Check this out!

I have a confession to make (Ricky). I have secretly begun a musical recording career. (Not really.) But I have had fun trying to record some mellow acoustic songs with my guitar recently. Here's my little studio setup:
And if you want to grab a listen, click on "Ricky's Songs" to the right.

The next steps?.......

I had a very special opportunity to talk to a couple named Jason and Joselyn Thiemann the other day. (www.maf.org/thiemann). Jason and Joselyn are exactly where Heather and I hope to be in about a year. Jason has finished all of his training as a pilot and a mechanic, and they have gone through the interview process with Mission Aviation Fellowship, and they are accepted and getting ready to go serve in a small country called Lesotho contained in South Africa. So I talked to them for a long time about the process they have been going through. They had nothing but encouraging things to say about what they have experienced with MAF. It was very refreshing because, as friends and family know who ask us, the exact process we need to go through to become an MAF staff member has been sort of fuzzy. We know the big picture...which is get flight training, get maintenance training, get bible training, then apply with MAF. But since we are getting close to applying, we are trying to figure out what all of the next steps are. We had an idea, but after talking to Jason and Joselyn, the picture is very clear. When we apply with MAF, we will go out for two weeks for an evaluation (they test my flying and maintanance capabilities) as well as our maturity and spiritual preparation. If they accept us after the evaluation, we go back a couple months later for a six week time called "canidacy" which is a pretty intense time of preparation. It is at that point we would be official staff members. Then we are sent out to raise our ministry support, which takes their staff on average six months. After that we go back to Boise (where their headquarters are) and I would do a few months of intense flight and maintenance training to prepare me for the type of challenges missionary pilots face. There would also be classes preparing Heather and I for life overseas. So after that three months we would be ready to go! So from the day we go out for evaluation, to the day we are fully trained and ready to go it could be about a year. And after that our first year on the field could be language training. So from now until the day I am actually flying for MAF on the mission field could be a few years. We knew all of this coming in. That is part of the reason why we chose to come to SMAT for training. The 1 year maintenance program and the at-your-own-pace flight training (without having to earn a degree) were the quickest (and also most cost effective) options. But we also know that the time and preparation is very well worth it. I will someday be flying the Lord's precious children and servants into some of the most difficult landing strips in the world. It is a huge responsibility and privelege and to cut corners in preparation would not be a good idea!

It's snowing sideways outside. It's very warm and cozy in here. I love these types of saturdays. We had not much of anything planned for today. Heather's got all our Christmas decorations up and in their places. The lights on the tree go between disco-style blinking to gently fading in and out. Christmas music has been on and off all day. Various Christmas goodies and drinks are in the works for tonight as some friends make their way over for the evening. We've got the TV set up, with space next to it on the table for this computer. On the TV tonight we will watch Mizzou (Heather's college) fight for a spot in the football national championship game. At the same time, on the computer, we will watch Arizona State (my college) battle their archrivals Arizona. I know the Christmas season is about the birth of Jesus, but football has also been a big theme it seems. During our thanksgiving trip to Missouri, I went to two games on successive days with Dave, Heather's stepdad. It was a blast though. I got to see #4 Missouri beat #2 Kansas live and in person. What a spectacle that was. We went to watch the Chiefs play the raiders (in an infinitely less-hyped game) the next day. We got to spend time with a lot of Heather's family on thanksgiving. We also got to help my good friend Brad in his proposal plot to his girlfriend (now fiancee) Rochelle (sp?). Brad helped me in my proposal plot with Heather a few years back, so it was only fitting that we help him out too. It was at the same place that we got engaged, the plaza in Kansas City. Heather walked into a coffeshop where Brad and Rochelle were, and handed a rose to Rochelle. Brad had a special bible verse attached to the rose. Meanwhile I was just down the street placing some flowers, a blanket and a special gift in a horse-drawn carriage and kept watch. Brad and Rochelle arrived, he helped her into the carriage, and they disappeared around the corner. Brad proposed there in the carriage. What a romantic dude! Brad threw a party at his house afterwards where we got to meet Rochelle and congratulate her and Brad. We also got to see some of our good friends from Missouri that we haven't seen in quite a while. What a special thanksgiving trip.There's a photo from our 3rd anniversary night a couple weeks back. I surprised Heather by having flowers waiting at the restaraunt. (It's a trick I pulled years ago....I am out of new material, so I am recycling all of my old ideas!) We had a very special evening. My good friend Jeffrey helped me out by coming over and lighting some candles, starting some fun Sinatra-like music, and planting some sparkling cider and chocolate strawberries before we got home. It was very fun.

