Provision of safety

A guy named Denny Dyvig in Nairobi, Kenya, taught me the importance of praying and praising the Lord for safety.

I told you the story of flying the 206 to Fairbanks. From the scenery described, you can pretty much tell we were in the middle of nowhere.

The next day, Friday, Dwayne had some flight seeing trips scheduled during the afternoon. Based on our proximity to the Matanuska glacier, Dwayne offers flights to volunteers at the local camps for a really low rate, just to thank them and bless them for their services. Five at a time go up for 30-45 minutes. So we go out to Hal's to meet the crew of about 15; Dwayne brings me along to entertain the rest of the group while he is flying. The first flight goes and comes back with no problems. The second flight goes off with no problems. But when Dwayne taxis up to drop them off, I notice something that seemed a little out of place. Oil was dripping all out the bottom of the cowling. The belly was covered in oil as well. In that last flight, he had lost about 5 quarts of oil, while the engine holds 12 quarts. We had to cancel the last flight and find the problem.

We found the leak and fixed it up enough to fly home. We also had 2 extra quarts of oil in the back. Not a ton of oil, but plenty enough to get home. Saturday morning, we were doing more investigation into the problem before flying the plane to Anchorage to pick up a couple guys from the airport. The flight to Anchorage went well, oil pressure and temperature were fine the whole trip.

So, why did this particular piece wait until we were doing local flights to blow? Why didn't it all come out in the middle of nowhere on the trip to Fairbanks Thursday? Why didn't it wait until we were flying in the busiest airspace in the world, flying around Anchorage? Because
GOD PROVIDES FOR SAFETY.

I hope this reminds me to thank Him for safety daily. We have had several other incidents this summer that could easily have been much worse. We had an engine fire due to a broken primer line, but that was on the ground. Cameron bent up his airplane, but he and his passenger were both safe.

Please continue to pray and thank the Lord for our safety here at Kingdom Air Corps.

Flying with Dwayne always ends up being stressful... It is a good "learning experience" but still stressful. We were going up to drop Lee off with his daughter, and Dwayne was doing a little instruction with a guy who has a little homebuilt tailwheel plane.

NOTHING beats the view... As we headed out of here, following the bright blue chickaloon river, i pointed the nose in the direction we usually fly, straight up the river.
But Dwayne wanted to show us an airplane wreck. So he pointed me in the direction of a canyon that led to a ridge much higher than our cruising altitude.
As we discussed ridge crossing theory, I pulled the nose up and climbed to a safe altitude to cross the ridge. I love flying a plane that has enough power to get up over the mountains.
We popped over a few ridges and found two airplanes and a camping party on the airstrip where Dwayne likes to land the super cub.

A little ways further was the wrecked airplane. Now its a 150 and the ground is at least 4,000 ft. Those of you who know aviation are sitting there amazed that a 150 could actually get that high. It really had problems, which caused the accident. It ran into one of the ridges we were hopping over at 8,000 or so feet. I had never seen a plane wreck in person before. It was a little sobering to see the fuselage sitting 50 feet away from the wings, which sat next to each other.

We finished that bit and went on our way. When we got up closer to Fairbanks, we started looking at an incredible spread of mountains. Lee's wife say's that its just like reading national geographic, but the pages are bigger.
We pulled up to 10,000 feet and aimed toward a low spot in the mountain range. cruising above glaciers and in between mountains, seriously? who doesnt want to be a pilot? Especially in Alaska!

Aaron flew on the way back. He was a huge help to have on the way, kind of a co-pilot in the backseat. So on the way back, I sat back and took a nap when he flew. I woke up when we got back to the Chickaloon valley. Mostly because we started pulling 60+ degree banks to soar down the canyons. And by soar down, I mean we had one wing sticking down in the canyon, and the other one out above us.

All of this really made me think of the passage in Romans 1:18-21. For all practical purposes, I am going to just copy the text here :)

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.


God's invisible qualities are definitely visible in the scenery of Alaska. His eternal power is defined in the glaciers that slowly rip the rocks out from under them. Yet he could halt the masses of ice with just a thought. His divine nature is visible in the bright white snow contrasting with the deep blue pools of glacial waters, falling from rugged black peaks, too steep for snow to cling to them.

