Back to Bronco status...for now.

Today was a bittersweet day. We only had one flight planned, so we weren't very busy at the hangar. Therefore, I continued working on the Bronco putting all the dash back together and fixing a few other odds and ends. The sweet part of the day is that I now write this looking at my Bronco parked in the driveway. So far everything seems to be running fine, although I am not going to declare it trustworthy for a bit more time.

The bitter part of the day is that I woke up with a pounding headache. I was able to numb it a bit while I was at the hangar this morning with asprin, but later in the afternoon if knocked me out. I was planning on doing a post maintenance flight, but due to my headache I declared myself "un-airworthy." So I missed out on a flight, but there will be many more to come.

As I have been busy the past 3 weekends working on the Bronco, I don't know what I will do tommorow. Our yard has been taking on the appearance of jungle due to my neglect, so I will probably end up working in the yard. Other than that, we have no plans, except waiting for a baby to come, which could be any day, or a few more weeks. I know if Becca had her choice it would have been yesterday.

Another good day...

I was able to get a flight in today to a village called Cururay. It is about a 45 flight from Shell. I went out there to pick up a government medical team. They had been out there since Monday giving vaccinations and general medical care. I waited about an hour and a half at the runway until they pulled up in a dugout canoe in the nearby river ready to go home.

It was a beautiful day today, it hasn't even rained once. What this also means is it was really HOT! When I was out in the jungle waiting for my passengers, it was just like you would imagine it, hot and very humid, with bugs everywhere. It doesn't take much time in that environment to help me re-realize the isolation that these people live in. After I finally made it back to Shell, it was almost lunch time. I helped get some other flights going, and rode my bike home and ate.

(Here are some very shy girls waiting at the river with me in Cururay. Like children anywhere, they are easy to make laugh and eager for some fun.)

After lunch, I did a few more things in the hangar and then "clocked out" to work on the Bronco. I am very encouraged. I made more progress putting it together than I thought I would this afternoon. If I get a chunk of free time tommorow, I should be able to finish everything and even drive it home. I sure hope so. My goal is to try and get the Bronco home and trustworthy before Becca has a baby.

Her day wasn't quite as good as mine. She is at that miserable stage of being VERY pregnant. I don't think she cares if I get our car working or not before she goes into labor. She is ready to get back to a normal life now!

Here is a C-130 Hercules that was in Shell the other day. The military has at least one here in Ecuador. The USA military sometimes "loans" our pilots to the Ecuadorians in order to give them real world training in the ops of this cool airplane.

Looking up...

Today was a definate improvement over yesterday. I put one of my fuses I bought yesterday into the Bronco and it fired right up. That was a highlight! I still need about a day to get everything back together, but the fact that the motor fired up as easy and quickly as it did was an encouragment after all the things I have had apart. I won't go out on a limb yet and say everything is ok with my Bronco yet, but we finally made progress!

I was also able to get a flight done today. I went with Chad to some new strips I had never been to before. We were moving around some government medical workers. It was a blast, and really encouraging to be back in the air again. Tommorow they have me making at least two flights by myself, so I am looking forward to that as well. We'll see what happens.

My sink project seems to be holding. No leaks yet, so presumably I can say that I fixed it correctly! That is a huge relief.

Brokeness...

The Bible talks about the power and neccesity of brokeness throughout the whole book. It seems like Becca and I have had our share of brokeness of a different sort lately...

Last night Rebecca notified me that "Sean, we have a small leak from the bathroom sink." OK, no problem, big, smart, Mr. Knowitall to the rescue. When I went and saw the leak, sure enough, it was just as Becca described. Just a few drops every once in a while. Nothing to write home about for sure. Well, as I fiddled a little more with the hose, off came the whole thing and water began spraying everywhere. Rather than put nice little shutoff valves on sinks and toilets like they do in the States, everything is just directly plumbed here. So, having never shut off my water main before, I didn't know exactly where it was. Several gallons of water and a hysterical daughter later, I found the shut off valve outside the house near where I park the truck. Well, world disater narrowly averted, we cleaned up the water and went to bed. I was going to get a new hose in the morning.