Kona, Bella, and Daisy

I had to show this picture of my sister Kelly's dogs. She dressed them up in their haloween outfits and emailed us a photo. Hilarious!!

Weve just been meaning to put a lot of pictures on here, so here's a few albums!

Cross Countries

Kelly's Wedding/AZ trip

The pictures in the first album are from a cross-country training flight that I went on with my friend and fellow pilot-in-training Jeffrey. We got to enjoy the beauty of Michigan's upper peninsula and it was breathtaking!!
In the second album are pictures from my twin sister Kelly and her now husband Joe's wedding weekend. It was such a fun trip! We saw so many family and friends and the wedding was really good.

A very special ceremony....

Well it is finished! Last friday S.M.A.T. concluded the one year airframe and powerplant mechanic training course with a graduation ceremony for me and my 21 classmates. What a special year it has been. The graduation was held at a local church that two of my classmates attend. Aside from honoring the graduates of the A&P course, we watched a video that my classmates nominated me to make about our year. It included some short interview clips of what my classmates liked about this past year, as well as video and photos of projects we've done and fun times we've had. The video appears above. It's about 13 minutes long. Also our class nominated my classmate Joe to give a short message during the graduation. It was short and very good. His message was a message we have heard many times this year, and no doubt need to hear many times throughout our lives. That is that ultimately what is important about what we do is not the technology. It is not the airplanes and the flying. But what is important is the people, and God's word. Remaining close to Christ and to the people in our lives is the most important thing. And that is the reason we do what we do, no matter if you're a missionary pilot or an accountant. The highlight of the graduation ceremony for me was our keynote speaker, Steve Saint. If you've seen the movie End of the Spear, or if you've heard of the story of the 5 missionaries who were killed in Ecuador back in the fifties, Steve is Nate Saint's son. Nate was the pilot for the five missionaries. Steve had a key role in the making of the movie. He helped tell the story to the producers and they also asked him to find and restore an exact replica of his father's airplane, which happens to be a very very rare airplane that is almost impossible to find and buy. They also surprised him by asking him to fly it in the movie. So when you watch the movie, it is Steve Saint flying the Piper. During the filming of the movie, Steve actually got to land the plane on the "Palm Beach," which is the littlesandbar that his father was killed on. But Steve's message to us was similar to Joe's. "Palm Beach," he said, was not about sand, or airplanes. So many people he said visit there just to see where this great thing happened. When he asks them, "Did you meet any of the people," they often say "oh yeah, I think we saw a few of them." "You went to palm beach and didn't meet any of the people who live there?" Steve would muse. "You went to Palm Beach and walked right by Palm Beach." It wasn't about sand, it was about people. It was about the Waodani people that God used what happened there to bring his love to. The people are what is important. They are the reason. He said several times..."Palm Beach was about people, not about sand." In the same way our lives are about people. It was a very good reminder for me and my classmates, that as we spend so much time learning to become pilots and mechanics to serve in missions, to keep our hearts set on the real reason we are there.

Kelly and Joe's wedding getting close!

I made a pilgrimage with some of my classmates out to the Oshkosh air show this past weekend. For the unfamiliar that is the world's biggest airshow. It was amazing! It is hard to describe with words so I am going to see what I can do to get a little video up here soon of what goes on at Oshkosh. Below are some engagement photos of my twin Kelly and her fiance Joe. The wedding is in October and we are getting excited!