A day in the life of Kingdom Air Corps

Well, I have been in Alaska for two weeks now. I have settled into the routine, gotten used to doing things the Kingdom Air Corps way around here. I finally got my new computer, and it is really nice. Last week, Cameron, one of the guys up here, bent up his airplane a little bit. He got the plane for 6,000 bucks last winter. If you don't know airplanes, that is an INCREDIBLE deal. So he fixed it up over the winter and got it flying about a month ago. He has been looking for parts to fix it, and found someone with a similar plane in Palmer, about 45 minutes drive from here.

As it turns out, this lady, Jane, lost her husband and is trying to get rid of an entire garage full of airplane stuff. there is a lot of junk there, but a lot of treasures as well. Cameron told Dwayne all about this stuff, so last Saturday, about 5 guys went out to look at it. Dwayne knew that they didn't have any money, and if they decided they wanted any of it, they would have to do some fund raising.

They kind of went out on a limb of faith, because they hadnt been able to get ahold of Jane. They prayed the whole way there, but still no word. She wasn't home when they showed up. As they were heading away from her house back in to town, they were looking in each car that passed to see if they could see her. They even turned around and followed someone they thought looked like her! But they didn't end up finding her that way. So the guys went to lunch in town, and had a really good chance to pray and talk.

As they were getting up after lunch, Cameron's cell phone rang. It was her! She was home, but would only be there for about an hour. They rushed off to her house, praying along the way. As they were going, Dwayne was praying about the money thing. A thought crept into his head about how they would afford it. He began praying that she would be willing to accept a tax receipt.

The guys showed up at her house, and had a great time talking to Jane about life, what we are doing here at Kingdom Air Corps, and the airplane stuff she had. She asked Dwayne how much he thought it was worth, and he honestly replied that it would be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 dollars. He told her that we have no money, and if we were to take it, we would have to do some fund raising to get her the money. I think he might have gotten the first two letters of the word "unless" in before she piped up, "Well, what about a tax receipt?" Dwayne, overjoyed, tried to keep his cool. "I think we could do that!" he said.

So, that is the story of how God provided 20,000 dollars worth of airplane parts to Kingdom Air Corps. It will take work to turn it into something useful, but it is a treasure to those who know how to use it.

anticipation

My computer checked into Wasilla yesterday. Which means... it should be here tomorrow morning!! I am super excited to get a computer again. It will be 2 months that I survived without my own hard drive on which to store my thoughts, memories, pictures, and hard work. And since I took so dang long ordering it, I ended up getting it for about 200 dollars cheaper. See? Laziness and procrastination do pay off sometimes :)

Tomorrow is Daddy's birthday. happy birthday Poopsie!!!

one way tickets

to say "life as of late has been hectic" would be an incredible understatement. Last you heard from me I was in Texas; without much hope of ever leaving Longview. What happened? What changed?

I blinked.

Less than a millisecond, and I suddenly find myself sitting in my parent's living room, a one way ticket to Alaska in hand. I was home for three days, barely long enough to reunite with my shoe collection, and I have to have everything I need for the summer in my big green suitcase and action packer. I think I will manage to make this trip under 50 lbs per bag though.

One way tickets are kind of scary. I am sitting here looking around at the home in which I grew up, not knowing the next time I would be here. not sure when I will see my family again. Wondering if everything that I couldnt fit into my luggage will ever make it to Alaska. I hear the phrase "leap of faith" being tossed around a lot, and I thought I understood it. But now as I stare at the piece of paper with no return date, boxes piled haparzardly in the background, I am learning a little better what it feels like to leap.

Since coming back from Africa, I have really been trying to embrace a quote from Jim Elliot: "Wherever you are- be all there." Taking from my pilot-y ways, I have concocted my own version... "I don't need a GPS to tell me where I am. All I have to do is look down at my own two feet and I will know exactly where I am supposed to be."

But there is a time when that theory doesn't work. I have become very familiar with it this year, as I pack my bags about every other weekend to haul them off somewhere new. I guess most people call this time transition. According to my aforementioned life pursuit of using the ground on which I have deemed my perch to tell me where I am, I would define transition as a cannon ball.

A cannonball?
You know, when you run full force toward the pool, pick your feet up, curl into a ball, and make the biggest splash possible.

I am going to finish these thoughts later, I gotta run out the door. Off to Alaska, cya there!