After getting things going this morning at the hangar, I found a chance to get away about 10:00 to try and fix the hose that blew off. I found what I needed at the local hardware store for .85 cents and tried it out. Because of the design on my sink, I couldn't tighten the hose as well as I needed to, so I went to the hangar to get a special basin wrench. This seemed to work fine, until the heavily corroded sink fixture decided to twist off, thus making another tsunami in my bathroon until I got the water main shut off. It didn't take as long this time. So, another trip to the hardware store and I bought a whole new faucet, a union, and another hose just for grins. As of yet, there are no leaks, but I never did make it back to the hangar today. This little plumbing project took my whole day!

For those of you who read this blog, you already know about the pathetic state of my "new" car, a Ford Bronco. Last night I stayed after work and gutted the alarm system. The motor turned over after I was done, but it still did not start. After further inspection I found that I have a burned fuse in part of my ignition/fuel system. I later found some fuses today, although they are not of the right amperage, but should work in the meantime. So, progress definetly made, but still no Bronco. As of this writing it still remains "La Bronca."

On to other broken things, our stupid printer. When we opened up our shippment from the States a few months ago, we were very suprised by the excelent condition of everything. Nothing was damaged, except...our printer. A few months ago I had it totally torn apart, and I think I found the problem. There is a little piece that was damaged probably from being dropped, but you could put it on manualy, and the printer worked fine. Afterwards, I put the printer back together, and it worked for a while. Presumably, the little part has fallen off again, thus our printer doesn't work. Therefore, in my next batch of free time (haa haa haa) I will dismantle my printer and see if I can get it working. Did I mention that the printer/scanner/copier that is part of this house no longer works as well ever since we have used it.

Despite my whining about a sink leak, my Bronco, and various technological "helps," life is still good. The thing that we have grown to learn here in the third world is that these 3 "problems" are solved in a totally different way than if we were in the states. Nothing happens fast here, there are no Wal-Mart's, and it can easily frustrate you when things continue to go south. I have been learning first hand that being a "Jack of all trades" isn't all it is cracked up to be. I never thought I would be a pilot, airplane mechanic, auto mechanic, plumber, computer repairman, and dog whisperer (that's another story) all in one day. I cancelled my English classes tonite just because I needed a bit of downtime not thinking very much in order to maintain my sanity. Becca and I are tired, and it's not even Wednesday. Who knows what tommorow will bring, but surely life will keep on keepin' on whether it asks us or not.

La Bronca

I have worked all weekend on our "Bronca." I got some parts yesterday that I ordered on Tuesday from the States. Pretty amazing that it all worked out, and that a few car parts made it all the way here in 5 days. I ordered them from my hometown parts shop in Colorado late Tuesday afternoon, the parts store took them to Mountain View Aeromotive late Wednesday afternoon, Mountain View then mailed them next day air to some people from Ohio, the people in Ohio received them Thursday, and Friday they flew to Ecuador to visit their family members who are missionaries here in Shell. Saturday, these people came down from Quito to Shell with my parts!

Now, you want to know the ironic part? The parts I recieved are not the parts I needed, therefore they are still in the box. Rather than go into all the details of who messed up what, who cares at this point. I live in a third world country, they will come in handy some day!

Today, I was able to get my fuel system back together, and I was able to repair the "damaged" parts that I thought I would have new ones for. The fuel system works fine as far as I know, but the Bronca still won't start because my alarm is malfunctioning, cutting off power to my starter. Now my next task is to pull that piece of junk out, and reconnect everything to the state it was when it left the factory. It shouldn't be too hard, but I just don't have any more time. Maybe this coming week I can get to it, but more than likely it will be next weekend.

