PCM News: More

15 November 2003

As we expected the last four months have been very chaotic – talk about being thrown into the deep end.

Moving house and changing careers has ment as much time at home as away.

The first trip was only five days after we had arrived and involved flying a team from Times Square Church in New York to a remote location for a week. We helped them clear an area and dig the foundations for a clinic that a local church were building through an organisation called Doctors for Life.

The second trip was only a one day affair but involved six and a half hours of flying to collect some people who had been working in Moz and take them to Durban to meet up with the rest of their mission team.

The third trip was a nine day one where we again stayed with an American group who were partnering with a church in Pretoria to build a bible school in central Mozambique.
A fairly rough time as we had to camp in the bush with minimal facilities and although the weather was unusually cool the mosquitos were still quite a problem. The trip was split up though by having to fly up to northern Moz for a couple of days to transport some Dutch Lutheran Church guys who were doing research into church planting possibilities.

He has now just got back from an 11 day trip taking Dutch Reformed Church members on their annual tour of many mission stations in northern Moz. This last trip amounted to about 4000 miles of flying, enough to get you from London to Moscow and back or from Central America to the north of Canada.

Despite all this time apart we have managed to settle in very well and are now comfortably installed at Mercy Air. We have already had a number of visitors and are expecting a steady stream as the area around us is handy for all sorts of tourist type stuff.

One big hurdle was us getting three year extensions to our visitor’s visas which allows us to – and I quote, ‘remain on holiday whilst volunteering for Mercy Air’. Let us assure you the reference to holiday is purely ….. well, not quite fictitious but certainly not reflective of what’s happening.

Matthew found out that he passed his High school exams and is apparently keen to do journalism and music at a SA university which would start next February.

Cathy would like to get on the SA nursing register to allow her to help out in numerous medical roles. As is a lot of things round here, this looks set to be quite a paper chase. She went out with some nurses to see some home based care for people living with HIV/AIDS with a view to possibly getting involved. There seems to be many needs so pray for direction and opportunities and knowing what to do.

pcm

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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.