Candidate Evaluation & Partnership Orientation: Aaron and Mary Richards

Evaluation Season Arrives at MMS Aviation

We're in "eval" season right now. In fact, Karen and I just returned from MMS Aviation where we assisted with the evaluation and subsequent partnership orientation of MMS's newest approved candidates: Aaron & Mary Richards.

Here we are with Aaron & Mary after their acceptance for service with MMS Aviation. 

Aaron is an engineer for a railroad and Mary is a medical assistant.

After we walked the Richards' through ten months of mobilization and application, MMS invited them to participate in our In-Hangar Evaluation. Evaluation is where MMS makes the final determination of suitability for service as an apprentice in our ministry.

Evaluation week is a challenging time where applicants are placed under the microscopes of hangar operations and missionary life for 72 hours straight. It's intense as we closely examine the applicants and the applicants closely evaluate us with God's gifting, God's will, and God's calling in mind.

Director of Maintenance, Tim Obarow (left), supervises Aaron through an aviation maintenance project.

Aaron works with Apprentice Josh Snader to disassemble an engine for overhaul.

Project Supervisor Chris Jutte (right) talks Aaron through a bore-scope inspection of the inside of a turbine engine.

Aaron and I talk through earlier repairs he made to this Bearhawk, soon to be back in missionary service in Haiti.

While all this was going on in the hangar, Mary was interacting with several MMS spouses as they went "thrifting" in Amish country, enjoyed "non-technical time" together, and explored the realities of home management in Coshocton County.

Coshocton County: "A friendly place with a slower pace."

Our Specialty is Helping Others Raise Their Support

Once accepted, Approved Candidates like Aaron and Mary are oriented for the initial phase of their ministry: Team Building (partnership development). To serve as part of missionary aviation, each family must build a team of financial investors and prayer partners to send them into service. 

Karen and I have the privilege of training, coaching, resourcing, and encouraging each of our approved candidates through this process. We meet weekly with each family by computer, and mentor them over the next 12-18 months as they raise the relationships necessary to meet the physical and spiritual costs of missionary service.

Through your gifts and prayers, you are as much a member of MMS Aviation's mobilization process as we are!

Mobilization Update

• A family we just finished coaching to full financial support will soon move to Coshocton to begin ministry.

• We're currently coaching two Approved Candidates through the Team Building process.

• There are three more Candidate Evaluations scheduled this year.

• We are very close to opening two new applications.

Your "Kingdom Investment" in this ministry

sends others into ministry! 

Thank You!

Keith & Karen's Summer Newsletter with Bonus Photos!

Here's our latest newsletter! You can increase your zoom settings to make the page larger!

Global Flyer, PAGE 1

Global Flyer, PAGE 2

Bonus Photos

Here's one of the projects currently at MMS. The guys and gals are upgrading the instrument panel in Gospel Carrier International's Piper Malibu. How'd you like to make sense out of this? I am SO glad God called others to tackle such things as their daily ministry!

And YES--It is Salsa Season at the Dodson House once again! It's been a tremendous season for tomato growing. We'll work on our second batch this Saturday.

Thank you for following our ministry, partnering with us, and praying for us. 

CLICK HERE 

to join us 

preparing people and planes for worldwide mission service!

A K&K Photo Update--WITH bird shots!

Greetings, Blog Fans! Here's a quick photo update. We're working on our next newsletter, but until that hits the news stands...here are some photos to tantalize your emotional, spiritual, and relational "taste buds" so to speak. It's HOT right now...if you're interested in a weather report. Oh and did I mention HUMID?

Karen creates another quilt for kids with cancer.

Speaking of quilts, we visited Virginia's Quilt Museum.

And enjoyed some scenery at Monticello: Garden View #1

Garden View #2

Selfie AT my office desk.

Selfie OF my office desk.

Northern Cardinal on our backyard fence.

Chipping Sparrow on one of our Winged Elm trees.

And, regarding missionary aviation, Jason Maust (left) completed apprenticeship with MMS and Missionary Flight Training with Missionary Air Group (MAG, here in Burlington) to become our 4th graduate of the Pilot/Mechanic Partnership between our two organizations! Jason is pictured with MAG's Chief Flight Instructor, Sean Garrigan (right).

If you haven't visited MMS Aviation's new website: 

CLICK HERE!

Coming Back to Life?

Coming back to life after eight weeks of COVID CRAZY...who'd a thunk it? We're not even sure how to do it, but each of us are working it out as best we can, together, like it or not. No one seems to be happy. Everyone perceives others as too afraid or not afraid enough. So little "middle" remains. 

Liability and lives and liberty and limits and great loss all intertwined in a complex tapestry of political, cultural, personal, private, public, spiritual, medical, and financial threads seemingly fallen from their spools and knocked from the very loom on which we'd anticipated creating a wonderful warp and weft.

Now...what is left? Life. We ARE coming back to life. As a neighborhood, as a city, a county, state, and believe it or not, even as a nation. Through God's grace we are coming back to life.

May these photos visually inform, inspire, and involve you with our personal "coming back to life." It's going to be okay. It may not be a pretty process, but it's going to be okay. We have Christ's word on that.

Chickadee fledge feeding

Bluebird fledge feeding

Brown-Headed Nuthatch fledge waiting to be fed

In seven years of watching our backyard birds, we've NEVER seen more bird families take flight in one spring: Chickadee, Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Northern Cardinal, Eastern Bluebird, Brown Thrasher, Brown-headed Nuthatch, House Finch, and Downy Woodpeckers have all brought their fledglings to feed in our yard. We are coming back to life.

Bell Pepper, Banana Pepper, Habenero Pepper, and two Beefsteak Tomato plants.

Roma Tomato Plants (the heart of Karen's Side-street Salsa)

Our salsa garden is in the ground and healthy. We are coming back to life.

I'm back in the Mobilization Office (MOBOFF)

Karen leads a multi-mission software training session online.

After mobilizing MMS candidates from home for seven weeks, I'm back in my office downtown. Karen continues to train missionaries at MMS Aviation and around the world in donor management software from her office at home. We are coming back to life.

The missionary pilot and our staff gather on the MMS ramp to pray over the Cessna 206 before departure. It came to MMS for engine and avionics upgrades.

The upgraded Cessna departs Richard Downing Airport in Coshocton, OH 

on the first leg of its journey back to ministry in South America.

 And the hangar at MMS Aviation is back in full operation! We are coming back to life. 

Thank you for partnering with us to prepare people and planes for worldwide missionary service. Your faithful prayer and financial partnership over the time of this pandemic is a true testimony to God's grace, love, and provision. None of this would happen if it weren't for your direct involvement and personal investment in our lives.

INVEST