What does our orientation look like?

Here is a landing during my orientation at Kelley airstrip
in CA.

We are having a great time at our MAF orientation. I can’t believe that it’s half over! For me, Steve, the orientation is broken up in five main sections. They are ground school, flight, maintenance, Idaho flight trip, and non-technical. For Laura, there are a few classes here and there about cooking from complete scratch, being a flight follower on the radio, and cutting hair. We will do the non-technical orientation together.

Here is a brief description of my five stages.

Ground school: This consisted of two weeks of flight and maintenance school. Mostly lectures and book work.

Flight: I finished my flight section last week. This consisted of learning to fly the MAF way. It’s been neat because we have been doing a lot of the same types of things that I will be doing when I get overseas. Here are a couple of examples.
Learning how to do air drop: Basically, we learn how to drop packages to people on the ground. This is useful if there is no airstrip nearby, but people really need something.
Landing on short and sloped strips: I’ve also been landing on short and sloped strips. Most strips are about 1400 feet long. One of the strips I landed on goes up to 18% slope. Most highways don’t have over 5% without it being posted.

Maintenance: This is the section that I am working through right now. We are involved in a review of many projects that will be typical for me to work through when I’m on the mission field. For example, I’m currently inspecting and timing magnetos.

Idaho Trip: All of the pilots will spend one week flying in the mountains in Idaho. We will be landing on many back country airstrips which are perfect training for overseas.

Non-technical: This will be two weeks of training in non-technical areas. There will be a lot of time focused on cross-cultural living, interpersonal conflicts, and spiritual warfare. We hear this time may also consist of a field trip to Mexico and an overnight marriage retreat.

Tsunami Relief Airplane

This is MAF Europe's Beaver from Bangledesh. It spent some time in Aceh helping with the relief efforts after the devastaing Tsunami. Indonesia's military has just now started to build us airstrips in the area. This is a sign that we will be welcome in the area for a long time to come.

Thank You!

Thank you! It can't be said often enough or sincerely enough.

We are so thankful for the many people who have given of their resources to partner with us financially and with household goods as we get ready to serve our Lord in Indonesia. We knew that God would provide above and beyond all that we could ask or think. He has done just that!We are promised that in Ephesians 3:20: 'Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.' Thank you for being sensitive to God and being willing to give when He asks. He still has more to provide in order for us to go and we look forward to seeing how He will provide abundantly above and beyond all that we can ask or imagine!

We are getting excited and a bit nervous as we train here at MAF headquarters in California. Hearing about all of the places where Steve will fly and about the ministry opportunities that will be available to me in Tarakan, the city where we will live, are very exciting. Hearing about the muggy weather, and the culinary delights of the region evoke a little twinge in my stomach. I do not like being hot and sweaty. Also, anyone that knows me, knows that I was a very picky eater as a child and that I still have an unadventerous palate. I know that God will provide abundantly in this area, too. I look forward to serving Him wherever He leads us. We hope to gain more insight into Indonesian culture and the life of an MAF family as our time here in Redlands continues.

Thank you for your part in getting us to this point.

We still have to:
~ finish gathering a prayer & financial ministry support team
~ finish training ( 8 more weeks)
~ travel back to Tennessee
~ build crates
~ sort our belongings into piles for storing, selling, and packing
~ pack everything in the pack piles
~ attend a 2-week course about how to learn a language (not Indonesian language school)
~ travel to Arkansas to say good-byes
~ back to Tennessee to finish packing and say good-byes

Memories of Smell, Thoughts on Nature, and Faith

They say the sense of smell has the best memory of any part of your body. I believe it. It was almost twenty years ago that I was here in Redlands, CA as a child. My body remembers the scents of the area and even the drawers in the MAF apts. Every time I open one of these drawers, I'm briefly transported back to the carefree days of my childhood. Yesterday, we went on a walk and I was taken back again by the wonderful scent of the orange groves in blossom. That is such a lovely scent, but the amazing things is that it doesn't smell like citrus at all. It's just very flowery and sweet. If you get close to a tree and breath deeply it's almost overpowering. The funny thing is that the blossoms don't always emit such a strong scent. It's just durring the evening of the day. Amazing.
Things like that make me think about how awesome God is. How did He come up with the idea to make the sense of smell so acute that it could remember something that it smelled twenty years ago and make the rest of the brain bring back other memories? How did He come up with the idea to make the flower of a tree smell completely different from the fruit of the tree? How did He come up with the idea to make that flower emit a strong scent at certain times of day to attract bees and other pollenators? Why did He make some places green and lush and other places brown and dry? How did He decide where there would be land and where there would be water? Things like that just blow me away if I really think about them. How awesome is it that each person has a distinct finger print?! That is not by chance or because some atoms collided at just the right time and place millions of years ago. Even Zebras all have distinct markings! Each plant in the woods is distinct. They might be the same kind of plant, but you can tell one from another by the way they are bent toward the light or colored. That is defintitely not by chance.
There is obvious order and design in all of nature, so much so that it seems that it has had a creator, someone to make it that way on purpose. And it's so beautiful. Beauty doesn't happen by chance. Just ask anyone who ever made pottery or put on make-up. There is skill and design involved. To believe anything else takes a lot more faith.