A Bachelor Post

So now I am currently half way through one month of being a bachelor.  Why you ask?  Heather and the kids took the opportunity to travel back to Missouri and spend some time with family!  In order to make it worthwhile, staying three or four weeks is a must.  I did not go back with them, because to do so would use all of my yearly vacation up in one fell swoop....not a good thing here where planning occasional times of rest is a must!  So back here in Papua Indonesia I have been living vicariously through my sister in-law's facebook posts....pictures of Heather and the kids.  Here's a little video Holly posted of Ian saying everybody's names while running around.....Ian calls Holly "Hiya".....





And here's some of the pictures she's posted of Heather, Elise and Ian hanging out with family!
Thanks Holly for keeping the pics coming.  It's funny to me to see them wearing warm clothes...and so special to see them hanging out with family back there.  Fortunately we have the technology of Skype to still say hi to each other just about every day.  The kids still give me their routine hug, kiss and headbutt (yeah I know wierd) on skype before saying goodbye....but it's not quite the same!




Ipad users click here to see album...

While Heather and the kids have been enjoying family, parks, chipotle, target, etc, I have found myself with a lot of free time.  Which is good....because the last two weeks have been the busiest flight training days I have had yet.  I happened to bring my camera along last week, and here's a few pictures from some of the people/places I encountered (along with some other stuff Ive been up to).





Ipad users click here to see album

Among the highlights from last week....were taking two cute little kids to meet their grandparents for the first time who live in an interior village.   We also ran a "shuttle" from one village to another to take people who want to go to a church conference there...ten miles as the crow flies...but over a very large mountain ridge that makes our fifteen minute flight in the Kodiak worth its weight in gold!

While we were doing the shuttle run, I had some priceless moments of "learning by doing" where my instructor Tim, probably to his own amusement, took a step back and let me handle the tickets, weighing, and random requests by passengers by myself,  in a backwoods form of Indonesian.  Like I said, learning by doing!  It was a great learning experience, and a fantastic opportunity to serve the people that we flew across the ridge to the village where the church conference was.

Another highlight was receiving one of the best looking bunches of banannas I have ever seen as a gift from a lady at an interior airstrip/village called Okhika.  As I talked to the airstrip agent there (a local guy trained to help us)  I learned they have a bible school near that airstrip.  I asked him what it was called..."Sekolah Alkitab Bahasah Daerah"....which means "Bible School of the Local Language".  Here in Papua there are so many separate tribal languages (over 200) and each nook and cranny of the island has its own.  This bible school trains pastors for the language of the little valley that it is located in with, who knows maybe five thousand people or less living there and speaking that language.  How cool!

I have been asking for prayer for all sorts of good learning scenarios to happen during my training.....some of you all out there are praying for that...because it has been very good.  We have faced all sorts of great learning opportunities.  For example a few days ago we encountered a real systems failure!  Our electrical generator went bad on us  (we have lots of redundancy in these planes so we have another source of electrical power called an alternator...and we just used that as we flew home.)  It was a very non-dangerous and manageable situation, especially given our fair weather, but it was a great learning as we handled the situation for real.  It was something we talk about and study on the ground, but it was great experience to go through the procedures in the air to deal with it, including turning off non essential components to lighten the electrical load while flying home.  Much better to do the first time with an instructor pilot on board than by yourself!  So whoever is praying out there, thanks but don't pray too hard because we don't want too many more systems failures!

Exploring a New City!

It was our first time stepping foot outside of Indonesia since we arrived a year and a half ago.  We went to explore nearby Singapore!  It happened to be along the route of the trip that Heather is on right now.....visiting family in Missouri with the kids.  I went with them as far as Singapore and we stayed in a hotel there for a while and enjoyed the city!

Singapore is an amazing city, and very fun to visit.  We're so glad we got a chance to spend some time there as a family.  The contrast entering Singapore from Indonesia is stunning.  On the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, we were amazed by the nice, three lane highway with no motorcycles on it.  And we were traveling at highway speeds!  The next morning as we stepped out, we were impressed by the clean-ness, all the landscaping, covered walkways, huge sidewalks everywhere, and very good public transportation.  (Not to mention many of the places we miss...like Mcdonalds, Starbucks, Subway, Chillis...etcetera etcetera!)  During our time there we got on the train to visit many of the local sites.   Some of our favorites were the zoo, the botanical gardens, and a park along the beach where you can rent bicycles and ride for miles! Here is a (rather large) album of some pictures we took there.

Link to album for Ipad users

So we really enjoyed Singapore and enjoyed stepping foot back in a place that is more like we are used to. I realized that because Singapore has some advantages over Indonesia in some respects, that doesn't mean that it's better. One thing I really appreciate about Indonesia is how personable many people are here. Often here you can spend time on your front porch (or someone elses front porch) talking with neighbors or strangers. I suppose every place has its strengths and weaknesses! And here in Indonesia, we enjoy some pretty great natural beauty too with the amazing jungles, mountains and beaches! When it was time to leave, Heather and the kids headed on to Missouri to see family. It was hard to say goodbye, and definitely a wierd feeling to say goodbye to your family as they head out on a big trip! And I headed back here to Indonesia to keep flying with MAF (with limited vacation time, it's not really productive for me to go back to the U.S. with them since I would have to leave and return here relatively soon).

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody!  We hope you have a good time with family and remembering what God did for you!  Elise enjoyed hearing the Easter story this year in her kids Bible...."Childrens Storybook Bible.". What a blessing it was to see her "follow along" with this story (at least a little bit!)..... and to watch the emotions on her face as Jesus was nailed to the cross....then to watch her delight as he rose from the dead.  Lord may all four of us know and appreciate more deeply what you did for us because you love us!

Our Future Home......Wamena!

This last week was pretty exciting and action packed for us.  We have had a trip to Wamena planned for quite a while now to see another MAF base in Papua and get the flavor of what it is like.  And two days before we left to visit Wamena, we found out that we will be living there....our permenant base assignment!  This is news we have been waiting for for some time so this was a really big deal for us!  It will be our first "place to call home" where we don't have to move again soon.  And we're very ready for that!  So this news turned a normal trip into something much more exciting for us....seeing our future home!

So we flew up on Wednesday on an MAF plane.  Our friend Daniel picked us up and drove us around town a little bit.  We stayed on the MAF base in the guest house where all 10 MAF Wamena families live.  Wamena is situated at 5000 feet in a valley surrounded by huge mountains, and the scenery and the cool air were quite a treat!

Just after landing in Wamena....both Elise and Ian slept on the flight so they were in their funny (but pleasant) just woke up moods when we got there.

Wamena is right in the middle of Papua in the central highlands.  There are no roads that go to Wamena, and obviously no sea ports....so if I understand right, Wamena is the only city in the world supplied entirely by airplanes......

So there you have it, an MAF airplane in the foreground, "watching" the Boeing 737 in the background getting ready to take off...... one of the dozens of cargo flights that comes and goes between Wamena and Sentani (our current home) every day. While the cargo planes supply the city of Wamena, we (MAF) are there to go between Wamena and the many interior mountain villages....to serve the people and ministries there ....for sure I will be sharing much more about that later!  

Instead of saying anything more, I want to share an album of some of the pictures we took on our trip this weekend.  It starts with pictures of the flight out to Wamena.  Believe it or not it was Heather, Elise and Ian's very first time on an MAF flight!  After the flight there's some pictures of Wamena as well as around the MAF base there (where we will live!).  Then I end with pictures from the flight home and approaching our scenic current home (Sentani)......