News and updates from Paul and Cathy Middleton, serving in southern Africa.

16 November 2010

Fixing a hole where the rain get's in...

Actually technically not true. We made a hole not so much to stop the rain, as to prevent stopping the light.

We've had some Swiss boys at Mercy Air recently (see previous posts). They worked for six months at an orphanage in Zim and then came to us to help extend and put doors on a hangar.

In their last week with us they offered to do a few odd jobs for others and we were second fastest to put our hands up.

Anyone who's visited us knows that our house is like a cave with a porch all around the front and big trees above. We have to have the lights on on the sunniest of days. The answer to this was to let the Swiss loose with a saw and angle grinder and hope they could repair the damage before it rained again.

The carnage begins. Urs 'The Bear' Rooney wields the axe...
The hole is made...
..and almost immediately repaired with a less photon restrictive substance.
Now we need sunglasses to watch the telly.
Reward was given by way of home cooked sustinance, which you could actually see on the table.
Now our minds can wander to where they will go.
Next we'll turn our attention to the the cracks that run through the door...

Paul and Cathy

School visit

This is something that happened a few months back, but I've only just re-discovered the photos.

Each year for the last few years we have had a sort of open day - well open morning really, for a local school. This year about 60 kids descended on us and we took it in turns to explain a little about our ministry and let them get a close look at the planes.

The heli was quite a hit.
Me trying to explain something.
'Don't press the red button.'

Thanks

Paul and Cathy

03 November 2010

Woken up by Whales (but not whilst driving up the M5 past Hereford)

Not too long after the previous two trips we once again set sail for Mozambique, but this time for a place we had never been to before - Nacala, which is actually half way back to the Equator from where we are in White River.
We had planned a 10 day trip to visit two different missions, but the one in Marromeu had problems with getting the doors made that they wanted us to fit. We did however, visit them on the way up to look at the progress on their centre and get a better idea of their need for when we hopefully visit in early December.

From there we continued up past some impressive scenery...
..to Nacala where a German couple, Martin and Simone, live. We unloaded the contents of the plane into his pick-up truck...
and collected a few other things, including the proverbial kitchen sink...
..before driving a further two hours north to Memba. To help Martin and Simone better serve the community and share the Gospel, they are building a small house and training centre in Memba and will move in as soon as the roof and electrics are completed. To assist these missionaries and support this project Mercy Air offered its services and took a load of electrical equipment up including 140 metres of very heavy (125Kg) armoured cable as well as Derek, an electrician, who had volunteered his services. Our main job was to lay the cable, install the lights and plugs and wire them all up.

Memba itself is a pretty isolated and run down coastal town which was heavily attacked during the war (which finished 17 years ago) but never seemed to fully recover.
On their land they are building a small house first in which they will live before completing the centre early next year.
Despite being right on the beach it was hot - very hot. This was most evident when it came to digging the 1/2 metre deep trench to the nearest power pole.
We had to dig it up a street of old Government houses, many of which were still occupied.
Eventually it was complete and we laid the cable.
Derek then showed the local electric company how to terminate it on the breaker box.
Holger made some clamps and fixed the cable to the pole.
Unfortunately a moment of 'operator error' saw him lose his footing and fall 5m down the pole, breaking his foot in the process. After a spot of medical attention, he completed the rest of the trip on one leg and a permanent grimace.
Derek was a real trooper though and offered his services whenever needed.
Despite the heat we finished in good time and even returned to Nacala a day early. We spent two nights there and slept in the 'beach house', above. The one night I was woken up by a strange noise that I later recognised as a whale 'blowing' a few hundred meters off shore. Earlier in the week we had seen them doing that jumpy thing they do and even managed to get a photo.
I kept humming Nantucket Sleighride by Mountain whilst taking these pictures. I'll be impressed if there are many people who know the link.

On the way back we stayed a night in Chimoio where we picked up Ron and Bernie, the guys I had taken up two weeks earlier and who had been working on the Mercy Air house there. A few phone calls though had determined that there was no Avgas to fuel the plane at any of the airports on the planned route home, and only two airports in the whole of the country had any fuel left. Fortunately the recent upgrades to the aircraft meant that it had a healthy endurance and we were able to divert to Maputo to fuel up and clear customs.

Our grateful thanks go out to all those who support us and Mercy Air with faithful prayers and financial giving to make such flights of support and encouragement possible.

Paul and Cathy