** Long blog post warning**
Last Friday was quite a day. The day started off with an awesome privilege. Our brand new airplane that has taken more than four months to run the customs/licensing gauntlet here in Indonesia, just became fully operational. And I and my instructor pilot got to fly it on it's very first operational day! It was just sort of luck of the draw that we got to be the first ones. But how neat! And yes, it definitely has a "new airplane smell." So where did we go? We took two trips out to a place called Mulia, carrying people and cargo there and back.
Here's David and I after our first stop. The passengers were pretty excited to be the first passengers! They were all grins. Below is a picture from the parking area of the strip at Mulia. Yes, it is paved. Don't ask me how they pulled off paving it, being it way out in the middle of no-where.
If you look close enough in that picture above you can see another airplane coming right over the ridge (you may have to click on it and see the big version of the picture...its just left of the road that winds over the ridge). That was Dennis flying one of our MAF Caravans from another base in Papua, called Timika. Amazingly, planes from four different MAF bases in Papua all flew into Mulia that day. It is a sort of cross roads of Papua, and I was really amazed how big a town it is for being in the middle of no-where. David gave me a little history about Mulia, and apparently it is a place with an amazing past. It is a place where the good news of Christ found fertile soil among the people there quite some time ago, and the people that lived there began a huge missions movement to neighboring areas. I'm sure it's in a book somehwere, and I hope to read it someday soon!
So above is aforementioned new airplane MAX after we got back from our first run to Mulia, preparing for our second run out there. It's getting fueled up, checked over, loaded up, etc. Looking at this picture it makes me think of a boxer in the corner between rounds, with his crew squirting water in his mouth, barking words of encouragement or advice, and taping up its wounds. Okay maybe not that intense but I thought it was a funny mental picture.
One reason MAX has been so highly anticipated is because it has a "belly pod" to put cargo in down below the airplane. You can see what I mean above, in the foreground is a Kodiak without a pod, and in the background is MAX sporting its pod down underneath. This will not only make loading the airplane much simpler, but more importantly help us stay within center of gravity of loading limits when we have passengers plus cargo on board.
So the second thing that made Friday a big day was our friends and neighbors, the Perezes, moved away to Wamena, another MAF base in Papua. Daniel is also a new pilot here in Papua, and he just completed the process of checkout that I am in the beginning stages of. Here they are on the MAF Caravan, loaded up and ready to move. We will miss them around here!
One of their kids (not pictured above) is Elise's good friend Reece. Below is Elise playing with Reece and Joe a couple weeks ago.
The third and final thing that made Friday a big day....was the MAF Christmas party in the hangar! We dressed the kids up Christmas-y for the event. Couldnt help but take a few pics.....
Like normal, it was Elise trying to help get Ian to look at the camera. He was too busy looking at the little flowers he just picked off the bush behind him. That is one of his favorite things to do in our yard!
Elise has been doing this head tilt thing for pictures lately....where did she learn that?!
So over to the MAF Sentani Christmas party. The crew decorated the hangar very well! The little manger scene and Christmas tree were a nice touch!
Here's everybody. We have many "expat" families, and also many local Indonesian workers and their families that help make it all happen. There's crews to schedule flights, manage finance, manage the "wearhouse" for storing and loading stuff that goes on the plane, help passengers, etc.
While we sang "silent night" they turned out the lights and lit candles.
One thing we were un-prepared for was the Indonesian-ness of the Christmas party. Meaning, we came expecting a few songs, skits, then food! Instead, it was a 2 and a half hour program, not un-like a church service, followed by food! It was all good, but our kids were going bonkers and almost past their bedtime by the time we ate dinner!
This little girl loves to hold Ian every chance she gets. She is one of the few people he lets hold him!
And now the random picture part of the blog post!
Elise working on her Christmas carols.
Its always cute when they ride the cart together!
To wrap up this marathon post....a few days ago we had a photo session with the hangar/office workers. I joined them in their group photo. One of the awesome things about working in the hangar for a few months before starting flying is I got to know the guys on our maintenance staff, both Indonesian and expat folks.
Here's one of our Indonesian maintenance guys, Gasko. On monday mornings we have a quick chapel service before starting work. Sometimes Gasko plays the guitar for the songs while I play the djembei drum.
And here's the big group shot.
Marathon post complete!