I am sure this week at the hangar will be busy and crazy. We already have 2 of our 4 airplanes in maintenance and no parts to fix them (they are in a Fed-Ex truck somewhere in Quito), 2 of our 4 mechanics will be gone, two of our pilots will be unable to fly, and who knows what else life will throw into the works. Needless to say, I am hoping to be part of the flying this week, but we'll see.

(By the way, thanks Ron for helping get those parts to us!)

The Donco O.R.

Here is a little pic of my "new" car. It looks pretty pathetic, but hopefully this weekend I will be able to get it close to operational if not totally repaired. We will see.
On a different note, we caught a rat today in the hangar much to the pleasure of our smallest Boa snake, named Maximo. He had that thing down in no time, and you couldn't even tell he had been fed afterwards. Usually there is a lump in their mid-section that shows what they just ate. The 11th of August was the last time he ate!
I was also able to fly again today. I just did what we call an R.T.S. It stands for "return to service," and we do these after an airplane comes out of maintenance. Although the flight itself was pretty boring as far a cargo and people stories, it was still a great feeling to be able to fly again all by myself!

From the logbook...FIRST SOLO!!!

Today the big day finally arrived. After 6 years of hard work and preparation, I was finally turned loose to fly solo into the Ecuadorian jungle. I flew 4 people from Shell to a
village called Kusutka, about 30 minutes away. One of the people is a fellow missionary, but he lives in Quito. He brings small teams of Ecuadorians down every month or so to go into the jungle and do medical work, teaching, and evangelizing. To my knowledge, no one told my passengers that they were my first "victims." You have to be carefull with a non-flying public in what you say to them, so that they will not only trust the little machine that is flying them, but also the pilot at the controls. It was a great feeling to finally be the master of the cockpit again. My flight was very uneventfull, just like we wanted it to be. The weather was beautiful, which also helped lower the butterfly factor before takeoff.
I had the missionary that I flew take this picture of me with some of the villagers of Kusutka. The man on my right in the yellow shirt was also one of my passengers.After I returned to Shell, there was a big throng awaiting me. Keeping stride with aviation culture, my instructor Chad and Brooklyn had a great time hosing me down in the celebration of my first solo. I had everybody else in the hangar too afraid to participate in such a dousing. Chad was the only one man enough to actually step out of the hangar and let me have it. It was all a great time.

Gone

We discovered over the weekend that a propane tank attached to our grill was taken from our roof. Our roof is flat and is almost like a patio area above the house. There is a gate that is normally kept shut so that the dogs can't get up on the roof (they tend to bark at everything from up there) and that is why the thief was able to climb up on our roof from the street and take the tank. The dogs (especially the big German Sheperd) tend to scare away the "riff-raff" that might want to come into the yard but they weren't able to get at whoever came on the roof the other day. Needless to say, that gate is now open and the dogs are allowed on the roof to bark at and scare away anybody who dares climb onto our roof again!!

Praise God that it was only a propane tank - those can be sold for about $20 or $30 which is a couple of days' wages for some people here. There is also a storage shed up there that holds all of our shipment (waiting for the day we have our own house to put it in) and many things belonging to the family that lives here. The lock wasn't locked - we must have forgotten to re-lock it last time we were in there - but the thief must not have seen it! The loss could have been much greater, so we're grateful.

Still, being "robbed" sure does make a person feel crummy. This sort of thing is extremely common here - we've been lucky over the past year and a half not to have experienced this yet. It was a big deal to me...until I talked with a "veteran" missionary. I told her with wide eyes that somebody stole our propane tank and she said in an extremely bored voice "oh, they've been on your roof, huh?" There was no sympathy and certainly no shock. That was when I realized that this is just part of the life that we signed on for! Lesson learned - chain and lock everything down, even if it seems like something people wouldn't want...unless, of course, you have some junk you'd like to get rid of!! --Becca

The Donco...

