A successful missionary bush pilot...

A few things come to mind, in no particular order:

1. Stuff 12 cubic feet of stufff into a 10 cubic foot space (baggage pod of 206, luggage bay of 210).
2. Chop down sisal trees.
3. Tell passengers, "No you can't take those 200 kg of bags with you and all these people on one flight." Politely.
4. Be terrified and not let your passengers notice.
5. Not be ill when the guy next to you spends the whole flight filling a sick-sac.
6. Refuel an airplane with a bucket and a funnel.
7. Dodge goats.
8. Dodge camels.
9. Sit in a seat designed (apparently) by Torquemada for 8 hours and still be able to work the rudder pedals.
10. Calculate weight and balance, shift cargo, recalculate, and still get off on time.
11. Unload 5 people, their bags, refuel the plane, load 5 people their bags, calcluate that weight and balance all in 30 minutes.
12. Understand 3 radios, and the intercom simultaneously. One of the radios is in swahili.
13. Give the passenger emergency briefing without scaring the passengers silly.
14. Find a runway you've never been to based on a map that was out of date when it was printed 20 years ago.
15. Pray.
16. Share the gospel. (You have a captive audience!)
17. Fix a land rover.
18. Land with a flat tire.
19. Change a flat tire while the goats and herd boys watch (and laugh).
20. Be cheerful when you can't get home that night becuase your passengers are over an hour late. And dinner is goat stew and 3 day old chapaties.
21. Give a passenger briefing to a Moroni (a Samburu or Turkana warrior) who's never been in a car, let alone an airplane before, and who doesn't speak a word of English.
22. Rearrange the day's flying schedule over the HF radio when you can only make out every other word.
23. Love the people you're flying around, even when they completely trash the schedule for the day.
24. Fold maps.
25. Unfold maps.
26. Tie down anything in the airplane, including goats.

More to follow

A Day At AIM Air

A bit of a trite title, but it does fit.

It actually started with the night before with about a half a dozen phone calls. Can you go to Marsabit tomorrow to get a man who'd been shot and get him to the hospital in Nairobi? Can you do the flight? Can you help me do the flight? Matt Olson, our general manager (samaki kubwa as they say here) decided he'd do the flight since the man was to be dropped at Kijabe hospital and the Kijabe airstrip requires a special checkout which I haven't had yet. I'd go along to help with the passenger so Matt could concentrate on flying. Meet at the hangar at 0545.

At the hangar we decided we'd have to take ALL the seats out of the plane except for the pilot's, so that the man could lie down. So...I ended up staying on the ground and coordinating with Kijabe hospital.

In Marsabit, Matt had to fight his way through the weather to land (low clouds, not uncommon there). But he got in. Immediate blood pressure spike: the medevac patient was still in Marsabit hospital. The missionary there went to get him as soon as Matt landed, but it can take a small forever to clear someone out of a hospital here. Like all day. The plane had 2 more flights to do that day which had already been delayed to do the medevac. In the event, it turned out to be a bit over an hour wait. Matt was airborne again and off to Kijabe. The doctors were waiting for him, so Matt takes off to return to Wilson.

Take off normal, gear up... gear up.... another spike on the blood pressure. We've been having issues with the landing gear on the C-210. Thought we had it fixed, but apparently not. So Matt flies home, turns the circuit breaker back on and puts the gear down (it always has gone down and locked, thankfully). It's now about 1230...I was supposed to have taken off at 9am to go to Mwanza.

This late I can't do both trips (Mwanza, back to Wilson then to Olerai) plus with the landing gear problem I don't want to go to Olerai, it's a rough strip and the 210 doesn't seem to like rough. But, we have the Lokichogio 206 down and it's just finished its inspection. So...the solution is get Tim Carpenter to take 5Y-SIL to Olerai while I do the Mwanza run. But Tim isn't in the hangar, and his phone is turned off. Gah!

