Every week here is such an adventure.

This week, we had a short visit by the president of MAF international, Ron Pritz, and his wife. When he left, I flew him halfway to Tarakan where there is a river by an airstrip. At the same time, an airplane from Tarakan landed on the airstrip to pick up our president. This is a picture of my airplane at Data Dawai where I docked with Ron and his wife.

From where I landed, we hiked up to the airstrip where we arrived just in time to watch Dave Forney land his plane. I was especially blessed to find out that Dave was carrying two pastors that I flew several times back when I was based in Tarakan. Actually, Pastor Angit, who is the second from the left, was in a blog of mine back in July 2008. He was with me when my alternator failed enroute to his village, and I had to divert back to our base in Tarakan. In the picture is also Pastor Amos, along with MAF international president, Ron, and his wife, Mikel Ann Pritz.

Today, I flew some reporters from Europe who were doing a story on how the palm oil plantations were taking over the rain forest. I flew them over a section of land where all you could see in any direction was palm oil plantations. They were actually shocked by how much of it they saw. When we arrived in Pankulanbun, their destination for the day, they decided to report on location. So, they spent a good deal of time filming interviews of each other in front of the airplane as you can see in the picture. The kids watching were so excited to know they were a part of something that would be on TV.

Last week Laura, ordered a turkey for our group Thanksgiving celebration. It was shipped to us from Jakarta in dry ice. The total for the turkey and the shipping was about $70, but it's worth it for Thanksgiving right? Well today, I went to a friends house who was in a motorcycle accident last night. I discovered that his neighbor raises turkeys, and lets them roam free through the neighborhood. Had I known before today that you could get turkey in town, we could have had cheap fresh turkey. Maybe next year.

By the way, I also learned today that Indonesians, or at least the Indonesians here, won't eat turkey. It is commonly believed that if you eat turkey you will grow flesh from your face and neck like a turkey has.

This week was especially exciting as the river rose to float our new hangar. We were able to push it out into the river into it's new permanent location. Praise the Lord.

I took this picture today as I was returning from my flight with the reporters. As you can see this hangar will be such a blessing. It so hard to describe the advantages of working on an airplane over concrete instead of water. You almost have to experience our current struggles with our docks so you can really understand what this new hangar will do for us. Just this week, I dropped my cell phone in the river while doing maintenance. In the future, our team here will lose less tools and less phones.

On another note, my niece Hannah finished her radiation treatments this week. Early next week, she will have another MRI and then we will know if the cancer was destroyed or not, and we will figure out what future treatments are necessary. Keep praying for us.