Due to bad weather today, we only had two flights, and even then, they barely made it out and back in. We had a full schedule today, so now we will put it all on the plan for tommorow. Since we weren't able to accomplish much, I worked on the Bronco today. Due to it's current state of being totally torn apart, it is now called the Donco. Kinda a cross between a Donkey and a Bronco, but not like a mule. How's that for a deep thought! Anyway, at this point I have the whole fuel tank dropped out, the fuel pump out, and the whole dash and ventilation system pulled. I am tracing a wire that has low voltage. My fuel pump is only getting 7 volts, and it should be 12. Due to previous installations from things like alarms and whatever else, there is some poorly done work under the dash. It just so happens that the piece of wire I need is in the place the dash won't allow you to get. Therefore, I just removed the dash. Now if only I can remember how to put it back together. Let's just start praying for that now. I am also trying to track down some parts that I need. I know that prices and availability in the States are good, tommorow I will see what they are here in Ecuador. Sometimes they are ok, other times not. Either way, we are back to driving our loaner truck for the timebeing. I am not on the flight schedule for tommorow, so maybe I will have to more time to get my Donco back into shape.

My birthday girl

Yesterday was Becca's b-day. Although I don't think she would mind if I told you all her age, let's just say she is still a youngin'. Despite the specialness of her b-day, I was at the hangar all day working on our Bronco. I pulled the fuel tank, so I could get at the fuel pump and fuel sender. I also pulled out the car alarm which was malfunctioning. So our Bronco looks kinda pathetic right now. I has a lot of the dash and it's panels pulled off, a big gas tank in the back, and various other parts off. I will probably be back at the hangar this afternoon continuing my hunt for some other problems. Sadly, our Bronco won't be back in service for a while. Hopefully this afternoon I will be able to determine all the parts I need, and then determine how and where I will get them.

We did have a nice dinner last night at one of our favorite restuarants. We then came home and watched Snow White with Brooklyn. I fell asleep, so I can't tell you much about it, although I think it was a little too scary for Brooklyn still. It was weird to think that that movie came out in 1937. It was the first animated full length film in history.

Wiririma Pic...

I wanted to post a picture of an airborne view of Wiririma. Remember that it is the strip that we opened last week, and spent the time on the ground surveying. If you look closely you can see what used to be their old airstrip cutting across their new one. They told me that one was too short, and nobody would use it. So they started again, and built the current one you see. All told it took them 8 years of hand labor, carving these strips out of the jungle below. This is a very typical strip that we land in, rivers on the ends, about 60 feet wide, 500 meters long, etc.

From the logbook...

I was able to make an afternoon flight today, after many other flights that the other pilots were making. We (Chad and I) had 3 stops on our flight plan, but because of bad weather, we had to change our plans a bit. We took off from Shell with 2 patient returns, and 1 teacher with Compassion International. The 2 patients were both from a village called Ayuy, about a 30 minute flight from Shell. One of them was in a half body cast with broken legs, and therefore still couldn't walk, and the other was still so weak from her surguries that she wasn't in much better shape. After sneaking into Ayuy, beating the approaching rainstorms, we dropped off the woman with the broken legs at one end of the airstrip, and then we taxied to the opposite end and let out the other woman.

I had picked up this woman about 2 weeks ago when she was on her deathbed, and when I loaded her into the airplane, I didn't think she would make the 25 minute flight to Shell, let alone make it to see another day. Obviously the doctors worked miracles, as we saw a scar from her pubic area up to her sternum. I don't know what was wrong, but it was a long scar. There was a woman there at Ayuy two weeks ago when we picked this patient up, that was really upset; crying as we loaded her up into the plane. It was almost as though she didn't think she would see her alive again. This same woman was there today as the patient got off the plane, and instantly she broke down into tears and hugged her friend or sister, (I don't know) amazed that she was seeing her alive still. It was a powerfull reminder once again of the balance of life and death that we help to tip sometimes.