John McNeely (another of the pilots) takes on tracking Tim down. He also preflights the airplane so it's ready to go. I head off to pick up my passengers to go to Mwanza. Matt goes back to being the samaki kubwa.

The run to Mwanza is routine. I hear Tim heading off to Olerai so I call him on the AIM Air frequency and give him a briefing on Olerai since it's been a while since he's been there. Get back to the hangar around 6, put the plane away, go home.

A life saved, missionaries delivered safely. The shattered schedule put back together. A typical day at AIM Air.

Tto God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. Rom 16:27

Where's the church?

This is to follow up the last post. I left the church's role with a very one sided and cynical observation. The point Pastor Ondachi was trying to make was to show how deep the problem of tribalism runs. He made it well.

On the good side, though, the church has not been standing idle. Mamlaka Hills Chapel has been providing food, all the food, for the refugees (internally displaced persons is the official title) in Jamhuri Park. They have run a short term mission trip to Burnt Forest in the Rift Valley to bring food and comfort and help start rebuilding. Other churches have taken in refugees, providing housing, food, clothing, transportation, medical care...the list goes on. The Church has not been idle. It's not seen in the news, but it's been the Church that has led the initial relief and reconciliation efforts. No fanfare, just quietly seeing that people are taken care of.

That's the physical side. On the spiritual side the Church is alone, but that's ok. One wouldn't expect the UN to even admit there is a spiritual side, let alone do anything about it, after all. The Church, though, has called for repentance, forgiveness, and unity. For instance, one local church gathered together elders from about a dozen of the tribes most involved in the disputes and violence. During the service the elders served communion. To receive communion you had to go to an elder of a different tribe. Fairly easy for the wazungu (the white people). Other churches are banding together to send hundreds of pastors to where the worst violence was.

Are all the people of the Church helping? No...we're sinners. But many are helping, and most importantly of all, the vast majority are praying , repenting, asking God to step in and heal.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Post Election Kenya

I haven't mentioned the post-election chaos here in Kenya, except in passing. Part of that is because I'm just not sure what to say. There's the usual things: how tragic it is, how Kenya has gone back 50 years, why can't they just get along...

I still don't know what to say. The pastor at our church here has a similar problem, but unlike me he's expected to say something. My hat's off to the man, Charles Ondachi is his name, by the way. He has had a great deal to say, all of it very firmly grounded on scripture. Before I go on...the church's website can be found at www.nairobichapel.org Mamlaka Hills Chapel is one of the plants from Nairobi Chapel.

One of his first sermons (that I heard, we were up in Gatab for the first 2 weeks after the elections) he said, in effect, "Everyone has been crying for peace, truth, and justice. Be careful, you may get what you ask for." Pastor Ondachi particularly picked at the idea of clamoring and demonstrating and whatever else for justice. "Is God a just god? Absolutely. Then look at Genesis 15:13 'Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.' Is God just? Absolutely. Is what happened to the Israelites just? Well, no. But God is just...maybe we just don't get it?" He also pointed out that the middle class will be the ones to pay the most for man's idea of justice. "The poor have nothing to lose. The rich will take their riches and go somewhere else. But you and I will be stuck here watching our lives go up in flames." Especially, he noted, since many of those shouting for justice are guilty of being unjust to those around them. If God gave us justice we would be destroyed. We should be asking for mercy, Pastor Ondachi noted.

He also pointed at one of the main causes of the troubles: tribalism (hyphenated Kenyanism?).

Where is the church in all this? Sadly, one of the examples was what one lady told him happened near Eldoret, "I saw the pastor running to torch the next house."

No answers, only questions and sorrow.

The next week's sermon was drawn from Romans 12:9-21. Love what is good. Don't be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. Verse 9 reads "Let love be without hypocrisy." in the new king james. The NIV reads "Love must be sincere." Either translation will do. Pastor Ondachi pointed out that tribalism makes love insincere, and not really love at all.

This week? Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. "if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." I'll let you look up the reference.

