Flight Following For a Day

One very important job at the MAF hangar is to keep track of all the aircraft. As a pilot, I have to inform the flight follower every time I taxi, take off, approach to land, land, as well as give a position report every fifteen minutes. Because, our Indonesian staff was at a conference this week, Laura and Julia helped out by filling in when there was no one else to flight follow. Thanks Laura and Julia!!!

Church Conferences

Over the last two weeks we have been super busy flying people to and from two different church conferences in interior Borneo. Once conference was held in the village of Data Dian, and the other was about 150 miles away at the village of Long Bawan. All the villages surrounding the above two villages had people that they sent to the conferences.

In order to better meet all the flying needs I spent the night in Data Dian. This allowed me to get a few extra flights in that we wouldn't have been able to do if I went home. It was also a neat experience to spend another night in the middle of nowhere.

The church conferences went well, and because of our ministry, everyone was able to get to the conferences that wanted to go, and everyone was able to go home afterwards.

The King of the Apau Kayan

This picture was taken by me deep in the heart of Boreo near the village of Long Nawang. The Kings bones lay inside and if you look close enough, you can see a statue of the king below.

There was a day when all the villages of the Apau Kayan were at war with one another. They often fought and killed people from the different villages. Then came a man who was able to unite all the villages in peace. He became the king of the entire area of the Apau Kayan. When he passed away in 1930 they laid his bones to rest in the structure pictured above. The villagers still maintain this structure and rebuild it as needed.

Trade You A Snake For Some School Supplies

The other day I landed at the village of Long Ampung. As, the airplane was being unloaded and then loaded up again for a departure a man walked up to me and asked if his snake could go in the airplane. (I assumed this man was going to be a passenger on the airplane too.)

I was interested in this snake so I had him pull it out of it's bag. It was a mean looking snake. It had a distinctly shaped head, and it had diamond patterns down his back. I figured that it was definately poisoinous. I asked the man where he got it, and he said he found it in the rice field.

So, I told him, if it was secured in the bag, the snake could ride in the belly pod of the airplane. (From the belly pod there is no access to the passenger area of the airplane). So, he threw the snake, bag and all, in the belly pod.

So, as I was trying to conduct my normal buisiness of getting the airplane and paperwork ready, he approaches me again. He was asking me if we had a deal in that I would bring him notebooks, pencils, and misc school supplies in the future. It was one of these conversations that I tend to have with people where I understand all the words they are saying, but I have no idea what they really mean.

Finally, as he was getting frustrated with me not understanding him, he said, "look, you already bought the snake, I want school supplies for my kid as payment. I cant get them here."

"OOoohhh, I get it." He wasn't a passenger at all. I thought seriously about taking this guy up on his offer. It's not that I had any interest in the snake, but I really respected the work he was doing to get school supplies for his kid. To make a long story short, I didn't take the snake home with me, because I couldn't gaurantee when I would ever have a chance to get back to that village. I did, however, have a chance to send him a few school suplies as a gift with another pilot, when the other pilot went there a few days later.