From the Logbook...Teamwork!

Isaac was able to capture our team in action last week when I returned with a woman that was three months pregnant and already having complications.

It's always great to arrive with a patient to our home base and watch our team just kick into action without so much as a word...we just know what needs to be done and it happens.  We all love what we do and helping sick people in all of their varying degrees of seriousness is one of the easiest ways to attach meaning and value to our "job."  Thanks to all of you that pray and support us to be able to impact the people of Central Borneo in Jesus' name.

From the Logbook...Kids Will Be Kids

It's always fun to see what the crazy kids are up to when I'm at the dock of an interior village.  I was able to take the picture above from the opposite side of my float plane and shot the picture from under the aircraft through all of the flying wires, cables and struts.  Otherwise they would have turned shy and hid from me.

The other two pictures are self explanatory.  Most kids love a tree to climb on/in and these kids were having a blast climbing all over these small trees on the river bank.  There's nothing like letting your kids enjoy the great outdoors and making all sorts of adventures and fun for themselves.

From the Logbook...From the Rooftop

While on the hangar roof last week taking pictures of the high water conditions, MCD was getting ready to go on a quick post-maintenance flight.  I captured these pictures while I was up there.

Just upstream from our hangar is a small lumber mill.  It's easy to get used to the rhythm of things at our hangar/office/dock and then look 100 yards upstream and realize there is a TOTALLY different type of business and lifestyle happening there.

As MCD took off, he flew right by the hangar roof as I snapped a few pictures.  I love flying float planes...

High Water (Pt. 2 of 2)

Some workplaces have aquariums and other "natural" additions to their office spaces to promote a sense of Feng Shui.  We don't have to go to any effort to have any of that at our office/dock/hangar.  Mother Nature has brought it right to our front door...

We've really been enjoying having a troop of macaque monkeys around the office lately.  Most of the trees around our office currently have some type of fruit currently and the monkeys are finding plenty to eat.

The ground at the base of these trees is currently under about 2-3 feet of water.  But this doesn't slow the monkeys down much.  They can live their whole life in the trees without ever touching terra firma.  It's amazing to watch them jump from tree to tree with effortless grace.

Usually we have the monkeys hanging out near our offices when the water is high because our office location is one of the last remaining areas that actually has trees.  The properties on all sides of us have been clear cut to prepare for other buildings.  As the area around our dock continues to be developed, I wonder if the monkeys will be spending more time in the trees near our office.

High Water (Pt. 1 of 2)

The river is flooding at our home base location right now.  This happens every year and it's wonderful.  Water means life and the abundance of all of this water means we get to see a lot of neat animals and other oddities.  The picture below is actually a few pictures stitched together taken from the roof of our hangar showing our office and the other float plane dock.  The water is about 8 inches low from coming into the office.

Toads aren't that unusual to what we normally see, but even they are looking for a dry place to hang out right now.  You have to be careful where you step right now.  There are small critters everywhere as they are driven out by the high water.  It's near impossible to keeps the ants at bay as they seek higher ground.

Our Indonesian employees are naturally adept at catching fish.  It's not unusual for them to string up a net as they leave work only to check it the following morning when they get back to work and see what they've caught.  From time to time they bring up some unusual animals!

I've always liked lizards.  This was the first time that I've seen this species around our offices, although I'm sure they have been there all along.  But this one, like everyone else, is just trying to find dry ground, of which there isn't much of right now.

Check back in a few days and I'll show you what else has been hanging out around our office.

From the Logbook...Dock Life

As I fly to various villages throughout the course of a week...sometimes it just hits me how unique the environment around me is.  I often wonder what it would be like to fly float planes in Washington state or Alaska.  There is no doubt that those float plane environments are extremely different from what I see on an almost daily basis.

At most of the interior villages we serve with the float plane, almost all aspects of life occur over the water.  Trading, buying, selling, raising animals, butchering animals, bathing; you name it...it occurs over water.  Such a different world, it's such a privilege to serve these people with my passions and gifts.

From the Logbook...Boat Traffic

In our float plane operations, we share our "runway" with all type of different water going vessels.  It sure keeps things interesting.  On some of the larger rivers we operate out of, during high water season, it's common to see these tug boats pulling a barge full of hundreds of logs heading for a furniture store near you.  I can't say whether or not this lumber of from the legal or illegal lumber trade, but I can say that the amount of lumber being floated down the river is unbelievable.  The picture above was taken in a misty type of rain, leaving the river almost perfectly flat and the sky grey.

Regardless of the size of the river, there are always the little "klotoks" seen above.  Most of them have customized paint jobs and are operated by a lawnmower type engine.  It's not common to see them all lined up like they are in the photo above because usually the river current  has them lined up end to end...not side to side.  Life is sure colorful in Indonesia, on many levels.

