Hangar Life

This is the front of our hangar as it opens to the runway. Currently our fleet consists of 5 Cessna 206 aircraft. By the end of this month we will have reduced our fleet in Ecuador down to 4 planes. We will actually have only 3 during part of the month, as one of our airplanes is being flown to Kansas, USA to be exchanged for a different one. The other airplane will soon be on its way to Lesotho, Africa to be part of the program there.

This is the side view of our Hangar. You can see a few of the various offices and the stairs that lead to some storage. Also our gas pump where we fuel all of our planes.

Ron Grant, our fix anything/do it all guy, with one of our two red tailed boa contrictors. We have these two snakes in the hangar in plane view in a large viewing container. We feed them every 6 weeks or so. The meal usually consists of a chicken or a rat. This one is the biggest of the two and at least 5 years old and probably around 5-6 feet long. Come and see us and we will be sure to let you hold it. :)

Today I went to the hangar to begin to see what takes place. I am not expected to be at "work" yet but we are basically settled into our house and I wanted something to do. We always begin work and our day with prayer in the hangar. That is always a special time to gather all of our staff and our national workers and unite briefly each day to reflect on what we are there for. We did recieve the "battle plan" from my boss as to when I need to be at work and the things I need to get before I can fly. It looks like next week we are going to Quito and I will take all my written flight exams for my re-licensing of my commercial and instrument pilot licenses. Yes, they will all be in Spanish. There are 9 total tests. Pray for me as I study this week and presumably this weekend as well. Begin to pray with us as well that when DAC (Ecuador's FAA) sees me that they are understanding as to why I am there asking for a license and not a national Ecuadorian. Some day in a latter blog I will go into a little more detail about our current situation with the government and our ability to fly in Ecuador. It continues to get very complicated. We also had our last "free" dinner tonite. Fellow MAF families have been having us over to their homes since we arrived here to eat dinner and get to know us. Tommorow we will have to take another step into the real world and make dinner for ourselves.