Updates Page

Lots of Stuff Going On

2009-07-18T19:26:00.005+08:00

Hello All,

The last week has been packed with all kinds of interesting things.
- I've had a couple meetings with different pastors
- met with government officials
- we've been trying to think up new flight routes,
- I've been flying
- getting our new hangar up to snuff as far as being current with all MAF's rules
- we renewed our drivers licenses (which included a trip to the hospital)
- a president was reelected here with polling booths next door to our house
- we got new floats for one of our airplanes that badly needed it
- we have been finishing all of our unpacking at the house
- decided not to get a second dog at this time
- getting to know neighbors
- encouraged and helped a new believer friend of ours
- and on top of all that have been shocked by bombings in the capital city.

Please keep praying for us. We are working on reintroducing our ministry to the local Indonesian churches and pastors so that we can figure out a way to better work together. Of course our number one problem is still the high price of fuel that makes it hard to do all the flights that we want to do. We feel however that there is so much potential out there for spreading the love of Christ. There are still so many more areas that could benefit from the use of the airplane.

On another note, I probably wont' blog next week because we will be spending the weekend in a jungle village where some German, Christian nurses have a clinic and vibrant ministry. It will be our first trip interior as a family so we are really looking forward to it. It might be just slightly rustic.

It's been very exciting to finally be able to use this new hangar. At the end of last week we were actually able to weigh an airplane which was something we had to do in the past to comply with the law, but was very dangerous process. This time there was nothing to it. We just jacked it up on the scales and we were done. This next week will be fun as we lift an airplane up and put the new floats on it.

We've moved back to Indonesia / Hangar Dedication

2009-07-05T19:50:00.006+08:00

We realize that it's been a long time since we have posted a blog. Also, while we were on furlough our posts were few and far between since our lives really were not all that interesting. Now that we are back we will be trying to post a blog weekly.

We have really enjoyed having Lee and Linda Calhoun, Laura's parents, with us to help move into our new house. We are so thankful for their help, and we already miss them since they left. Lee actually took all of the pictures below.

Below you can see our new house. It took months and months to find it. Finally, one became available when some other missionaries left. The best part about it is that there is hardly any traffic and it is quiet and peaceful in our neighborhood.

When the prior family left they literally took the kitchen sink and cabinets. So, we had new cabinets built and we spent lots of time getting the faucet to work and adding knobs.

One of the many projects in recent days: the tile was broken and sharp, so I patched it with white cement. Other projects have included hanging curtains, getting the internet working, unpacking boxes, hanging ceiling fans, figuring out the water system, getting rid of a bat infestation and many other things.

I've also spent a few days getting current in the airplane again with a check pilot. As of Thursday, they set me loose to fly again passengers again.

The biggest event that happened since we arrived back was the hangar dedication ceremony. Below is our new floating hangar with the new office in the background.

The ceremony opened with us pulling the airplane in the hangar for the first time electically. It took about thirty seconds all in all. This will revolutionize our operations.

Below you can see our group right before praying and giving God all this new equipment. We want to use all this great stuff for His glory.

No dedication would be complete without a big meal.

Mountain Home

2009-05-27T01:37:00.004+08:00

We have had such a great time for the last couple weeks in Steve's hometown of Mountain Home, Arkansas. Thanks to the generosity of a local family, we have been able to stay in a house that has a view like this of Norfork Lake.

We have also been able to spend a little bit of time playing in/by the lake. Here we are riding in Steve's dad's new boat. Julia says she like the boat, but not the wind associated with it.

The house where we are staying also has a great little playground outside.

The Persenaire Family!

2009-04-20T03:41:00.003+08:00

Steve, Laura, Julia and Katie

Spring is in the Air

2009-03-23T09:17:00.002+08:00

Julia has had so much fun playing outdoors lately. I wish I had a camera tonight as she danced nonstop for at least 20 minutes to a song that she was singing. I don't know what song it was, but it sure had the word "baby" in it a lot. Every now and then I could even pick out the word "fish" in the song.

I think Julia would stay outside all day long if we would let her.

