PCM News: Durban

06 August 2010

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

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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.