PCM News: August 2010

06 August 2010

Farm hands

While the Great Whyrley team were here they also helped out on the Mercy Air farm. One job we had was to demolish an old house that was infested with termites.

It used to look like this

But now looks more like this.

We were able to recover a lot of the fittings (roofing, pipes, electrical etc) and will clear the area and likely offer the area for future staff to build a new house. Other than that it was a handy source of firewood for a while.

Another group gave our main office a paint face-lift.

P n' C

Chimoio

The day after the Durban flight (below), we set off with another team from Great Whyrley to Mercy Air's remote base just north of Chimoio, Mozambique. During the four days we were there we did many things including helping with food distribution to orphans that ASAM had placed with 'Grandma's' in various locations in the community. Each orphan is given oil, rice, maize, beans, salt, dried fish and soap.

One of the Grannie's used to live in a grass house similar to the one in the picture, but ASAM helped with the building of a brick house. The grass house is now the kitchen.

ASAM have various agricultural projects, one of which are a series of gardens that grow food for the orphan programe.

One lady we visited had lost a leg to a land mine a few years ago. She lives with her daughter who was born blind. ASAM had also helped with building a brick house and one morning we visited her and helped her grind some maize.

The next day we painted the inside of the house for them.

Many of the kids we met had Tinia Capitus which is a fungal infection which prevents hair from growing.

As usual we stayed at ASAM and one day we found a Green Mamba that had been killed.

Or so we thought. Turns out that it wasn't very dead, as I found out when he curled up after I pulled his tail.

We visited the area that has been cleared for an airstrip. 1.2 km long and 100m wide. Still a lot of work to do.

On the last evening we got a call to help a man that had had an epilectic fit, rolled over onto the fire and burned his legs - a week previous. He'd been to the local witch doctor who had put some black stuff on, but his legs didn't get any better. We had to walk quite a way into the bush to get to his village but Cathy and Lynne managed to help him by cleaning and dressing his wounds.

His condition was serious enough that he might even lose his legs, so we picked him up the day after and took him to a hospital 80km away.

It was a very packed few days and we managed to grab a bit of scenery and fly back past a particularly nice bit of Mozambique coast appropriatley called Paradise Island.

Next blog should be in a weeks time about my next trip to Western Zambia and Mozambique.

Paul and Cathy

Durban

This Wednesday we returned from two back to back trips. Both were for groups that had come out from a church in great Whyrley, England. To remain logical, we'll blog about the first trip first.

Some members of the church had been providing support for children in a hospital in Durban and wanted to visit for the day. Durban is nine hours drive from Nelspruit but only 1 hr 30 mins flight. As there was a seat free, Cathy was also able to come, which was handy as we could visit Matthew and Annie while the group went to the hospital.

The only smear on an otherwise perfect trip down was hitting an Ibis as we landed at Virginia airport. This momentarily closed the runway as the fire truck had to recover the two halves of the bird.

Mr. fire truck driver said it's heart was still beating when they recovered it but as you could imagine, this didn't last for very long. Being of more than average bulk it made a corresponding mess of the plane and narrowly missed dissapearing into the engine air intake.

Handy that this trip happened when it did cos the previous night Matthew had proposed to his girlfiend who, after the appropriate answer, then became his fiance.

The now in-laws to be, also met us and we had a meal at a beachfront resturante.

The flight back was uneventful and we just had time to get the plane ready for the next day.

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.