Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Carts, Horses, Airplanes, & Faith

The cockpit of the Cessna I've done recurrency training in.

The pace of life activity, as we know, is a balance of making sure our actions don’t move faster than God’s provisions.  Moving too fast leads to the proverbial “cart before the horse” situation- out of balance.  So, as Alace and I restart the aviation service for the national church in Gabon, at the Bongolo Hospital, we feel our cart and horse are getting to be about neck and neck… it’s time to check that our pace is in balance.

In order for us to move ahead, at this time, we need additional provisions.  Without this, the airplane will be parked for a time, most likely in the capital city of Libreville, Gabon. 

The needs:
-       Aircraft maintenance, upgrades, and repositioning
-       Immigration and residency
-       Bongolo Hospital Airfield reopening
-       Annual Flight Permits

After a lot of hard work, I did it!
  Approved by some of the top mission
aviators on the planet! (Scott P. from AIM
AIR @ JAARS Training)
The biggest need:  we are asking that you team up with us in prayer about these needs.  This is an exciting part of the journey where our faith is stretched and we see how God will provide.  We can't wait to share with you how these needs will be met!

If you are moved to participate financially or know of anyone interested, please follow these instructions:

ONLINE GIVING:  visit www.cmalliance.com/give and scroll down to "Select International Worker/Special Project" and enter "Gabon Airplane" (note- the entry will not come up as an automatic selection, but it will still work).

BY CHECK:  Send your check made out to "The Alliance" and write "Gabon Airplane" in the memo line.  Mail to: 8595 Explorer Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80920

Once the program is up and running, many of these needs will be provided for through contributions that are a natural part of the operations.  However, for this “restart” period, our reservoir of funds is quite low.

It has been so encouraging to see the impressive faith of those that have given to this program- in prayer, finances, and even going to Africa to pitch in!!!  Recently a team of four, hard-core aviation friends traveled to upgrade and inspection the Gabon Airplane.  See their work HERE.



Sunday, October 6, 2019

Airplane Pictures and More Pictures!

The work on our aircraft is taking place in Cameroon at the SIL (JAARS) hangar.  Ours is the second aircraft in the picture.

The first project was to install some new avionics to take the place of some older "dial" gages.  Our friend Ben, from the US,  (a fellow LeTourneau Univ. grad!) generously gave of his time and expertise, to join in this project.

Doesn't it look great!  Our 37-year-old cockpit has never looked better!


Next on the scene was Doctor Drew (on the right) from Bongolo Hospital, who was joined by the full time director of aircraft maintenance in Cameroon, Matt (left) and then Dan (middle) came all the way from JAARS, in North Carolina, for another round of taking care of 7FD.

Dan's recently earned the honored level of "Inspection Authorization" as an aircraft technician, giving him authority to sign off the annual inspection for our aircraft.  It will be his very first sign off!  We are very honored for his generous gift of time and expertise in this important work.

Dan's eagle eye caught a small crack in one of the "stringers" in the tail section (see top photo).  A repair stringer was laid over top and you can see the expert repair in the lower photo... even stronger than before!

Next on the scene was our good friend, Dale, from MMS Aviation in Ohio- an organization that has had a long connection with the Gabon work, dating back to 2008, when we purchased it and sent it to MMS for getting outfitted for Africa!

MORE PHOTOS!!!














Our work has only continued through teamwork like this.  So many have been a part and it's an honor to be a part of it all.  I was slated to be part of this current maintenance work on our airplane, but we got a GREAT opportunity to partner with JAARS in new, significant ways.  So, that required some last minute changes, which meant that we changed our tickets to Africa for one last trip back to the US for some important partnership work... a portion of which is some flying!  More on that soon.

Thanks for your support!!!  We've gotten this far, but things will literally come to a halt in the next month, if we don't see funding continue to grow and cover some one-time costs.

Please partner with us in this work!  Please pray for our PEOPLE and PROJECTS... and consider PARTICIPATION through a generous gift to this important work.
Yes- there is an airstrip there!

ONLINE GIVING:  visit www.cmalliance.com/give and scroll down to "Select International Worker/Special Project" and enter "Gabon Airplane" (note- the entry will not come up as an automatic selection, but it will still work).

BY CHECK:  Send your check made out to "The Alliance" and write "Gabon Airplane" in the memo line.  Mail to: 8595 Explorer Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80920

Thank you so much for considering supporting this critical effort to bring health and hope to the Central Africa region through teamwork with the local churches there.