At the beach

This past couple weeks I had the opportunity to see more of the country of Indonesia. My Aunt and Uncle were here from Canada for a visit and so we made the most of our time. We spent the night camping at the foot of the Krakatao Volcano, found some good places to snorkel in Sulawesi and spent a few days, including Sunday worship, in a tribe. Deadly volcanoes and strange fish are definitely cool, but the best thing was getting to see the tribal church functioning on its own and going strong. Being a part of a support ministry, I can sometimes loose sight of why I do what I do. Visiting this tribe was a good reminder of what its all about!

Tribal Church Girls Singing Special

The flight program here continues to throw curve balls at us. We are in the process of trying to replace our avgas burning airplanes with ones that use jet fuel. To make a long story short, this means that we are no longer using the airplane that I had been flying. On the bright side, after months of trying, we were finally able to get another shipment of avgas delivered. Our hope is that this will tide us over until we have the new jet fuel burning aircraft up and running. Please pray that this process goes quickly and smoothly as we would all like to see the days of high priced avgas behind us.

Towards the end of November I will be heading back to the USA to spend about a month with family over the Christmas holidays. I am looking forward to the break and will enjoy seeing some friends and family again. Pray for safety in travels. (and for that elusive first class upgrade too… hehe)

I thought you all might like to know: NTM Aviation’s first Kodiak is now rolling down the assembly line with delivery expected in December or January. We look forward to the day when we can be using Kodiaks here in Indonesia for the sake of the Gospel.

NTMA's first Kodiak on the assembly line

• I would ask for your continued prayers for Andy and I as we are both very new here and shouldering the flight program until the middle of April when, Lord willing, our veteran pilot from Germany will be back from home assignment.

• Pray for the Lord’s direction and provision as many of the costs associated with the flight program here continue to rise, thus making it more and more difficult to provide this service for our missionaries.

• Praise the Lord for the two new bible translation teams we have moving into two different works! Pray for them as they start learning the language and then later on as they will be translating the Word of God.

• Pray for others to join our team in Kalimantan that would be willing to finish reaching this part of the world with the Gospel.

• Thanks to all who continue to pray. The times you hear from me the least are probably the times I need the most prayer.

Most guys I know would enjoy a car like that… You know… You punch the gas and the acceleration forcefully throws you back in your seat. That would sure put a smile on my face!  No, I am not talking about my little Honda. The only throwing it does is when I slam on the brakes! I am actually talking about the last few months here in Indonesia.

It was just November of last year when I first received my Indonesian Pilot license and was able to begin taking flights by my self. January rolled around quickly and things began to accelerate. Daren, our chief pilot, and his family were due for furlough so we began to step on the gas to prepare for the transition. By the middle of February I was doing almost all the flying and taking on the remainder of Daren’s responsibilities. The smile on my face started to fade as I realized that we weren’t letting of the accelerator. 60 had long come and gone and that smile gave way to a new feeling. A feeling more like being out of control. The first two weeks in March represented the busiest we have been since I moved here almost a year ago.

You know, I don’t much like that feeling of being out of control. It is especially not a good thing in the flying world! But that is where we come to the end of ourselves and have to rely on the Lord. That is where we learn that apart from Him we can do nothing, not even the stuff we are trained to do! That’s one lesson I seem to keep repeating… Now the second half of March has rolled around and things have slowed down enough to allow us to catch up to ourselves. PTL! 

I am very thankful that, although I am the only pilot until the middle of April, our mechanic Andy is here and he carries a huge chunk of the responsibility. Thanks Andy! So that’s the story of zero to 60 in 3.5 months… It doesn’t sound so bad when you look at it that way!

The fine art of moving…
Yes it is a fine art, and yes it does get more refined each time I do it.  ☺  About five weeks ago, after finishing language study on the Island of Java, I moved to the Island of Kalimantan to begin fulltime ministry in the flight department.  Praise the Lord as this is an exciting time for me! 
So what are the benefits of moving?  New place, new house, new people, new weather, new experiences… that always makes life interesting.  I suppose the best part of constantly moving is that it is a real good reminder that this world is not my home!

Praise the Lord, in the middle of June I was able to go to Jakarta and take all the written tests needed to begin the process of obtaining my Indonesian pilot and mechanic licenses.  Please continue to pray as this takes time.  I don’t yet know the results of my tests. 
In the mean time I have been working at the hangar helping to keep the airplanes in good condition.  From time to time I have also been able to ride along on a few flights and see some of the places we fly into. Lord willing I will soon be able to start the checkout process. 

Praise the Lord for the provision of a car!  It is a 1993 Honda Accord and it should do the job for the time being.

Indo Fact:
-It is durian season now and for some reason the locals love this stuff.  Durian, they tell me, is a fruit.  Most hotels ban the stuff, most foreigners can’t get close to it and I tend to agree with the Guineas Book of World Records when they describe this fruit as smelling like a sewer!  Anybody want a bite?

Thanks so much for your prayers and support!

