Air Evac- 14 November

This past Wednesday, while having some meetings with government ministries, a call came in requesting us to assist with a medical evacuation.  Around 4pm, I was able to launch to the town where a horrible car accident had happened between a van carrying a load of school children and an SUV.  One child had died at the scene.

On our way to the coastal town of Port Gentil.

The four children that I would transport had bad wounds, mainly to their heads.  They were in stable condition and had no need for oxygen or other in-flight care- they simply needed transported from the town (only reached by boat or airplane), 45 minutes back to the capital city where they could get to the doctors and machines that could care for them.  Although our aircraft is mainly working to support the work of the Bongolo Hospital, we still use the aircraft to bless people, no matter where their destination needs to be.  The doctor providing the care for them determined that Libreville was the best for these children, so that's where we headed.  Additionally, for the time being, our aircraft is not outfitted for in-flight care (ambulance), so we must ensure that each patient is stable and able to be transported safely with no chance that they will need special care during the flight.

Quite a crowd gathered.

Once it was determined how many children would be coming we changed the interior set up.  This required me to take out 4 chairs and stow them in the far back, held down by a cargo net.  A doctor and nurse were along for the ride, as well as the 4 children. 

It was about 45 minutes for the leg there and back, hugging the coast as we went.  You'll notice that no roads go to the destination.

As we arrived back to Libreville at dusk, the ambulances were waiting and some ground crew workers were waiting to assist.

My Favorite Writer...

Yep- read one of her blogs, and you'll be a believer too.  She's been BEGGED to write more and more, however, if we're lucky, we get a couple of blog entries per month.  I'm speaking, of course, about my lovely and talented wife, Alace.

So, together, I'm confident, we can make a difference!  Read her blog and leave a comment!  With a one, loud voice, I think she'll hear and respond!  

Enjoy her lovely, descriptive writing that speaks from the heart!  CLICK HERE

Presidential Mandate- ESL Class

Yep- that's right.  Alace has a presidential mandate to pursue teaching English as a 2nd Language!  With the President's recent announcement that Gabon would be pursuing bilingual status (French and English), His Excellence, President Ali Bongo Ondimba will certainly give his blessing on her efforts!

Here is Hannah and Alace posing with their new class.  The classroom has been provided by the National Education office of the C&MA.  Plenty of room and AIR CONDITIONING!!!

It really is as fun as it looks!  This particular day was a bit sad- Hannah's last day.  Pray for Alace as she is now a solo act!

Delayed in Chicago- "yes"... it was windy.

...windy... and rainy... and chilly... and UNEXPECTED!

Unexpected, in the sense that we were hoping for an hour layover from our connecting flight from Harrisburg, PA on United Express.  However, all we needed was a bit of a weather delay and there we were, running from jetway to jetway in Chicago O'Hare International airport, only to find that we missed our flight to Belgium (and, therefore, Cameroon) by about 20 minutes or so.  

What to do?

So, the next step was to the UNITED customer service desk for "plan B"- we're totally used to that, being residents of a central African country, however... our two weeks in the US had us spoiled... we were ready to keep momentum toward the return to Africa.  United told us we were free to hang out in Chicago for about 40 hours, but it would be on our dime- they'd prefer to send us back to Harrisburg that night and have us try the whole thing over again 2 days later.  Hmmm.... so we did some quick thinking and remembered a friend staying in Chicago at her sending church, on furlough from Mali. 

Using wi-fi, we were able to  contact our friend on Facebook and, within about 2 hours, we were sitting in her living room in a house next to her church!

On the way to Lisa's place, we needed to pick up some essentials at (where else?) Walmart.

The next morning, we jumped on a train to head into Chicago for some fun.

I found out that they don't call this building the "Sears Tower" anymore!

Megan and I were trying not to look too much like tourists.

Inside a LEGO store at a 7 story mall.

With nightfall came some sprinkles and rapidly falling temps!  Brrrrrrrr!

Hard to get a good photo when your hands are shaking in the cold!

While in Chicago...