After Ayuy the plan was to make the 5 minute flight to Yuvientza to drop off the Compassion teacher. It was covered in a downpour, so we switched gears and headings, and made the 5 minute flight to our third stop called Makuma.

We just had cargo and mail for Makuma. It didn't take long to see that if we stayed in Makuma long, we would be there overnight due to approaching thunderstorms, so we took off again, this time for home, returning to Shell. We were unable to get the Compassion International teacher into Yuvientza today, so he came back with us to Shell. We will try again tommorow, and see if the weather is a little better. The teacher said if he didn't have all his teaching supplies, he just would have walked from Makuma to Yuvientza through the jungle. I asked him how long that would take to hike, and he told me about "5 hours." It would have been 4 minutes in our airplane!

More wildlife...

We had this tarantula in a jar for the past few days. I guess we started feeling sorry for him and let him free. They get a LOT bigger!
This toad came in from the jungle today, from a strip called San Carlos. (I bet everyone can say that one) He was stowed away under a generator that was coming out of the jungle. When we got the generator out of the plane, off he went to find a new home.
Here is another moth I found today. I think it is even prettier than the last one I found. It was about twice the size too.

In the air again...

We were busy, busy today! Chad and I made a flight to a few places today, and once again I was learning a lot. The weather left a lot to be desired today, as we had low ceilings and rain here in Shell and everywhere in the jungle. So rather than fight the weather trying to stay out of the clouds, we took off from Shell and entered the clouds shortly thereafter. We flew a ways out today, almost to the Peruvian border. Chad and I were in and out of the clouds for about 45 minutes until we arrived at our first stop. Even when we arrived over our first stop called Charapacocha, there were no holes in the clouds to descend through, so we flew a little beyond Charapacocha, and found a hole in which to descend. We dropped our way down threw the hole in the clouds and then worked our way back to Charapacocha. I made an uneventful landing and we dropped off the teacher that works there with Compasion International. Shortly afterwards, we were enroute for our second of three stops called Chuindia, about 20 minutes away.

In Chuindia we dropped off some returning patients, and after a bit of logistical confusion, we loaded up another patient to take back to Shell. This patient was an older woman returning to the hospital for her third TB treatment. Once again, after about 20 minutes on the ground, we left for the 20 minute flight to Wiririma.

Wiririma is a new airstrip for us. In fact, it hadn't been officially "opened" by us, although other operators had been using it. We gathered what info we could from the air, landed, and shut down in order to get more precise info regarding the strip. We spent about 30 minutes on the ground measuring its length, altitude, slope, climb out angles, width, surface condition, and a number of various other things. It was a lot of fun, and the people of Wiririma were jubilant with our opening of their strip. They worked for 2 years constructing this airstrip by hand! It was a lot of fun to see how grateful these people were that we would fly in there now, and could transport their sick, haul their cargo, and any number of other things. They even gave me two HUGE yucca plants (think jungle potato, pretty tasty), and a huge grocery sack of freshly smoked meat. I don't know what kind of meat they gave me. It could have been a number of things, from monkey, to beef, to pig, etc. Needless to say, I gave it all away when we got to Shell to one of our hangar helpers, because I knew I would let it go to waste before we could eat all of it.

After a good time in Wiririma, we were off for Shell again. By this time we were over an hour away from Shell, and the weather still was not improving. If we would have flown about 10 minutes in the opposite direction, we would have been in Peru. So, flying towards Shell, we climbed up to 8,500ft in the clouds and made our way back. The trip home was uneventful, and as we approached closer to Shell, we began the instrument approach into Shell. After flying the approach, we broke out of the clouds about 2 miles out from the runway, and then we proceded to land. All told, I had almost 3 hours of flying again, just under an hour in the clouds, we opened up a new airstrip, flew 4 medical patients, and I shot one instrument approach. It was a complete day indeed.
Chad took this of me in Wiririma. Obviously, I am a giant compared to most of the people we serve, and they wasted no time in making jokes about my size compared to their's. It made for a fun time.