I personally don't know what the answers are. The problem is political, legal (the government has been and is rife with corruption), there are property issues going back decades at least, there is tribalism. I'm sure there are other issues that I don't even know to guess at. All these things must be dealt with. Pastor Ondachi has said, and I think he's right, "What we had before was not peace, but calm." He asked the question, "has God allowed this so that there can be real peace?" Maybe. Hopefully.

God is just. He is in control. He is love. He loved us so much that Jesus died a horrible death on a cross for us. All things work together for the good of those who love God.

Don't believe that what you see in the news is the whole story of what's happening here in Kenya. Yes there are problems, no question and the situation of the country is far from good. But the people of Kenya are not what you see in the news.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Still busy

More flying. This past summer I'd have LOVED to be this busy flying. I still love it. But I have had to ask to be taken off the flight schedule for a few days to prepare for going to Gatab. Yep, we're still going, and we're looking forward to getting up there, and serving there.

The last couple days, as the title of the entry suggests, were busy. I flew to Ileret (as far north as you can go and still be in Kenya) Thursday via way of Loiyangalani for fuel. I took two Kenyans up to Ileret along with 300 kg (660 lbs) of flour, sugar, cooking oil and assorted foods. The flight was supposed to have left at 0830, but it was 1300 before we got going. The C-210 had been down for maintenance (landing gear problem) for about a week, and almost came up on time. The test flight went poorly (the gear pump motor continued to run even after the gear were down and locked), so the maintenance team jumped back on it. Huge kudos to Ryan Williams and Ryan Huizinga. They had the adjustments made and me on my way in just a few hours. Even so, I didn't have enough daylight to get home with two refuelings (I had to fuel at Loiyangalani going up and returning) so I stopped into Gatab to spend the night (there's fuel there too, and it's only 15 miles from Loi, and I had mail to deliver to Gatab, so...) No hardship there. :)

The next morning (Friday) I returned to Nairobi via Kabarnet where I met up with the MAF flight and took 4 passengers (the MAF plane was going to Rusinga Island, not Nairobi right away, and was full from Rusinga to Nairobi) to Wilson. The 4 were Samaritan's Purse folks, coming back from meetings with other SP people in the Nuba mountains in Sudan. Good flight.

Home then, get some clean clothes, have a shower....back to the hangar and fly to Mwanza, Tanzania. An easy, good flight. I stayed the night in Mwanza and met with Dale Hamilton and his family. Dale is our float plane pilot and has been serving in Tanzania, at Kahunda island, for 20 years. They're very excited, they're finally (after 18 years of praying for it) getting a doctor to serve there at Kahunda. They were showing the doctor and his wife around this week. They (the doctor and his wife) go to tropical medicine school in the UK starting next week sometime until late May. They go back to the US for a few weeks, and then in July return to Kenya to start orientation with AIM.. Nice folks. I look forward to flying them around.

This morning it was Mwanza to Kigali, Rwanda, to pick up the Irish news team I'd taken there last week. They had a great time, and were just all smiles over the footage and stories they'd gotten. We're supposed to get tapes once they're edited and compiled. Should be really good. Dave McAllister of CBN put the trip together (and went along on it), and he was just overjoyed. Both with the story and with the reaction of the (unbelieving) news team. They visited a government hospital, Dave was telling me, and later a mission hospital. "What's the big difference?" they asked. "Everyone's so upbeat and nice here (the mission hospital) and so grumpy over there (the government hospital). How come?" "Ever hear of a fellow named Jesus Christ?" was Dave's return question. There was more to the story than that...it was a nearly continuous week long exposure to real Christians in action, living out their faith. Pray for that news team! They've seen the gospel of the kingdom of God in action.

Back to Nairobi this afternoon. I dropped Dave and co at Jomo Kenyatta airport and got them settled with their flight back. Pretty easy actually, since they're in transit...very little paperwork. Back to Wilson (a whole 7 minute flight). Put the airplane away (get it ready for another pilot to take to Loiyangalani actually) and get home.

A busy couple of days. But very good ones.