From the Logbook...Tumbang Olong

One of my roles at our MAF location is that of Instructor Pilot.  This makes me responsible for initial checkout for new pilots as well as performing their recurring 6 month checks.  It's always fun to go to all of the places I normally do while performing one of these checks, but with a different perspective...that of Evaluator.  On days like that, I'm able to wonder around a little bit more and watch from the "outside looking in."

For those of you who have ever flown with or met Isaac, the picture above describes him well.  Always ready to laugh and brighten the mood in any room.  He is a testimony to what the life changing power of Jesus can do in us and he readily demonstrates that to those around him.  We always have a lot of laughs in the cockpit flying together.  It probably makes the passengers wonder what the crazy "bules"  (Westerners) are talking about.

Most of the time, the village kids enjoy having their picture taken, especially when you show it to them afterward.  It's a childhood RADICALLY different than mine was.  I like how this little guy has his gun with him.  There is something in the DNA of boys all around the globe that has them liking similar things; guns, trucks, airplanes, motor noises, etc.  It's so fun to watch and interact with them.

From the Logbook...Night Landing

Back in December while I was still waiting for my work permit our other pilot was busy keeping the flight schedule going.  One of his flights had him landing just after sunset due a wide variety of factors.  This is unusual to MAF because,  1.) per our own internal rules, we don't fly at night, and 2.) operating a float plane at night can be especially dangerous.  Thankfully, it was still just a few minutes after official sunset leaving a little bit of dusk light and Isaac made a wonderful and uneventful landing.  

I took a few pictures of the landing.  The pictures are very grainy due to the settings I had to use on my camera for the low light, but I thought they still turned out cool enough with all of the airplane lights reflecting off of the water.

After pulling into the slip, the airplane was hoisted onto the hangar floor and we all went home for the night, albeit a little later than normal.

From the Logbook...Kalaweit Foundation

Just days after receiving my work permit last week...a fun flight opportunity came together to document what a good organization is doing about an hours flight north of where we live.  For a few months I have been working on a flight request to enable a French filming crew to come and make a documentary about a man named Chanee and his organization called Kalaweit.  You can read about Kalaweit by clicking here.

One of the requests that the filming crew had was to film one of our airplanes while airborne.  We were only able to comply with this request literally days before the flight was to occur due to my work permit status.  Thankfully for everyone involved, my permit came through just in time for them. In order to get better shots of the airplane while airborne, the right-side door was removed on the other airplane allowing the cameramen to get good shots of me flying above the jungle near Kalaweit's home.

A storm had just passed through the area before we left leaving numerous "anak awan" or cloud-children in it's wake.  I always love seeing the wispy little clouds left behind after a storm passes.

Inside my airplane were Chanee, seen in the green jacket, his son, a camera man, and Véronique Jannot, and French actress and singer.  Apparently this documentary is big enough that they brought in some French Star power.  She was a delightfully nice woman.  The whole flight was a lot of fun as it's not everyday that we do something as unique as this.  It always amazes me the wide variety of people my "job" enables me to rub shoulders with.

From the Logbook...It's Time to Celebrate

I'm BACK!!!  I've had a long hiatus from my blog...and for good reason.  Since arriving in Indonesia in late September 2014...I have not had a work permit that legally permitted me to fly.  I can thankfully report that this past Monday the 2nd of February, that finally changed and I was granted a work permit.  The details as to why I didn't have a work permit and why it took so long to acquire it are too long and complex to post here on the blog.  Myself and several other MAF pilots around Indonesia were affected by this.  Since I could not legally fly for the last 4.5 months, I didn't; which is why the blog and my digital life-print have been so sparse.  Now that I can legally man the cockpit again, things should return to "normal" on the blog again.  Thank you to those of you that follow a little bit here and most importantly pray for me and my family as we live and serve in Indonesia.

What a good way to celebrate being back than by writing a post about jumping off of the wing into the river.  There is actually a funny story that lead up to this...

While I was working with our airstrip agent at a village called Tumbang Naan, he handed me my flight manifest (passenger names, weights, tickets, money, etc.).  As I opened the manifest up, 10 - 100,000 Rupiah bills fell into the water.  This is roughly the equivalent to $100US.

As I watched the money land on the river and begin floating downstream, there was only one way to retrieve it from the fast river current...jump in after it of course.  Thankfully, I was able to recover 9 of the 10 money bills.  It makes for a funny story, and since I was already wet, I decided to jump off of the wing a few times and enjoy myself.

I handed my camera to a passenger to take a few pictures of my escapades as a float plane pilot.  Despite being soaked from head to toe...the refreshing that comes from jumping in the river after sweating through a long day flying is quite rewarding.  And, I must say...flying floatplanes is one of the most unique types of work I've ever done, so it is fun to enjoy those peculiarities to their fullest!!!  Flying floatplanes is FUN!!!  It is great to be back in the air again!