PCM News: Chimoio visit

06 April 2010

Chimoio visit

Last week we went up to Chimoio again with a team from the US and South Africa, and visited many of the projects that ASAM and Mercy Air are involved with.

While we were flying up, Bill and Lu (Barbara’s brother and his wife who were visiting from the US) drove up. It took them two full days with a relatively swift 2 hrs at each border and they arrived hot and tired. In comparison we spent 3 hrs in the plane with less than an hour on the ground in Beira to refuel and do customs and immigration. No night spent in a dodgy bat infested B n’ B in Zim, no police roadblocks, no sweaty border queues to stand in.

The next day we took some doors to the clinic that the Harderwyk team had roofed only a month earlier and which has now been plastered.

We visited some of the schools that the mission runs and helped serve food at lunch time. They feed 260 children every day and for many it is their only meal. Some of the children walk up to 10km to attend classes.

In comparison we also visited an overcrowded government school. The mission has just obtained permission the local Government to allow them to paint it for free.

We saw the area that has been cleared for a runway that will enable us to fly directly to the mission in the future as well as another area where they have started to build a training centre.

We went to a very lively and hot (35 deg), African church on the Sunday.

Desire had a pensive look at the vastness of Mozambique on the flight back.

I'm sure we'll be up there again very soon.

Paul and Cathy

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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.