Back To School

We are praising the Lord for a “normal” summer school break. We were busy as Andrea was getting ready for the new school year, and Paul was working at the hangar welcoming new guys onto the maintenance team. The kids played and earned some spending money with odd jobs around the house or community. Our point is, we didn’t have any emergencies or unexpected trips. We praise God for the calm.

Another praise is that we got to have Paul’s knee evaluated by an orthopedic doctor in Australia.  He didn’t recommend surgery but did increase Paul’s physical therapy.  Being down in Australia gave us a chance to enjoy some family time together.  It was so refreshing.

Now school is back in session, and we are trying to get back into “the routine”. Unfortunately, days before the start, one of the school teachers had a death in the family and needed to head right back to her home country. She had just returned to PNG and turned around to endure the 30+ hour trip back. Ouch!

The school staff met and covered for all her classes.  Praise God. Andrea is now covering the 6^th grade science as well as her expected high school biology class. The change only adds a few class hours a week for Andrea and gives her a chance to teach Josh’s class.  (Yes, he is now a 6th grader!)  Paul told her to just use the prepared Biology material, just go slower. Now you see why she’s the teacher and he’s a mechanic.

We also had an unexpected event in our aviation department. Aviation calls it “unscheduled maintenance”. Some call it an accident. While moving one of the airplanes full of cargo out of the new hangar, the airplane tipped back onto its tail section with the nose wheel high in the air, still attached to the tug. That occurred despite the crew putting two riders in the pilot and co-pilot seats in effort to bring the center of gravity forward. With our newly built hangar comes some growing pains as we learn to traverse the different changes of slope from the ramp to the hangar floor. Thankfully, another close by aviation mission, SIL Aviation (JAARS), had all the spare parts we needed to complete the extensive repairs to the inside of the tail section. Aluminum structure is strong for flying, but not so much when it bounces off the paved earth. We ordered the parts from the factory in the USA and will resupply SIL Aviation when they arrive in a few weeks. Teamwork amongst God’s family as we work to reach the unreached. The repairs went quickly involving some overtime. We also praise God for the extra teammates that have joined us over the passed months to help carry this unscheduled work. In addition, we have had our normal load of scheduled maintenance to keep up with. If this had happened two months ago, the aircraft would have been down for at least two weeks instead of just one. Truly praising God for the extra laborers.

Praise & Prayer Requests

• Praise: We had a nice, quiet summer/school break!  (Well, it was winter here….but not really).
• Praise:  We had a wonderful break in Cairns, Australia and Paul didn’t need to have surgery on his knee.
• Praise: We are thankful for new coworkers…not only in the hangar but in the school.
• Prayer:  Please pray for more laborers. Our school is critically short staffed with several classes needing to be offered via correspondence.
• Prayer: For Andrea’s fellow teacher as she mourns the death of her sister but thankfully will be returning to PNG in October.
• Prayer: For Paul and the aviation team as they fly and maintain our aircraft.
• Prayer: Next month will be PNG’s 50th anniversary being an independent nation.  There will be lots of opportunities to celebrate with our national friends.  We thank the Lord that He has allowed PNG to remain open to the spreading of His Word.