Wow...the days are already getting shorter! Holly has been here for two months. There are like twenty some days left of maintenance school. I am amazed at how quick time flies. In the famous words of JP Harris....life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes! Here at school we have been working to wrap up work on our engines. My teammates Matt and Jeffrey and I are working at assembling all the parts. There is much care and time involved in the process.
Our school is facilitating a "school field trip" to the Oshkosh airshow in two weekends. For the unfamiliar that is the world's biggest airshow and most airplane junkies dream of going someday if they haven't. It will be very educational as well as a chance to talk to some of the aviation missions. Many of them set up booths at the airshow. There will be dozens of educational seminars which I am excited about.
We've been busy this past week with Heather's stepmom Jean and younger sister Madison visiting. They were here over the fourth. We had a lot of fun with them. Here's an album with some pics of their visit (as well as a few others).



We had a visitor at school from JAARS this week. JAARS is the aviation department for the Wycliffe Bible Translators who are trying to get the bible translated into every language on earth. He flew with some of our students to give them input on how they are doing in preparation for mission flying. I do not have enough experience to fly with him yet. That's what I will be working on after August 10 when the maintenance course is over. But it was very neat to talk to him about his 30 years of mission flying experience. There are some very tough decisions that face missionary pilots. There can be life or death medical situations happening when flying weather is marginal, making some very tough go or no go decisions. Safety and decision making are crucial for mission pilots.

Community

My school gives students the neat opportunity to share a devotional presentation with the class. Last week I took the opportunity to present on the topic of community. We have a neat community among our students here and their families. I opened it up for some students to comment on what they thought was important about living in community with each other and what that entailed. Then I shared a few things I thought was important about it. The main point I made is that each person is created with a need to be known deeply by other people, not just on the surface. We are made with a need for intimacy....or "in-to-me-see." There is something powerful that happens when we spend time with eachother and get real with eachother about the things that really goes on in our lives "behind the curtains." When we are loved and accepted even after people know how we really are, an amazing sense of healing, comfort and unity comes. God definitely intended this to happen in our marriages, but he also calls us to these sorts of relationships with others. I put together a video presentation for the class with some bible verses about this that are commonly known as the "one another verses." They are set to the backdrop of some fabulous photos that my classmate Matthias took. Many of those photos were taken around the school. There are some pictures of some of my classmates that appear a few times. A little "web version" of the video appears below.

Heather, Holly and I loaded into the "family station wagon" and headed out to this little town called Sagatuck for Sunday afternoon. It's a very interesting place. It is on a little inlet from Lake Michigan so there's plenty of yachts parked everywhere. It is one of those places that is loaded with really unique and sort of strange shops. We hiked a "mountain" there (basically an enormous staircase that took about ten minutes to climb). And finished off the day hanging out on the beach. Here's some photos....they include Holly flying with some of the guys from my school. And a snapping turtle we saw while camping two weekends ago. Not to mention "African Night" that my Kenyan friend (also the pilot on Holly's flight) hosted. He provided an amazing spread of Kenyan cuisine for us. And did it all from memory. We tried our best to "dress African." My attempt consisted of bringing a beadsheet and making a bow and arrow out of some sticks. Heather and Holly wore "surongs" (sp?).



We also got to see our friends Liz and Jared last weekend who just moved to Ann Arbor from Columbia. Their little boy Elias is several months old. It was a fun trip. We went out in Ann Arbor for a while. Then we came back and Jared and I hung out with Elias while we watched one of those Discovery Channel Alaskan crab fishing marathons, while the ladies went out for a while.

Beach in Michigan?

This past week we went twice to Holland Michigan to enjoy the beach. It's only forty minutes from our home and it is amazing! Heather and I still find it hard to believe. It is every bit as beautiful as the ocean. Minus the large waves. And minus the salt. The sunset is just as spectacular. There is even a pier and a lighthouse. The lake is a little chilly right now but that didn't stop me from getting in for a few minutes. Last wednesday for our "date night" Heather and I spontaneously went down there and ate subway while the sun set. Then last Sunday we went out with some friends from school. Les and Matthias grabbed some kayaks to bring down. And Grant and his finance Cassie came as well. Since Grant and Cassie are long distance right now, they took advantage of being together this weekend to take engagement photos. Heather, Holly and I helped them out by taking the pictures. It was a good time. i have a newfound appreciation for wedding/engagement photographers because it is hard to come up with ideas. Heather and Holly were pretty good at it. Here's some pictures of the weekend.