The Bronco

Here is the pic of our Bronco as promised. I worked on it just fixing general things most of the day. I think we will be real happy with this car. It is no luxury liner, but it's not a beater either. Despite our happiness of buying our own car here, we had to tow it to the hangar tonite and come home in the loaner truck. I think my fuel pump went out, so it looks like I will be putting one of those in soon, if I can find one. Remember, there aren't any parts store chains here, so getting parts can sometimes be an adventure. Fuel pumps are a common replacement here due to the poor quality of fuel. My co-worker, Dale, who towed us to the hangar with his Chevy just replaced his fuel pump about 4 days ago.

14 has arrived...

Late last week, we finally recieved our new addition to the MAF fleet here in Shell. Remember the ferry flight that I made back in the first part of June? Well, it finally made it from Quito to Shell. It had been held up this whole time in customs, while they figured out how much we had to pay them. It wasn't cheap, as the check had 5 figures on it. But at least we have it here now and we can begin to use it hopefully in the near future. As you can tell from the picture below, our mechanics are digging into it pretty thoroughly. It will be at least a few weeks before it is ready to fly again. This "new" airplane will be called "Alas 14." All of our airplanes have a numerical name making them easier to distinguish. So, at this point we have Alas 10, 11, 12, 13, and now 14. (By the way, our MAF name in Spanish is Alas de Socorro, or Wings of Help.)

Also, as always, I found some more bugs this morning as I opened up the hangar at work. The picture below is from the wings of a moth. Isn't God's design so amazing, that even the "eyes" on these wings have reflection marks? Explain that evolution!

We have added a new addition to our family this week. We bought a car! I will post a picture soon. We had been looking for a car since we got here. I was very familiar therefore with prices of various vehichles, and when we saw this 94 Ford Bronco I knew it was a good deal. A fellow missionary with HCJB World Radio sold the Bronco to us. It is sure nice to be driving our own car now, and not having to worry about damaging someone else's car.

Our Little Princess

My goodness but she is starting to think highly of herself! Brooklyn is really starting to come up with some cute antics that both entertain and worry her parents. Someday she might just get annoying with all her bragging but right now....gosh, it's cute! Her favorite pastime is watching herself in the mirror - fluffing her curls and twirling around. She prances around all day in a pair of new high-heel Barbie shoes telling us over and over "Me's a pwincess. Me's a cute pwincess." Next thing we know we're getting a neck-breaking hug and she's saying, "Give me a hug!" She taps her cheek, indicating that she'd like a kiss there (and she knows we're never going to say no). When asked her name by strangers she says "I'm ME." Who else would she be, silly? Doesn't everybody know who she is?! --Becca

The flying ambulance

Yesterday, when I read our flight schedule via email before going to work, we didn't have even one flight planned. I later learned to be leery of these kind of days.

Soon after I arrived to work we got a radio call from a village called Quenahueno to bring out an infant that was in bad shape, showing signs of advanced pnemonia. So Chad and I flew out to Quenahueno and brought the mother and her baby out, taking about 50 minutes of total flight time. When we arrived back in Shell, the baby and her mom were sent to the hospital in nearby Puyo for treatment.

Also upon arrival back in Shell, we found our flight day had just grown a lot longer. There were at least 3 more emergencies waiting for us to come and get them. In order to make the most of our time and resources, we also put some waiting people and cargo into the airplane for some nearby airstrips and Chad and I were airborne once again. About 30 minutes over the jungle and approaching our first stop, we decided to divert to our second stop because of the rain that was over our first stop. After a go around into the village called Washintza we finally got the approach and landing figured out the second time around. After unloading our cargo there in Washintza, we were off again to try for our first planned stop of Copataza. The rain had moved on at this point and we made it in just fine. We offloaded our cargo and people for Copataza and left empty for a strip called Achuar to begin the first of our medical evacs.

