NTM

Have you ever heard that 6 moves is equal to losing everything in a house fire? 

We’re coming up on moves #4 and #5.

Move #4:

When: April 2009 (a.s.a.p. after Ben finishes his bush pilot training)

Where: Michigan somewhere (We’re working on figuring out housing possibilities.)

Why: to finish our partnership development  (for more details, see our homepage) and get our paperwork ready for the Philippines

Move #5:

When: summer 2010 (Lord willing)

Where: the Philippines

Why: to start our first term as a pilot/mechanic family for NTMA

The Big Why: to give wings to God’s word around the world

Accuracy landings, crosswinds, aft CG’s, weight and balance, and clover leafs – these are parts of a normal day for Ben. 

 He’s about 1/2 way through his bush pilot training.

Most of these terms you can hear in general aviation.  But what in the world are clover leafs!?!

No, we’re not talking about a tiny little piece of vegetation.

Clover leafs are a precision training exercise.  Two landing boxes are painted on the runway about 2000 ft. apart.  These boxes are about 90 ft. long and 14 ft. wide.

The pilot touches down in the 1st box.  Without stopping, he takes off, circles around and touches down in the 2nd box facing the opposite direction.   His flight pattern forms a clover leaf. 

Talk about keeping a pilot thinking!  Clover leafs will do that.

Ben is enjoying the challenge of precision flying and is doing well. He’s moving on to smaller, more difficult airstrips now. 

Ben is hoping to finish his bush pilot training by April.  The graduation airstrip is "one-way," up hill, and in a box canyon!

For a year we’ve been praying about and pursuing Ben’s helicopter training.

God has given us an answer, "Not now!"

THE LONG OF IT…

Reason #1 – The current need for helicopter pilots in the Philippines is now met.

As we mentioned in our article "Helicopter Time for the Philippines," our 1st helicopter pilot for the Philippines is in training right now.  He’s well on his way to being in the Philippines next year, Lord willing.

One helicopter pilot is not enough, however.  When he goes on furlough, there needs to be someone ready to fill in. The Lord has provided another man to be the relief pilot.

The provision of this 2nd helicopter pilot removes the immediate need in the Philippines.  He is already in training. In fact, he just soloed this week! 

Reason #2 – Higher priority needs fill the training schedule until Oct. ‘09.

Right now, NTMA has one training helicopter and one helicopter instructor available in the US.  Helicopters are a big part of the foreseen future of missions aviation.  In order to meet the coming demand for helicopter pilots, NTMA is putting an emphasis on training helicopter instructors. 

What difference does this make?  Just this… The helicopter schedule has no openings until Oct. ‘09 at the very earliest.

THE SHORT OF IT…

The immediate need for the Philippines is already met. So NTMA leadership has suggested that we consider doing helicopter training on a furlough. 

Benben was such a brave boy last Friday.  He had his 1st optometrist visit, and it made him really nervous.  But even though he was a bit unsure of what was going to happen, he did a great job!

The eye doctor discovered that he did have a prescription. But she wasn’t sure about giving him glasses until she actually did the dilation and looked into them. 

The dilation test showed that his prescription was 3x worse that what the exam showed.  (Apparently, Benben’s eye muscles are really strong.  They compensate a lot for him.)  He has a prescription of 3.75 and 4.

So Benben is getting glasses in another week or so. 

Please pray for him that he’ll adjust well to wearing them. He’s excited about them now.  But we’re not sure how he’ll react when he actually has to wear them.

We’re making progress!  As of last week, Ben is officially off the maintenance team and onto the flight ops team.  This whole week he’s been flying anytime weather and scheduling permits. 

Ben has completed 5 of the 42 "lessons" for the flight checkout.  He’s starting to feel like he’s knocking the rust off.  Keeping ahead of the airplane is a good thing!

This flight checkout ought to keep him busy for another month and a half (weather permitting).  He’s officially released from the deisel C182 project (see Progress Report).  But Ben still enjoys helping with it on the smaller jobs.