Update from the last several weeks:

2009-03-17T23:08:00.004+08:00

I've not been real consistent with blogging lately. When we were overseas it seems I always had an adventure that I could share on my blog. I guess we have had some adventures here too, but it doesn't seem like the type of adventures that people would really be interested in reading about. So instead of the weekly blog, I'm updating you now, on many of the things that have happened the last couple months.

We've been traveling a lot. Our trips include traveling to Arkansas for Hannah's funeral, South Carolina to speak to some Sunday School classes that support us, and just this last weekend I, Steve, travelled to Indiana. Laura and Julia didn't make the trip to Indiana, since Laura is now so late in pregnancy. On a couple of our trips we rode in Grandaddy's airplane. You can see the pictures below.

Speaking of the pregnancy, everything is going well. Laura is due April 4th, but we are hoping that the baby comes early just like Julia did. When the baby does come we look forward to a visit from Steve's parents from Arkansas.

We have also really enjoyed seeing so many friends and family lately. One of the harder things about being a missionary is being far from so many people that we love, so we are really enjoying the time that we have now with our family. We have such great friends.

Julia turns two next week. We are going to have a little birthday party here for her with a few of her little friends.

Hannah Joy Sullivan

2009-02-28T23:45:00.001+08:00

Thank you for your prayers!!! She is now more alive than ever!!!

We Survived the Ice Storm of 2009

2009-02-03T23:35:00.003+08:00

While we were in Mountain Home, Arkansas, Steve's hometown, we were hit by an incredible ice storm. Actually, if you are wondering why we couldn't be reached for about a week it was because the ice storm knocked out all our electricity and internet.

Nomally this is a fairly wide road, but the trees loaded down with ice leaned toward the middle of the road. The trees actually are leaning over so far that they envelop the powerlines to the point that you can't see the powerlines anymore.

The night of the ice storm we heard trees and branches falling down all over the place. Trees knocked down enough power lines that 500,000 people were without electricity the next day. It took only five days for my parents to get power back, but some people there are still without power.

A common sight was trees bending over so far that their tops touched the ground. This tree is right outside my parents front window.

Here is just one of a few powerlines that we had to drive over to get to town. You can also see the powerpole lying on the ground in this picture.

Our only source of heat was a kerosene heater. As you can see by the picture many people heated this way. I stood in this line for kerosene for an hour and a half.

The car we are using didn't fair so well during this ice storm. A tree branch landed on it denting the roof, hood, and door. I already cleared the branch off the car before I took this photo.
Poor Cream Puff!

Julia and Hannah

2009-01-27T04:57:00.002+08:00

Please pray for our little girl Julia. She's got a really bad cold/flu. Julia is normally happy and full of smiles, but this sickness seems to really has her spirits down.

Please also keep praying also for my niece Hannah who has the cancer. She's still struggling as she battles it out. Pray for God's miraculous hand of healing to touch her, because we know that He alone is capable of healing her.

Furlough

2009-01-19T05:48:00.003+08:00

We are so glad to be in the States on furlough. Over the last few weeks we have shared our missionary experiences in three Sunday School classes, and in one church service. It seems as if there is no limit to the amount of people who are ready to spend time with us and welcome us back home.

The only down side is that Julia is starting to get a bit tired of riding around in her car seat. It's not that she doesn't like the car seat, but she, like any other kid her age, gets pretty bored on the longer car trips.

It's been great to be in Arkansas recently to spend time with close family and friends. We enjoy the outdoors and sometimes even the chilly air. Julia has had a great time playing with other kids, and seeing many different animals. She now even owns her own goldfish which she has to greet every time she walks nearby.

Thank you again for making all of our mission experiences possible for us. We would love to see more of you and share with you personally. If we are in your area and you would like to see us, just send us an email.

Hannah and Julia

2009-01-13T10:23:00.003+08:00

We are having such a great time in Arkansas. For us, one of the highlights of our trip so far has been to spend time with our niece, Hannah, and the rest of our family. In the picture above, Julia is sitting in bed with Hannah while she waits for the results from her blood test. Hannah has brain cancer. We are praying that God would do an awesome miracle for her. Please join us in praying for Hannah.

Right now we are in my (Steve's) hometown, Mountain Home, Arkansas. We have had the opportunity to speak in a couple churches and are enjoying reconnecting with people. Actually, we feel like we are just barely beginning to see all the people who we really want to see. I hope that we have enough time to do everything that we want to do while we are here.