I hit the landing zone perfectly at Achuar and we stoped and loaded up our "patient." Because of some confusion in Shell, there wasn't a patient in Achuar to come out, but there was a man needing to come out, so we put him on. After an aborted takeoff because of lack of flying speed, we tried it again and finally the numbers looked better and we continued with the takeoff and were enroute to Iwia.

In Iwia we did have a patient waiting. It was a woman that possibly had a miscarriage and was still bleeding. So on she went and then we were off to Yuvientza.

In route to Yuvientza we recieved a radio call from Shell that there was yet another, even more serious patient in a village called Makuma. We determined that we still had room to pick up the patient in Yuvientza and Makuma, so we landed in Yuvientza and picked up the all to common snake bite victim. From Yuvientza we made the flight to Makuma and picked up a father and his infant boy who was the patient. For reasons unknown to Chad and I, the little boys anus had come out about 5cm. So, finally we were a full airplane and we were back in route to Shell.

For the 6 seats that we have in the 206, we had 7 people total inside. It is not uncommon to have 9-10 inside if the people are small. For the 2.7 hours of flying that I had yesterday, I made 9 landings, had 1 aborted landing, 1 aborted takeoff, fought through marginal weather and rain, and loved it all. No doubt my pulse rate was high at certain times because of workload and quick desicions that must be made. Between most of my stops, our flight legs were only about 4 minutes between airstrips. Things happen real quick when you are landing and taking off that quickly into what would be condidered by most anything but a runway. But that is the reason for the specialized checkout process that I am in, and the time MAF puts into it. It is also the reason that we are here, helping people that otherwise probably wouldn't have made it to see another day.

This and That...

My checkout process has been continuing this week. I have flown 3 times so far, and I should be within a week or two of finally soloing. I am looking forward to this, although you sure cannot rush into it.

I have definetly been grateful for the care and time that MAF puts into the checkout process for the rookies like me. MAF already proved in the states that I can fly the plane to their standards, the checkout process is made so that I can integrate my flying skills with all the other "variables" that come with flying for a mission in a foriegn country.

Most of my flights this week have had some type of emergency patient on board. We had to divert a few times and change our flight plan mid-stream in order to pick up some critically ill people. I have been learning how to deal with the emotional component of our type of flying. It breaks your heart to load up some of the patients that I have had this week, and see thier kids, family members, and friends crying as you load them up. In some cases they may never see this person again. In order to fly safely, I am learning to find that balance of compassion while at the same time remain stone faced trying to do my job safely, without the distractions of a screaming kid in the back, or a woman vomiting, from who knows what, into a little sack. These are the things that you don't learn in a normal flight environment.

Also, dealing with the people when you land can definetly be a challenge. It is rare when you land, pick-up or drop-off your people and/or cargo, and takeoff. 90% of our landings are met with throngs of desperate people wanting to leave the jungle for various reasons or simply because you are the attraction for the day. Some of the reasons they give for leaving are very legitamate, while others are simply trying to get a free ride to the outside world. Once again, I am learning how to be stonefaced yet sensitive to the real needs. It is hard, and sometimes you don't get it right, but God continues to use these examples to show me His love for us. It is a high learning curve, but it makes for good sleep at night.

Becca and I want to thank all of you that pray for us, and ask that you continue! We are already beginning to see how the work of the Lord can easily be put before the Lord himself. Pray with us that we stay encouraged, that we grow to know Jesus more today than we did yesterday, and that we can shine in this very different world.

Hercules Beetle

We have another type of beetle here that is really neat. It is called a Hercules beetle. This photo is actually from a co-worker, I have yet to see one for myself. This one measured 7 inches from tail to "snout." Despite it's formidable appearance, it is harmless. They can fly, and I have seen this. They sound like a mini-helicopter.