So life stays busy as we progress through this in-service time. 

We’re off to the eye doctor…

We’d appreciate your prayers as we take Benben to the eye doctor this week. He seems to be having difficulties seeing distances. So, we’re going to check it out.

Benben is looking forward to the visit. At this point he thinks it would be cool to have glasses because his friend Zeke does.

We’d appreciate your prayers for wisdom and skill for the doctor. We also appreciate your prayers about the expense of glasses, etc. if that should happen.

We’d really like for Benben to be able to see well – especially while he’s developing his coordination, etc.
Thanks for praying! We’ll keep you posted.

Thanks to everybody that’s been praying about RuthE.’s feeding issues. She is doing well now. At her checkup last week she was around 13lbs.

The doctor had us switch formula for her. She’d been using regular Similac formula and spitting up like a little fountain. Now she’s on Similac Sensitive R.S. and is keeping a lot more down. That’s a lot easier on the laundry end of things.:-)

We’re so thankful that formula is available. We really don’t have another option at this point. We’re also thankful that the Lord has been providing finances for the formula. Wow, that stuff can get expensive!

So it comes down to this… RuthE. is thriving. God is providing. And we’re still trusting.

We’ve been in AZ for 6 months now.  Ben finished his in–service maintenance projects a couple of months ago.  Currently he’s waiting for his turn for flight checkouts.  It looks like that will start in a couple weeks. 

In the meantime, Ben’s been working on overhauling a diesel Cessna 182.  The maintenance team here is getting it ready to go to Senegal. 

This deisel airplane will save missionaries up to $300 per hour in fuel alone!  It’s been great to take part in getting it to the field.

Here’s a photo essay – flying…torn apart…coming together…

We hope every one of you had a great Christmas.  We sure did!  We’re now back in AZ after a great trip to Michigan.

It was a special treat to go "back home" for Christmas.  All 6 of the Kooi siblings and 7 of the Reece siblings were home to celebrate Christmas together with our parents.  What a wonderful crowd! 

We talked and laughed and sang for hours together.  God has given us wonderful families.  We’re so thankful for them.

The kids really did well on the trip. Benben and Coleen enjoyed lots of time with grandparents, aunts, and uncles.  They especially had fun playing with their cousins and enjoying the snow.  

RuthE. was introduced all around. (Only her grandparents had met her in person before.)  She loved the attention.  And everyone loved on her.  One benefit to using the bottle was that lots of people enjoyed feeding her.  

Praise the Lord, our suburban ran well for the whole trip (4 days up, all around, and 5 days back).  We were very thankful for 4-wheel drive up getting around Michigan.

The trip allowed us to visit with quite a few others as well.  On the way up and back from Michigan, we were able to stay in the homes of several close friends.  We so enjoyed their hospitality and fellowship.

We were also thankful to be able to worship with 3 of our church families.  It was great to visit and share what God has been doing in both of our home churches and our "Missouri home" church. 

We praise the Lord for providing for this trip and keeping us safe.  The gift of time with our loved ones was precious!

Who can maintain a helicopter?

In the USA, any Airframe & Powerplant mechanic can.  If fact, they can work on any FAA certified aircraft (i.e., airplane, helicopter, glider, etc.)

But have you ever noticed that a helicopter is quite different from an airplane?  Not every A&P mechanic has much experience working on helicopters.

The NTM Aviation leadership has recommended to us a 1-week helicopter maintenance course.  The course is put on in California by the Robinson helicopter manufacturers.  It basically brings an A&P mechanic up to speed on the Robinson helicopters.

The course is only $400 + lodging/food for the week.  However, there is a waiting list to get in.

It sounds like a wise idea to us!  This course would help Ben to be an even more valuable part of our aviation team.  

Would you pray with us about the "ifs" and "whens" of Ben taking this helicopter maintenance course?