PCM News: Midnight medivac

17 April 2006

Midnight medivac

Paul has spent most of Easter Monday asleep.

We had a very pleasant Easter Friday getting out for a walk with a British couple who have come to help with aircraft maintenance for four months, and also with Matthew who had to take some pictures for a photo journ assignment.

Sat and Sun were fairly typical until 6:55 Sunday evening when we got a call from Ricky at Vida Life with reports of an attack that had happened in Moz that required medical evacuation from the Mozambican coastal town of Inhambane to Johannesburg - now now. The frantic activity didn't really end until 09:00 the following morning when Paul landed back on the Mercy Air Farm again after a whole night of flying. To cut a long story short we had to arrange for flight permits, airports to open, customs, immigration and air traffic control guys to pitch in the middle of the night, for fuel - which is becoming rare during the day and a whole bunch of other incidental things that you usually need a week to sort out for a 'normal' flight. Cathy didn't escape unscathed as she was also up most of the night flight following as Paul called every half hour to give a position report (co-ordinates that is, not whether he was vertical or horizontal)!.

Fortunately, the still moonlit night was about as good as it could be for this kind of flying which made taking off from our Farm a bit easier, although we still had to get all the staff to position their cars at intervals down the strip so their headlights could provide illumination. Also landing on the runway in Inhambane took two attempts as the runway was only lit by a few burning paraffin lamps, some of which had blown out by the time we got there.

Obviously due to the nature of the incident and the fact that it all happened in the wee small hours we don't have any pictures, except for one of the paramedic sleeping on the stretcher on the return leg back to Nelspruit the following morning.

But what we really want to convey is thanks to those of you who pray for us regularly. Flying into Moz at night presents its own hazards and we don't always get chance to mail prayer requests round beforehand. We are however so appreciative for the prayer cover we do get that goes to ensure that we can serve safely in cases such as these.

Thanks also to those who have written to us recently. You'll understand why we haven't had chance to get back to you yet, but we will take a day off soon and get typing.

P n' C

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A short history of us

Not long after we were married we felt that God had some full time work for us overseas. This initially began with a move to Sheffield in 1992 to work for a Christian management training company. Three years later we felt the Lord's prompting that another change was imminent and this led to a move to Africa where we helped set up a youth program with the Lesotho-Durham link in the capital Maseru. An initial three year commitment turned into four after which the youth work was handed over to the nationals.

Then, after feeling God was moving us into mission flying Paul enrolled at a flying school and completed his South African commercial license with an instrument rating in December 1999.

We moved from Lesotho to White River in South Africa in June of 2003 where we now work with Mercy Air. Mercy Air was borne out of Youth with a Mission (YWAM) and is a sister, although smaller organisation to the more well known Mercy Ships. We are situated near Nelspruit and provide a service to missions and the development/aid community in the southern African region but mainly serve Mozambique.

We operate four aircraft at present - a Quest Kodiak, a Cessna 310 and two Airbus 350 helicopters which are often used for the relief flights.

When not flying Paul is responsible for flight operations and is Mercy Air's Safety Officer.

Cathy, who is a registered Nurse and Midwife works part time at Africa School of Missions which is a bible college preparing missionaries for overseas service. She teaches in their School of Health and is part of a team which visits a number of rural clinics during the week. She is also helps with the hospitality ministry that Mercy Air runs.

Matthew spent four years at Rhodes University in Grahamstown where he studied photo journalism. He has now flown the nest and is living with his wife in Durban. They have a young daughter named Isabella.