On Wednesday, we will be going to Branson, Missouri to see some friends. We'll also take some time to do some fun stuff. We are going to go to Bass Pro Shops Outfitters in Springfield so that Julia can see all the animals and fish that are on display there. Julia loves animals.

We are finally home for Christmas!!!

2008-12-22T04:01:00.001+08:00

Here we are with Laura's family. Can't wait till next week when we get to see Steve's family too.

Fixing and Packing

2008-12-05T19:04:00.006+08:00

For the last two weeks I have been working full time performing a major inspection on this airplane. During this time, I completely gutted the interior, change most of the control cables, pulleys, and also worked on the tail.

In these pictures I am removing the elevator. More specifically I am removing the whole tail to fix some corrosion that we found.

Besides working full time doing maintenance I'm also working full time along side Laura packing up our house for our move to another house in town. I thought you might enjoy seeing the size of the pile this week as opposed to the blog I posted last week.

These pictures are taken from roughly the same location in the room as the pictures from last week.

Packing Up

2008-11-29T19:58:00.002+08:00

In just another 1 1/2 weeks we will be leaving Palangka Raya to return to the States for a six month furlough. Wow, the last 3 1/2 years flew by quickly. Before we leave we have the gigantic job of packing up everything we own into boxes. You see, while we are in the states, our rental contact on this house is up and the landlord doesn't want to rent it out again. So that means that all of our friends here will be moving our stuff while we are in America. We want to make sure that everything is already packed and ready so that they we have as easy of a time as possible moving our stuff.

On another note, I didn't fly at all this week. I have been up to my shoulders inspecting one of our aircraft. It's a major inspection, and I'm basically doing it all alone, so it's quite time consuming. During this inspection, I've changed out most of the aircrafts control cables that move the control surfaces of the airplane.

We didn't celebrate Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day. Indonesians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, so I ended up working that day. However, Laura has a turkey defrosting right now, and we plan to have a big dinner with all the other American families plus one Canadian family tomorrow night. Should be yummy!

My niece Hannah is doing pretty good this week. They hope to start more chemo this Monday. Like always we beg for your prayers for her.

Boat Ride Straight Through the Heart of Borneo

2008-11-15T19:07:00.005+08:00

Today, we, along with another missionary family, took a ride on a boat down one of the rivers near where we live. It was an eight hour journey slowly chugging along in a beautiful wooden boat. This boat was designed and made specifically for promoting eco-tourism and showing the world some of the more beautiful natural parts of Borneo. I believe the boat is co-owned by an English woman and an Austrailian woman. One of them came along with us, and was our tour guide for the day.

Here is our family before boarding the boat. Julia was very impressed with the whole affair.

Captain Julia, boldly leading where no Persenaire has gone before.

Yes, these are orangutans in the wild. These particular ones were most likely re-released into the jungle after being rescued from being illegally kept as pets.

I'm not sure who was more interested in watching whom.

There are two orangutans in the above photo. Can you find them both?

Couldn't resist taking the above picture. It was so beautiful there with the water being so glassy.

One of the neatest parts of the trip was eating lunch while underway. It was a regular first class experience.

Hannah, our 17 year old niece, has finished her radiation treatments and all of the tumors were shrunk by the radiation. The doctor said that there was a big difference in the before and after MRI's. Praise the Lord for this! Thank you so much for your prayers for her.

Now, she is waiting for her immunity level and blood counts to raise back to an acceptable level before she can begin the chemo treatments. She spent last week in the hospital because she got bronchitis and her immunity and blood counts were low. Then, she had a couple of days at home and is now back in the hospital with an extremely low immunity level. She has remained in good spirits through all of this, but I'm sure it does get old.

Please pray that her body (bone marrow) will quickly begin working more normally to heal itself and bring up her immunity and blood counts so that she can begin chemo while the tumors are still 'feeling' the effects of the radiation.

Pray also for continued strength and peace for Hannah, her parents, sister, and the rest of us in her family.

Thank you so much for your prayers for Hannah. God is good, all the time!

