Wings as Eagles Team!

Wow...life has been super busy since the Wings as Eagles team arrived the end of January.  I have had a great time working daily with Terry Rushing, our ministry head in Oshkosh, Wisconsin!  Abby has had a wonderful time with Jacquelyn, our friend from North Carolina.  Two other young men came from Canada to support and help their friends the Thebeaus who are working nearby.  What a great Wings missions team!  Here are just a few pictures of their arrival:

Tom flew the entire team up saving them lots of driving!

Terry greeting the Thebeaus...

...our family with Jacquelyn

Terry got to work right away inspecting my plane in for its annual inspection...

Terry found some small cracks in the steel cage that needed to be welded. 

...yeah! I got my new EFIS replaced with another new one that works :)  

Amanavil

I flew to Amanavil on Thursday and Friday in preparation for our major dental/evangelism outreach there next week.  Pray for clear weather, good running planes (2 of them), healthy pilots (three of us), and for God's hand on the workers (about 20 or more).  I'll post more details of the week as it goes by.

I flew supplies into the Amanavil field and then flew Felix over to another airstrip to get some other things.  After returning to Amanavil, I flew Benjamin back to Sabga.  Benjamin was smoothing out the Amanavil airstrip for several days in preparation for all the flights next week. 

This is just a bonus picture.  One of the Needham's visitors brought Elias a toy helicopter that Elias has slept with for several nights! 

Bangolan

Several from our church did an evangelistic outreach and survey of a village in our division that we have never visited.  Bangolan is about an hour plus away from here and would seem to be inaccessible by car in the event of a heavy rain shower.  The road in spots was destroyed from last years rain but was easily passable in the dry season.  One bridge had collapsed (and a house nearby as well), and the planks on the temporary bridge were very insecure even coming up and banging on our car! 

The village itself is composed of Islam, African Tradition, Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, and others.  The people were very careful to make sure we were not JW's before they would even speak to us!  We met some in the palace, a pastor, medical workers, students, taxi drivers, motorcycle guys, and market workers. 

The people enthusiastically received the New Testaments we brought, and we distributed about 1,000 of them.  Here are a few pictures.

 Chryanthus preaching to a sick lady

 Visiting the palace

Distributing Bibles in the market

Babessi

Chrysanthus and I drove down the dusty Ring Road to Babessi on Thursday for some follow up and New Testament distribution.  We had not been there for almost a year I think.  We were pleasantly surprised to find that portion of the Ring Road actually under construction to begin putting black top down.  The widening and grating already cut our time on the road down in half to about a half hour. 

Once we were heading to a house back in the quarter, I saw something that I had to stop and see closer.  The tree that was being sawed into planks was a palace tree, usually the biggest and oldest in any village.  They were sawing into planks with nothing but a chain saw.  Very interesting to watch.  The two men were thrilled to take their own New Testaments from us.  We distributed about 180 New Testaments in the middle of town in about 10 minutes.  Pray for the Word of God to have free course in these open hearts.  We were able to witness to several people throughout the day. 

Trip to Yaounde and Christmas pics

Here are few Christmas pictures to show you all some of the things that you sent to the kids. 

 Chloe digging into Christmas breakfast before the time! 

 On Monday, Abby, Elena, and I took a trip to Yaounde, our nation's capital.  Tom Needham flew us there, we hired a taxi for the day, and finished passport paperwork for Elena and I at the U.S. emabassy by mid-afternoon.  We were flying home by 4 pm!  Thanks to the airplane that was a one day trip instead of a three day trip.Chloe and Elias stayed at the Needhams to play all day.  

Ready for takeoff!

This is the first real playground we have seen in Cameroon.  I guess it was prep for McDonalds when we come home.  I am sure that our kids don't really have any memory of America except from pictures. 

 Elena was so excited about this playground that she kept talking about how she was going to tell Elias all about it.  Elias will have to wait until we get to Yaounde again! 

Flying home to Sabga

 The kids running to meet us after we landed. 

Happy New Year!

We hope your first week in 2012 has been great.  Ours has been a great time to rejoice, reflect, plan for the future.  The very first day of the year, we baptized a young man in our church! 

 The water is a bit low during dry season :) 

 All three of our kids need to learn to swim...they love playing in water anywhere! 

 I think we need a church bus or something! 

 Trying to fly in dry season is a bit challenging...its not easy to see the ground sometimes.  This week the whole Akwaya region was covered by several thousand feet of smoke and harmattan that made for a challenging flight in the smog. 

One of our Gendarme friends came for a visit this week! 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Cameroon a few days early (better than a few days late)! 

Here are a few pictures of what we have been doing this month...

 Kids playing with "snow" sent to us from Iowa!

Testing the camera for family pictures!

 ...our best Christmas gifts from God!

"I told you once, I don't do solo shots!" -Chloe

 

Flying to Amanavil, Akwaya to drop off supplies for a new bridge.  Bro Tom is starting a church and the river is often too high to cross during rainy season.  Also, pray for a dental evangelism outreach there in February.

Ladies' meeting of fellowship churches at the lake in Bambalang

  

 Building lego WWI fighter planes with Elias...

 ....building a wooden bi-plane later after we opened a Christmas package from America! 

We had several days of New Testament distribution in the neighborhood (quarter) of our church.  They were meant as a Christmas gift from our church to all our neighborhood.  All in all we were able to give out about 3,600 or so.  Thank the Lord for all who helped and for our home church for sending the Scriptures! 

Me and my baby girl! 

Happy Thanksgiving...belated

We drove about 3 hours to spend Thanksgiving with a number of missionary families.  Here are a few pictures...

 Elias and Nate eating first while waiting for the rest of the boys to get their food...

Elena and the girls table...

 

Driving several hours and then taking 240 stairs to the top of a hill that looks down into a crater lake.  This was the day after Thanksgiving picnic that we normally take with the other missionaries.

 At the top...right behind us is the beautiful blue lake and surrounding crater...

 A better view of the drop-off

 Abby holding on tight to the kids!

Playing American football on the picnic...at the bottom of the hill :)

A few days after Thanksgiving I was able to get an official airstrip checkout by Tom Needham at the Banso Baptist Hospital airfield.  The field is pretty sloped and is divided by a dog-leg turn in the middle.  I did about 4 solo takeoff and landings on this challenging field.  The pictures are of Tom doing his own takeoff and landing after I finished mine.