The second goal of the trip was to figure out what I needed to know about the house I will be living in. My future coworkers will be going on home assignment shortly so I will be living in their house for the next year. Actually I will be taking over both the house and the job!

The third goal was to unpack my crate and get my toolbox set up in the hangar. Praise the Lord everything arrived, was all there and its all now set up and ready to use! The day I was unpacking the crate I also got to go on a medical flight… bonus! We picked up a stroke patient at a village location and flew them to a hospital in the area before coming back home.

So now I am back on Java again to finish my last unit of language study. Did I mention it was my last unit? Pray for me that I would finish out the language study strong… sometimes its easy to see the end in sight and quit before you get there.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend a few days in the big city of Jakarta with some of my fellow language students. This ended up turning into quite an experience. Common sense would dictate that in order to truly experience a city you need to experience the things that it is known for. Jakarta is a huge city (13+ million) and it just happens to be well known for heat, traffic jams and floods. The heat was pretty much a given from day 1, so with that checked off the list, we set out in search of the other two. We soon found the traffic jams while trying not to be late for a dinner being held by our mission sponsoring board. The ironic part is that the traffic jams were caused by flooding. Now, it has been said that the best way to experience flooding is to get right down in the water… so that is what we did. Our taxi turned into a boat, a leaky boat, and we began to wander the streets looking for dry ground hoping the taxi wouldn’t quit. After about ten minutes of floating in the taxi we found dry ground again and the taxi driver was kind enough to stop and let us scoop the water out of the foot wells before we continue on. Oh yeah, the traffic and floods caused our 1 hour taxi ride to take over 3 hours! Even so, we ended up being some of the first people to the dinner! So what is the moral of the story? Make sure your taxi is waterproof!

Language study: I have just over a week left in Unit 8 and only one unit left after that! I just had a language evaluation to see where I am at with the language and it appears I am getting closer to the goal of capable low! Lord willing, I would love to reach that goal by the end of April so pray with me as I keep studying.

A big praise! My crate with all my tools arrived and in sitting in the hangar waiting for me to come unpack it!

Its almost Christmas again!  Please don’t forget to pray for those who aren’t celebrating because they have never heard about the Christ. They don’t yet know the hope that we seem to so easily forget in all the fun, parties, eating, laughing, presents and bright lights.

• Praise for so much language so far!
• Pray for continued patience.  Some days progress is hard to see.
• Pray I would continue to focus on the Lord and be willing to be used by Him each day.
• Pray for the people who have not yet heard and for the missionaries who daily give their lives to tell the good news.

So tell me, have you ever given any thought to what an “object focus” sentence actually looks like? Personally I can’t remember ever having thought about it, but that is probably because my sub-conscience chose to block those memories from my mind. Well, it has come back to haunt me! Lately, object focus is what I have been studying in my Indonesian language classes. It is quite confusing playing around with the prefixes and suffixes while trying to get all the words in the correct order! The sad part is that there is probably somebody out there that actually enjoys doing this! Oh yeah, it is starting to come into “focus” so there is hope for me yet!

To date, I have put in over 500hrs of language study. If I were an aircraft part I would probably have been replaced by now! However, unlike an aircraft part, the more time I get in language study the better it gets so keep praying!

Praise the Lord talking to and understanding people is getting easier day by day.

Praise the Lord for His faithfulness even when I’ve been less than deserving.

Continue to pray for an open mind to learn and a smooth tongue, not only for me but also for the rest of the missionaries I am studying language with.

1 down 8 more to go…

That’s right, I have finished the first unit of language study!  I have to say after a rough start the first week it turned out to be a good experience.  Classes go each day for 4 hours in the morning and then afternoons are spent reviewing, studying and getting out to talk with people.  At this point conversations are still very limited.  Keep praying that I will be able to learn and understand.  I have also been attending an Indonesian Church where I am slowly making some Indonesian friends.  I find not being able to communicate with people very frustrating.  Spanish comes to my mind often but unfortunately it doesn’t work very well here.  I guess its all the more motivation to keep learning! 

A short break…

In between unit 1 and 2 there is a break from classes so some of us decided to spend a couple of days at some small islands not to far north of here.  These islands are not a “tourist trap” so simple things like finding food to eat turned out to be adventures.  In the end we managed to ride on a ferry (getting there and back), snorkel in reefs, see beautiful sunsets, slap mosquitoes, ride around on a small fishing boat, get sunburned, swim in the ocean, etc… oh yeah, we did find food too!

Zoom zoom…

The time is near, and may already be upon me, to go find some transportation.  In this country that means a motorcycle as that is the primary mode of transportation used.  New missionaries are requested to wait for 3 months before getting on the road in order to get used to the crazy traffic and driving on the opposite side.  That time is only a couple weeks away so I’ll be looking for a set of wheels here soon.  Pray I’ll be able to find something reasonable to use during the rest of language study.  Oh yeah, when you think motorcycle, think small… very small!  The largest bikes you can buy here have a whopping 225cc (for those that know about such things).  I am sure some of you have weed-eaters bigger than that!