So, Joe has his eye on Moody Bible Institute- they have a great Student Ministries program and Cross-Cultural program.  This was a contributing factor to us spending the time in Chicago and trekking into the city for the visit the first day and then borrowing a car the second day to go for a quick visit to Wheaton.

Standing in between Megan and Joe is a young lady, Janelle, who lived in the same dorm home that all 3 of our kids live in (UBAC house) and who now is a student at Moody!

We got a nice tour.  Great Campus!  The coffee shop is called "Sam's Place"!

After seeing Moody, Joe was pretty sure he had found his school of choice.  However, we had some additional time the morning of our flight, and we thought it would be prudent for Joe and I to buzz over that way.

Here's the proof!  A trip to the lovely and big campus of Wheaton College.

Directly next to the campus is the "Wade Center" that pays tribute to the works of C.S. Lewis and Tolkein, among others.

This is the actual wardrobe that inspired C.S. Lewis with the Chronicles of Narnia.

Thanks so much to Jen H. and Lisa N. for dropping everything to make our airport runs (pickup and dropoff!!!) as well as allowing us all to crash in your living room for 2 nights!!!  You guys rock!  Thank you Bloomingdale Community Church... even though you may not have realized we were there!

Nothing But Nets? ...hardly!

Gabonese C&MA Church Mosquito Net Distribution Planning

Last Wednesday, Pastor Jacob MOUELE and I loaded up for a flight to the largest population center in the North of Gabon- the town of Oyem.  There we met with the regional superintendent of  churches, Pastor Lucien (also a local church pastor) and two local church pastors- Pastor Faustin and Pastor Alex.

I know he looks like a 12 year old, but, really, my passenger is Pastor Jacob MOUELE.  Jacob works with OSPAC (Primary Health Work of the C&MA- Gabon) and is a pastor of a local church in Libreville.  He loves to tell people about Jesus and express God's love- it's infectious!!!

It was a very nice flight over the "Monts de Cristal" (Crystal Mountains) enroute, Northeast bound, from Libreville.  The ground clouds were "hugging" the mountains!

Landing at Oyem, we were warmly greeted by our friends.

(L to R):  Pastor Alex, me, Pastor Lucien, & Pastor Faustin.  We had a great time meeting over coffee and omelets while discussing how we can work together to bless people in need of mosquito nets.  Through the tool of medicine, we can touch people in their physical being as a bridge to share with them about the greater needs we have spiritually.  This group is very ready to facilitate the distribution of nets, so I'm sure I'll be getting a call from them soon saying that they are ready.  They also have a vision to open up a small neighborhood clinic that will be a branch of OSPAC!

The mosquito net distribution is only a part of the work.  As many already are well aware, you can distribute nets to all corners of Africa, but without education and compassion, many nets go unused or used wrongly (fishing, wedding veils, room partitions, etc.).  So, a thoughtful distribution of mosquito nets will take time to care for the individual and contextualizing the message to each villager.  The OSPAC team and local church pastors can't help but to use this approach in their work- it's in their DNA!

We covet your prayers and support in this work.  The nets come in packages of 50 and cost about $10 to $12 each through a local provider.  We're pulling strings to get as many nets as possible for as cheap as possible.  Drop me a line if this effort is of interest to you:  Gabon.pilot@gmail.com

Faith in the Market Place

If you follow the work of the Christian & Missionary Alliance, you'll hear the term "Pushing Back the Darkness" quite often.  Simply put, the C&MA seeks to have a white-hot passion to take the good news of Jesus (the Light) to the least reached parts (darkest) of the world.  About 2 billion people in the world have not heard.

Bob Fetherlin, vice president for International Ministries, says, “I want to use The Alliance as never before to push back the darkness with a sense of urgency for lost people, that those who have not yet been told about the Light will see and those who have not yet heard will understand. This calls for radical engagement and obedience.”

How is this done?  One way to gain access to places where the doors are closed to traditional missionary efforts is through "Marketplace" ministries- believers using their vocational skills (business, medical, social works, etc.) to establish efforts.

Here, in Gabon, a maturing church is starting to consider their role in these efforts.  During a recent visit from Kim Cole and Rodger Merkle, both business owners from our sending church (York Alliance Church- PA), there were several occasions for local believers to engage in forums to discuss this combination of faith and marketplace.