Winter is a bear, but springtime is real nice up here! Its been seventy degree days almost every day. It is a nice contrast to the very cold winter! Last weekend we went to a barbecue here at our apartments with about twenty other people, mostly classmates of mine with their respective wives and kids. Very fun. We had two grills set up, and played games like tennis, soccer and football. Heather's sister Holly has been with us for about two weeks. It has been really fun so far. We have been keeping pretty active with her, finding things to do outside.
A couple weeks back there was an annual conference here in Grand Rapids for the International Association of Missionary Aviation. It just so happened to be here this year. Personnell from our school offered to host the conference. The conference was three days, and our class attended one of the days. It was very good because there were representitives from many mission aviation agencies there. I got to talk to several guys with experience in mission aviation. I also got to meet MAF's recruiting director in person. I have talked to him on the phone before but it was great to finally meet. I also ate lunch with another MAF pilot and got to hear about his life and experiences. It was very encouraging and motivating to talk to these guys.
The keynote speaker of the conference was a guy named Ron Hutchcraft. Ron is most well known for his bible teaching on the radio. He gave a very powerful message. The center of his message was that as aviators serving in missions, we should never let our serving the Lord get in the way of or substitute for our relationship with the Lord himself. Our time with him, before him should be the number one priority. When we are close to him, we experience joy no matter what our external circumstances are. When we are not committed to this, things are gradually, slowly but surely starting to come off the track. And life will turn into a grind. I know I have definitely experienced both sides of Ron's message. Jesus said "I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly" and he wasn't talking just about the future. He was talking about right now. Ron made it clear that this is a message for every follower of Christ, no matter what your vocation is.

Last week in class we were learning how to set up fuel systems. We went out to the school's Cessna 210 to practice adjusting the fuel system. So we started it a few times and ran it up. A classmate of mine took some video. The main thing about the 210 is that it is so incredibly loud. I could safely say it was the loudest thing I have ever been around.. (tied with riding in my stepbrothers car in highschool with his 15 inch speakers)...and I had big sound blocking earmuffs on and it felt like I didn't have any hearing protection at all. If you don't have sound on your computer this video will be pretty boring.



The 210 is very similar to the Cessna 206, which is the type of plane I will probably fly in the mission field. Though they are a "small" single engine plane, they have a very high carrying capacity (when compared to little planes like the ones I train in) and they can take off and land in short spaces.

Engines!

Right now in class we are getting into engines. All year we have been learning little bits and pieces about airplane engines. Now we are really getting into it by completely disassembling and re-assembling an engine. Then we will start it and trouble shoot it. What great experience! I am especially excited about this because I am on a team working on an engine known as the Continental IO 520....a 6 cylinder engine. This is the engine found in the Cessna 206 which is the most common plane that MAF and many other missions fly. So this is most likely the engine I will be flying someday. How cool will it be to have the experience of having taken it apart, studying the engien, and troubleshooting it when we get it back together. I am really blessed to get to do this. Most pilots know the general operational theory about how their engines work, but they do not get this kind of experience. Here is a photo album of some of the engines our class is working on. The first several pictures are of our engine. I am on a team with two other guys, Matt and Jeffrey, working on our engine.

Engines 1

I filmed some of my classmates trying to start an airplane last winter. No easy chore for sure. Have a look.

Heather and I had a nice trip last weekend. We watched Holly graduated from Northwest Missouri. Howabout some pictures?
There's holly getting her diploma!


The graduation was on Saturday. Afterwards they had a little party for holly and her two roommates that also graduated. One of her roommates is our cousin Amanda.....who is also getting married this summer! Her other roommate is their friend Jaci. Here's a photo of the three of them.

