PCM News: Samaritan's Purse

19 July 2012

Samaritan's Purse

Last week Paul and Andrew, one of Mercy Air's other pilots, did a flight for Samaritan's Purse to Inhambane, Mozambique.

Samaritan's Purse are a large Christian relief and aid organisation who arrange and promote community self help projects around the world. Our trip was to fly donors and staff to visit a number of their programs in the south east of Mozambique.

There were seven passengers so we took both planes.

After the recent refit and upgrade it seems the 210 had a small electrical issue which meant the battery almost discharged by the time we got to Inhambane. So, whilst the group were off doing their first visits, Andrew and I returned to the airport to sort it out.

Turns out a circuit breaker had been wrongly labeled and was left unset when it should have been charging the battery. We needed a Ground Power Unit (GPU) to get the plane going again. Just at that moment a man in a big plane arrived. He worked for the same company Andrew normally works for and was flying the same plane that Andrew flies.

He said we could borrow his company's GPU, which is really a big heavy box on wheels with lots of lead acid batteries in it. We got the plane going with this and charged the battery properly. It took 20 mins and used 3 gallons of fuel.

The next day we accompanied the group on their visits. We drove almost 400km and were often greeted by singing and dancing.

At each place the group left a food package as a thank you gift.

Some of the projects include cattle and some form of trailer so the recipients can work the fields and transport the produce to market. At one place they wanted to officially hand over the cow but she had other ideas and ran to the end of her tether almost taking a few of the villagers with her.

We felt it was safer to just present the trailer instead.

And then complete the paperwork with the cow looking on.

Inhambane is a pleasant and typically tranquil African coastal town and we did get a bit of a rest while we were there.

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.