Engine Change

2008-11-08T18:00:00.002+08:00

This week my energy was focused on changing an engine on one of our airplanes. Every 1700 flight hours MAF installs a new engine on all their piston airplanes. So Chris and I together spent hours removing the old engine and installing a new one. The good news is that we flew it for the first time with the new engine on Thursday afternoon. Praise the Lord, it ran great. It has Gamijectors which makes it an incredibly smooth running machine.

Despite all the time working on the airplane, and despite the fact that I brought my camera everyday. I never got around to taking a picture. So, unfortunately you can't see the fruits of this weeks labor.

On another note. Here are Laura, Julia and I wearing our authentic Dayak hats. These are hats that I typically saw people wear when I flew in the Apau Kayan area of East Kalimantan. There are people here in Southern Kalimantan that wear them too, but here it seems to only be for special occasions. In East Kalimantan people wore them on a regular basis.

This is a house boat in the truest sense of the word. It's an actual floating house that I encountered one day last week. It was just being pulled right down the middle of the river by a couple of little boats.

Every week here is such an adventure.

2008-11-01T20:20:00.006+08:00

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.

Scenes From Another Week

2008-10-26T13:00:00.003+08:00

This week I had the privilege of flying one of our waterstrip agents from his village to PalangkaRaya. This is Yanno and his wife. You can't really see in this picture, but sitting behind Yanno is the first gun shot victim that I've carried. The man sitting behind Yanno was shot in the shoulder with a shotgun. Nobody could explain to my why or how he got shot.

Click on this image to see it sharper and bigger. This is a map of everywhere in the world that MAF operates, and how many airplanes we have.

Often times I find myself landing in places that I haven't been to before. Usually these places don't present any challenges with landing or takeoff, but we just don't have a reason to go there often. It's probably been at least three years since MAF landed at this location. I'm assuming some of these kids had never seen the airplane before and that is why they came running when I pulled up to this dock.

This week I had to go to Jakarta to get a flight physical. Nothing like dealing with Jakarta traffic. Even if it is from the back of a taxi.

Newspaper sellers take advantage of the traffic jams as well as people selling food and drinks.

Random Scenes From My Week.

2008-10-19T14:30:00.007+08:00

MUD SLIDE (as in the game and not the natural disaster)

Just after I landed at the village of Tumbang Kunyi last week, it started to rain. It was one of those rainstorms that just dumps all over the place. So eventually, after it stopped raining in the village I decided to go for a walk to see what everyone was doing. I had plenty of time since I still wanted the rain to completely clear out of the surrounding area.
I found these boys had taken advantage of the muddy situation. They cut the side out of a five liter jug of oil. This makes a recessed place where you can sit. They also tied a rope to the jug so they could pull it. Then the big kid pulled the little kid in his make shift mud sled. For some reason I never saw the little kid pull the big kid anywhere. Go figure.

Not everything that I do in Indonesia is related to flying or a foreign culture.
I spent a good chunk of time one day trying to fix our American oven. By the way, you can't buy an oven this size over here. We are so thankful for the oven which we shipped over from America. However, the oven pilot light refused to stay lit, and sometimes the oven would just go off while cooking. So, I consulted the owners manual to find that it said not to fix it yourself, but to call a professional. I probably could call a professional, but I would be hard pressed to find a professional from America willing to make a house call to Indonesia. I also knew that if I needed parts it would take about a month to get here.
So, I did the only reasonable thing I could do. I took it apart completely trying to discover the cause. After removing everything and cleaning all the little holes for the gas to travel through I'm proud to announce that the pilot light has not gone out once in the last two days. I'm hoping that I have it licked.

This is a picture of my sister, Jill, and her family. Hannah is the one in the front on the right. I'm happy to say that Hannah is more than half way through her treatments. She is doing really well. The only side effect is that she has a sore throat and that food doesn't really taste very good to her. She still has a good appetite thanks to the steroids that she has to take. Please keep praying that God will completely heal her of cancer. Thanks.

Nanga Bulik

2008-10-12T13:47:00.003+08:00

When I start a new week here in Palangka Raya, I usually have no idea what adventures that the week is going to have for me. Yesterday I found myself flying to a village called Nanga Bulik. Nanga Bulik is a bit larger than most villages, and it is actually a capital of a small province in Kalimantan.
Nanga Bulik is about 1 1/2 hours away from Palangka Raya by air. I had never been there before but it's a big wide river so landing there was not a problem. When I got there and my passengers left about a hundred kids started to crowd around the airplane. Everybody wanted a glimpse of the white pilot.
I didn't get my camera out until about an hour later once the kids started to get bored and disperse.

