PCM News: June 2003

15 June 2003

Arrival

We are finally here in White River! It seems to have been such a long time coming but now Lesotho seems a lifetime away and life is very busy.

We arrived here on the 2nd of June in a large removal truck with all our belongings after a 12 hour overnight trip from Lesotho. We then unloaded everything in two hours which was amazing as it took several weeks to pack up and two full days to load the truck!

700 kilometres (12 hours in a box van) is a long way in anybody’s book but Nelspruit is a world apart from Maseru. It’s a little lower than Maseru and gets a lot more weather being nearer the coast. This makes the area pleasantly green but not so pleasantly humid—it’s already got up to 36 degrees and it’s still only spring. Animal life is more varied. As well as the Big 5 and the herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically over the plains only half an hour away in Kruger, the area also boasts all manner of creepy crawlies that we won’t tell you about or you might not visit! Fortunately there is very little Malaria so we won’t have to take any medication except when we fly to Mozambique.

We live on a farm about 20 km’s outside Nelspruit that has it’s own 600m airstrip, hangars and maintenance facilities and we are one of six families directly involved with the work here.

Thanks for all your prayers!

Paul and Cathy

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.