy & Heather Swanson and their children, Abigail & Matthew, as they arrived to undergo candidate evaluation at MMS Aviation next week.

The Swanson Family: Abigail, Heather, Andy, and Matthew

The Swansons are from Scotland and are in application through our training partnership with MAF-United Kingdom. Coordination and oversight of the candidate evaluation process is one of my responsibilities at MMS.

We met the Swansons without complication and stopped at Hoggy's (a Columbus BBQ chain) for their welcome to Ohio dinner (at 12:00 midnight their time!). When traveling with two little ones, strollers, and car seats, packing for a week uses up some space so we took the MMS van and Karen's car to bring everyone and everything back to town. We greatly enjoyed our time with Andy, Heather, Abigail, and Matthew and look forward to getting to know them better over the next week. They're being hosted by another of our MMS families.

Cleaning Up After The Cockers
And speaking of our trip to Columbus...while we were away Tucker and Tanner found their way upstairs and had a grand time ripping and shredding and spreading the bathroom trash all around. I'll spare you the photos of the hallway, guest room, and stair landing to just share a snapshot of my cleaning the bathroom floor. At least they didn't go for to toilet paper rolls.

Cleaning up after Tucker and Tanner's fun time.

Spring Arrives In Coshocton
So as not to leave you with the image of Cocker Spaniel mischief, here's a photo that really shows spring has arrived in Coshocton. I took this picture of a Cardinal from our "library" window upstairs (our "library" is the small guest room with all our books in it).

A Cardinal in Keith & Karen's front tree.

Cardinals are the Ohio State Bird and we have several that always return to our corner of the neighborhood in spring. We really enjoy watching and listening to the Cardinals. You can also see that the leaves on our big tree out front are starting to break out! The weather today is beautiful. The sky is a deep blue, the sun is warm, the grass is green (I've already mowed twice!), and it's supposed to reach 66 degrees today.

Thanks for stopping by our blog. Thanks for your prayers. Thanks for your friendship and your gifts which enable us to serve. May God receive the glory!

It's Zyglo Friday!

Here's a video of Paul performing a dye penetrant inspection on the oil sump for the rear engine of the Lamp 337.

It's Zyglo Friday! from Keith Dodson on Vimeo.

If you have a problem viewing Vimeo, click here to go to YouTube.

Have a great weekend!

Interview and Review

Six Month Interview
Part of Karen's and my regular role at MMS is to interview our apprentices and their spouses every six months to see how they're doing in the apprenticeship, in the community, and as a family. We also seek their input as to what MMS is doing well, where & how they think MMS could improve, and talk about effective techniques for coping with the realities of mission service. We use this as a time of providing encouragement, counsel, validation and affirmation.

Today Karen and I met with Paul. Paul's been an apprentice for 18 months and is entering his last year of service before testing for his mechanic certificate and heading out to a new mission. Paul is a pilot and will ultimately serve missions as a pilot/mechanic.

After spending the morning preparing for the meeting, Karen and I met with Paul for an hour and a half before lunch, broke for lunch, and then Paul and I met after lunch for another forty-five minutes or so before finishing up the "interview" portion of our time together. Karen needed to complete some other HR projects on the computer for a departmental report I'm compiling and excused herself to go do so right after lunch.

Karen, Paul, and Keith

Performance Review
After we completed the interview, Paul and I rolled into his 18 month performance review and pretty much finished the day off. It was a good day and yet a full day, to be sure. In the next couple weeks I'll start working with Paul to provide guidance and counsel as he prepares to select the mission with whom he'll serve next.

Paul's doing a great job at MMS, is growing as a mechanic, and growing as a man of God. Does it get any better than that?

It is such a blessing to be able to pour our lives into young missionaries like Paul and have a God-given role in preparing them for a lifetime of service on the mission field. Thanks for being a part of this blessing through your faithful prayers and gifts.

I Rode My Bike To MMS And Survived

Bike Ride
The weather was so perfect yesterday I couldn't NOT ride my bike to MMS. It was the first time I'd really ridden my bike since July of last year when I went through those six weeks of leg pain after riding my bike up to the shop. No problems like that yesterday.

It was a really good ride.

Lord willing, I'll have my strength back and the weather will cooperate so I can ride again next week. Unfortunately it looks likes the temperatures are going to drop back into the cool range for a while. This time of the year I don't have any problem riding my bike when the air temp is 50+, but once it's below that...forget it. I'm still not over winter's chill. It was 60 degrees when I rode in yesterday morning.

Hardesty's Extended Auto Care
My little red car is over at Hardesty's. There'd been rumbling and grumbling noises coming from the front end for several days. The exhaust system had also been wheezing. The noises, and the fact that the left front fender was riding substantially lower over the tire than the right front fender, encouraged me to take the little '95 Aspire in for a check-up.

It's been a good little car though at 15 years old it's definitely at that point where we have to ask ourselves "do we put any more money into it?". In this case, if new exhaust, new struts, new springs, and troubleshooting the engine temp gauge can keep it on the road for an other two or three years...we'll still be ahead of the game compared to adding a monthly car payment to our budget in order to replace it now. Lord willing, we'll have the car back tomorrow.

I'm in Karen's car today as my legs, while allowing me to ride the bike yesterday, appreciate a break between rides. All variables permitting, I'll be back on my bicycle early next week.

Thanks for visiting our blog!