Kim (right) and Rodger were greeted by some national leaders and given a tour of the Bible Institute campus in Libreville.  Pastor Sangoye, the business agent for the international workers, is in the center giving the tour and translating.

On the 30th of October, we had one forum hosted by the Assistant Secretary of the National C&MA church.  Here are some of the participants.

The next evening, we hosted another forum at our home.

We discussed Biblical teaching for business people to consider in their work as well as sharing ideas and advice for very specific business ideas such as transport services and the hotel business.

Everyone present at both events felt that we had just scratched the surface regarding "marketplace" ministry.  There will be great interest in developing this effort and taking things to the next step.

We agreed to take everyone's name and contact information present and to develop a report regarding the meetings we took part in, as well as a plan for the next steps!  The Bureau National will facilitate these initiatives and we hope that there will be additional visits from people like Rodger and Kimmy who will do some idea sharing and praying about how we can Push Back the Darkness with the LIGHT of Jesus.

By 2007, most of the traditional, church-planting, international workers had transitioned from Gabon to other countries.  The maturing national church in Gabon was ready to take the reigns and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be at the point in following the head of The Church, Jesus.  They have, indeed, responded- now sending their own missionaries abroad (5 countries) and to corners of Gabon to people groups where "Light" is needed.  Embracing the "marketplace ministry" paradigm will, again, flow with the move of Pushing Back the Darkness initiatives, with a vision of raising up Gabonese, equipped with vocational skills, to take the light to places where Westerners cannot.

Please continue to pray for disciple-making efforts like this and Bongolo Hospital (medical training)- the Gabonese church is at work revealing the only true Light in a dark world.

Crazy Quick Trip to US

At the wedding- a bit chillier than we're used to!

So, my niece asked me to marry her.  Okay... that sounds weird.  Let me rephrase...  My niece asked me to come to the US and preform the marriage ceremony.  Yep- that's right... I'm an ordained pastor who can marry, bury, baptize, and sometimes, get really good parking spaces near the front of hospitals.

As it turned out, the wedding date fell directly on the first Saturday of our children's 2 week fall break from school so, thanks to some radical family generosity, airfare was purchased and we all were able to travel to the US!!!

SWAK!  The wedding and time with family was great!

Here's the whole STRAW clan that made it to the celebration.

After the wedding in TN, a long car ride brought us to PA!  Mount Nittany!!!

(From R to L: Wendy, Gram, Margaret, & Alace) As usual, our friends in York took great care of us!  The Shuey's opened their doors to host our stay.

Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Skeet flew in from Dallas and Gram drove in from Hamilton, OH!

On my way from the wedding to a meeting at JAARS in North Carolina, my brother and his family hosted me for dinner!  I had great fun with my niece and nephew, Emma and Jackson.

We're blessed with friends that got together with us on several occasions, helping us to make the most of our 2 weeks.

Of course, we found time to visit some of our favorite restaurants.  Can you guess where we are here?

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It was a very quick trip to the US and there was not really time to get over jet-lag before the kids had to be back in school and Steve got back to the inspection of the aircraft.  However, we were so grateful for our family's generosity to make a way for the airfare so that we could be at the wedding and see so many of our family at once- a chance that we don't often get living so far away.

We had three legs to the journey back to Cameroon with United and Brussels airlines... This turned into another unexpected adventure as our first leg (Harrisburg, PA to Chicago) was delayed due to weather and we had to spend 40 additional hours in Chicago.  That will be the next story...

Extreme Bathroom Makeover!

A small, but eager team of 2 came from our home church (York Alliance- PA) to modernize our guest house's bathroom.  They also invested in relationships and introduced the Marketplace Ministries idea to national church believers (more on that in another post).

Guest house "lower" drive way.

The view looking over our back wall from the terrace.

The "before" picture.

Here's the tile crew that came to pitch in.

Our day guardian, Gustave, is an excellent mason worker in disguise! 

Voila!  Facelift complete!  Thanks Kimmy and Rodger and the York Alliance Church family!