PCM News: July 2010

28 July 2010

Way up in Moz

Paul has just returned from a nine day trip taking a Brazilian team to run a conference for between 3-400 pastors in Nampula, Mozambique.

The total distance would get you from London to 300 miles past Moscow which helps explain why they wanted to fly.

Other speakers from the US and Brazil also flew in, and the conference went very well. The team made a documentary whilst there and their aim was to live stream the conference via the web to almost 30000 people around the world, although a cut fibre optic cable a few hundred miles away meant that the internet was down in Moz during their stay.

A number of sessions were run concurrently each day. Some outside under the trees...

and some in the big tent.

Cooking for all the pastors in the evening was an event in itself.

I managed to meet up with another pilot friend whilst there and spent a few days flying jump seat with him in an Embraer 120, which was fun and very different from the type of flying I usually do.

Mozambique is very colourful and whilst driving around we saw all sorts - including the local bed salesman.

During a rare moment of spare time in Beira, I went to see an old wreck that I often fly over, a photo of which appeared in the previous blog post.

This Saturday I fly a UK team down to Durban to visit a hospital they help support and the day after I take another team up to Chimoio, Moz again to visit ASAM and the Mercy Air remote base. More blogging about that next week.

Regards

Paul and Cathy

12 July 2010

Cars and bikes

Matthew was up this last weekend to collect a car we sourced for him - a boringly reliable, economical, 10 year old white Fiesta.

This replaced a rather snazzy 46 year old, unreliable, forever breaking down, costly, one of only 128 ever made, red GSM Flamingo.

He was only here for two days but we did the Middleton thing and got him to do a local Mountain Bike Race. We did it properly of course, but we could of caused a stir if we'd of pitched up on the start line on this:

Paul's off to N. Moz this weekend with a Brazilian team who are going to run a pastor's conference in Nampula.

P n' C

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.