MAF Kodiak sent to Haiti

Here's some local news videos of something cool that we got to witness here yesterday. MAF decided to send a new Kodiak aircraft they had ready to go to Indonesia to Haiti instead for the time being. It will join their other aircraft there to act as a vital link between the port au prince airport and the rural airstrips where many people are entirely cut off from the port city and basic things that they need. Many MAF pilots and mechanics will take turns rotating in to serve in Haiti. This is a unique privelege and opportunity that MAF takes advantage of when needed, to divert resources when needed in the event of natural disasters and crises, and is something that I am very excited to be a part of.

MAF is also using their hangar on the Port Au Prince airport as a logistics base for other relief organizations to store and distribute their goods, and they are also using their relationships with and knowledge of the airport to help other relief flights successfully arrive and deplane.

Fork In the Road

Today Heather and I were officially invited on board with MAF, with an assignment to Indonesia!

A whole swirl of thoughts and emotions went through our minds as the candidate committee informed us, with no emotion really overtaking all of the others as our mouths were just sort of dropped in shock. We are excited, excited to get to begin to learn about the people we will live among and serve. Excited to have an answer to the previously wide-open question of where in the world are we going to live. We are not excited to be so far away. Although we knew that we were going to be overseas, some places are closer than others to the US, and Indonesia is about the farthest away. Most of all we trust that the Lord is putting us where He wants us. We both have sensed him doing that in our lives, before we were married and since then. So we trust Him! And we thank Him! We want to say thank you too to the friends and family who said they were praying for us. That means alot to us.

Fowl Play

(watching the Cardinals right now down 21-7 to the Saints in the first quarter....hopefully the title of this post doesn't apply to this game when all is said and done!)

An Inside look at Haiti

Heather and I visited the personal website of an MAF family in Haiti the night before the earthquake. We browsed through many of their photos from Haiti and we spent some time praying for them. So we were a little extra surprised when we heard the initial news of the earthquake the next day, and we had fresh images in our minds of them and the people of their country. Heather and I just re-visited their website thinking that of course there would be no new posts since the earthquake. But MAF managed to get satellite internet set up there and they had made a couple of posts. Their names are Jason and Willemien, and they have a baby boy named Jayden. Willemien had posted a couple of lengthy first person accounts of their experiences during and since the earthquake. She communicated it in a very engaging way and Heather and I were fastened to the computer screen as we read it. Here's a link to Jason and Willemien's blog if you want to read it yourself.