To see some more photos, click below

Holly's Graduation

We headed out a day earlier than we had planned. Heather's stepdad Dave's stepmother Barb had passed away during the week and the funeral was Thursday morning. It was a very special funeral. Heather and I had not gotten to know Barb very well, but it was neat to hear about her life during her funeral. The whole service was done by the pastor of her church. She had a very good relationship with her pastor, and he had been there for her over the last several months while her health was failing. So he was able to make the service very personal. Barb had begun to go to church about nine years back, and the pastor described for us the transformation that had taken place in her life. One story the pastor told stuck in my mind. Since Barb had a terminal illness, she had the chance to think about and plan her own funeral service. A couple months back while she was bed ridden, she called her pastor up and said "Pastor, I need you to come over here right now, I have something to tell you." As soon as he got there, she said (not a direct quote but as best as I can remember) "Pastor, I want you to write this down. When Jesus came into my heart, there was just no stopping him. He changed everything. He changed my desires. He changed my actions. He changed my life." That story really made an impression on me.

On the way back home we made a little stop by Hannibal, Missouri, which is the home of Mark Twain!! In this picture you can see the town and the Mississippi River in the background

Here she is! This is Isabella, the 1 year old we got to watch last weekend. Isn't she a cutie? These pictures were taken at the butterfly exhibit at Meijer gardens. She definitely liked the butterflies.

A few pictures

Here's a few pictures from "fairly recently"......which means from this year. There's us in the snow when it was really coming down last winter.


And this is from last valentines day. We had a really fun valentines. We got dressed up (as shown) and went to this neat little restaraunt downtown.



Heather gets kind of annoyed because I do this to her all the time....




This weekend Heather and I have an opportunity to watch a one year old....for the whole weekend! It is one of the babies that Heather nannys during the week. I haven't done anything like that before! I was telling my mom last night and she joked that if we do that she wouldn't get grandkids until even longer. I know it shouldn't be too hard though because Isabella (the little girl we're watching) is an abnormally content little baby. Should be fun. Next weekend we're heading to Missouri for Holly's graduation (Heather's sister) from college. Man how time does fly! We are excited because Holly is going to come up and live with us for the summer after she graduates. Here at school we have only three months left. Man how this year has just flown by. We are just starting to get into engines. This is the part everyone gets excited for. Engines are just fun to learn about and work on. We are going to work on teams to completely disassemble and re-assemble an airplane engine and get it running again. I feel very blessed to be getting this kind of experience.

TRYING SOMETHING NEW!

So we're trying something new with the website. It was fun to have our own website. We used Microsoft Front Page to create it. But it was too darn hard to keep updated. (The people who view it regularly frequently remind us!!) We would normally have to go to Panera to get the laptop on the web to update it. So it ended up every 2 to 4 months we would change it. Which is not getting it done!! We needed to try something new. We had a missionary speak in my class the other day who raved about blogs. He showed us his. He loves them because they are free and really easy to update. Those two things sound really nice. I would like something Heather and I can both update easily. I don't know if Heather even tried to edit the old website. Now it will be easy for her. I hear you can even email your blog and it will update it for you. Amazing. Well I know the blog will have less flexibility and freedom. The photo archives are a thing of the past. But we can still put pictures in with our posts. And I've just started to learn about these blogs but I'd bet there's alot more cool things you can do with them to make them like a website than I know right now. So...since this is the first post I need to throw some pizaz in here. Let's see what kind of picture I can come up with...

So there we are. Most of my pictures are on my external hard drive, so that's the best I could come up with right now. That airplane, affectionately known as "6-5-Xray" was purchased on ebay by a guy. He made some crucial mistakes..... First was buying an airplane on Ebay, second he didn't have it inspected before he bought but afterwards. When it was inspected afterwards they discovered some major problems with it. So a long story short our school ended up with it and we are fixing it up!!! My friend Jeffrey and I have been tangling with some interesting problems lately involving the flap cables and the fuel selector valve. Well how's that for a first post? It's April 11th and it's snowing outside!! Only in Michigan.