When I wait for passengers I usually never leave the floatplane. When I flew a wheel plane I didn't mind leaving it alone, but with a wheel plane we always flew to the same places so the kids and people were used to us. Since I fly a floatplane now, I find that I can land at dozens of places that may have never had a float plane land there. I have to be a lot more careful, because the airplane would be easy to damage by a boat wanting to dock next to it for example. People here generally don't understand how easy a floatplane could be damaged.

All the kids in the pictures would just stare at me and ask me all kinds of questions. So, even though it would be easy for me to be annoyed by all the attention, I decided that this would be a great opportunity for them to see who I really was. I engaged these kids and answered most of their silly questions. After all, I had to wait for 1 1/2 hours for my passengers to return for their flight home.

Too bad I didn't take a picture right away when this whole dock was almost completely full of kids.

2008-10-06T19:58:00.002+08:00

I know that some of you are getting tired of construction pictures, but today was a really big day for us. The steel structure for the hangar finally started to go up. Praise the Lord.

This picture is the beginning of our new office which is the part which will be on dry ground.

Hannah Update

2008-10-04T20:12:00.002+08:00

As of yesterday Hannah had her second radiation treatment. Now she will have the weekend off and will start the daily treatments again on Monday. She will have a total of 20 of these treatments.
After the first day her tumors reacted by swelling. This gave her a severe headache with nausea so she began taking steroids to counter the swelling. After her second day of radiation she felt much better than she did the first day so the steroids must be doing what they are supposed to do.
Hannah has had such a great attitude through out this whole ordeal. We are so thankful for such a large group of people that we know are praying for Hannah.

Construction Update

2008-10-04T20:06:00.002+08:00

This week Chris has been busy building us a set of scaffolding to use. Because we can't just go down the street and buy or rent scaffolding, Chris has been building it himself. We waited weeks for our ordered steel to arrive. As of today, I think we only have a few pieces left to weld and then we will have a complete set. After we have our scaffolding finished we can finally start to erect the steel for our hangar.

I am shocked, scared, and sad. My cancer is back... Please pray for me! I'm gonna give God the glory!

2008-09-27T21:33:00.003+08:00

Please pray for our niece Hannah. Several months ago she had a cancerous tumor removed from her brain. Everything has been going really well as far as her recovery until we found out just this week that her cancer is back. Not only is it back, but there are now eleven tumors which are in her spine and brain stem area. So, now, she has to have six weeks of daily radiation to try to reduce the size of the tumors and keep new ones from forming. After that, she will receive four chemotherapy treatments.

Please pray for our whole family during this time. This is a difficult and scary time, but all of us know that God is in control. He is the one taking care of all of us.

Pictures from around town.

2008-09-20T21:09:00.003+08:00

There are so many interesting sights and sounds that we see here everyday, that have become completely normal to us. We used to marvel at this culture, and now we don't even take a second glance anymore. Today on our way to the grocery store we took some snapshot so that we could share some of these sights and sounds with you.

Overloaded vehicles are the norm here.

These high school girls are wearing their school uniforms.

This is a monument in town. We have never looked at it up close to figure out the meaning behind it.

This is the military hospital. Its a bit nicer than the normal hospital, but they only treat military people or their familes. By the way, the orange van is a form of taxi, but works more like a bus.

One of the hundreds of small mosques in town.

Man bringing goods to the market.

One of the larger mosques in town.

Same mosque, different angle. I wish the photo could capture the volume of noise coming from the loudspeakers.

Lots of people bring their restaraunts with them wherever they go. Many of these portable restaraunts (most of which are a bit smaller) go by the front of our house all day long. They usually ring a bell, honk a horn, or yell to advertise what they are selling.

Don't really know where this guy is going, but he is getting a lot of stuff moved. When we drive down the street we have to make sure we don't hit guys like this as they use the street too. Sometimes they can be a bit unpredictable as to where they are going to go.