2005 Summary

Firstly, thanks to all of you who have written and supported us over the last year, we really appreciate it even though communication from our side has been somewhat lacking, we do think of you often, honest!

An exceptionally busy African winter has now given way to a more normally paced summer. Office work, however, remains as busy as ever. We won’t repeat all the Mercy Air news letter stuff but we’ll try and fill you in on family news.

Matthew finally reached adulthood on the 25th of November. He turned 21 which makes us feel a little wrinkly but we’re very proud of the guy he’s turned out to be. In February he will begin his 3rd year at uni and will specialise in photo-journalism. Recently he had a hair cut to help raise money for cancer awareness, see below.


Cathy has had a varied few months working with Africa School of Missions (ASM). She has been on a number of flights with Paul since we last wrote, the highlight of which was a trip to Nampula in northern Mozambique for 10 days. The Mozambique Hub (see MA newsletter) held a networking conference there for missionaries so Cathy got to see some of the mums again whom she had cared for during their pregnancies. She was also involved with a first aid training course.

The ASM mobile clinic remains very challenging not only because of the large number of patients but also because many of those seen are affected/infected with HIV/AIDS. Cathy’s involved with preparing patients for testing as well as post test counselling. As all the staff at the clinic are Christians, and known to be from a Bible college, they can openly share their faith and the hope that there is in Jesus. If it wasn’t for this, the work at the clinic would be totally depressing!

Many of the flights that Paul has done are mentioned in the Mercy Air news letter. A milestone was reached on one flight when he passed his 1000 hour mark.
Generally he’s doing fine, and getting out and about on his mountain bike when time and energy allow.

All that remains is for us to wish you a very merry Christmas and happy New Year, and to thank you all once again for your letters, support and prayer.

Paul & Cathy

Moz, Lesotho, Zambia

I've been trying to find a spare half hour to write a quick update for ages and if I don't manage it now I can see it being at least another couple of weeks, otherwise you might all think we have fell off our side of the world.

What's been happening? Good question, and as it happens almost too much to write down in a few lines.

The flying has been hectic of late. Mercy Air has often had all it's planes out at the same time and we haven't had a staff meeting with all present for ages. I myself have visited 14 international airports in four countries in the last few weeks. Some of the highlights include:

Last week I did a flight for Dorcas Aid. They are a Dutch Christian Aid organisation who have many projects around the world. We spent a week flying a group of business people, who were either sponsors or potential sponsors and visited various projects in Mozambique, SA and Lesotho. We went to many places and saw much poverty but also the hope that is provided by an organisation who base their ethos on biblical principals. To be honest what I saw revived my faith in Aid Organisations and I was pleased to be a small part of bringing more hope to people who seemingly had none.

It felt strange going back to Lesotho but I managed to see some old frinnds for the one night I was there.

Yesterday we were about to leave for church when we got a call from a missionary in Mozambique saying that their local pastor had been taken seriously ill with a burst appendix. He was at least 12 hours drive from a hospital where they could operate and it was critical that he got there the same day. Using one of our fast twin engine planes Cathy and I were able to reach him in less that two hours and transport him to Maputo an hour and a half later. He would almost certainly of died had we not been able to provide a prompt response, although his condition is still serious and we would ask you to pray for him.

On another occasion I was fortunate enough to get a flight down the coast all the way to Cape Town with a small team.

Last week I took a mission team up to Northern Zambia and helped with the construction of an orphanage. A bonus here was flying over Victoria Falls on the way up and again on the way down.


Right now I am stuck at home. Today I was supposed to fly a team up to eastern Zimbabwe but the weather played it's joker and fogged us in the whole day. As I type, we are swapping stories with the passengers in our lounge who are now staying the night and planning a death 'o' clock start tomorrow morning.

For most of the last month we have had all four Mercy Air planes out in Moz at the same time. Our 'big' plane spent two weeks with a group from Medical Ministry International doing eye and dental work in a Muslim village in the very north of Moz. During their time they saw over 900 patients. At the same time out smallest aircraft was shuttling missionaries in and out of a town in mid Moz and also flew a mission trip to Zimbabwe.

We had a camera crew with us recently doing a small article for national TV, they were so impressed that they suggested a full on documentary sometime in the future.

We have also been very busy with guests and have had an almost constant stream of people visiting 'Chez Middleton' for periods ranging from just a night to a month. We even had to carefully book Matthew in when he came home from Uni. At the mo we have Rob and Issy Ford with us and if things work out right we plan to get away next week and tour Swaziland and N Natal together. This will be our first proper holiday since we arrived at Mercy Air over two years ago. Two weeks after they leave we will host another friend for three months who is visiting to help out with various projects on the farm

Matthew's back down in Grahamstown after a 17 hour drive and is not due back for another month.

Thanks for reading this. Hopefully chat again soon.

pcm

Moz Hub Conference

We just got back late last night at the end of ten days in N. Moz.

Cathy and I took a plane load of people up to N. Moz for a missions conference. Just getting there involved 1400 miles and over seven hours of flying. Cathy was part of a medical team we provided to help the missionaries up there.

The conference went very well with up to 60 missionaries attending at times. We saw some old friends and met plenty of new people who we might be able to work with in the future. It took us 7 1/2 hours by plane and can take up to five days for the missionaries to drive. Because of this, the Hub arranged for us to take a number of specialists up with us including a Dentist, Vet, Agricultural bloke, Doctor, Nurses (including Cathy), Hairdresser/beautician (for the ladies!), and a home Schooling advisor. The week also included a Language Accusition Course to help new missionaries learn the various languages of the numerous 'un-reached people groups'.

Cathy taking someone's blood pressure.

The dentist doing a check up on a mission kid.


One of these landed on my head the same night as I was walking through the compound where we stayed.


Not all fun and games. A Puff AdderI trod on one night. He was alive at the time but the application of a big stick soon sorted that out.

Thanks.

P n' C

In brief

Sorry, I think we've slipped a bit by not being in touch for a while.

Again its cos we've been up to our necks in all sorts of ... stuff (office work, planning for flights, installing a wood burning stove, house maintenance etc) and the flight bookings board has just sprouted a plethora of entries so we figured we'd best write now before we're completely immersed. We are just about to post our next newsletter out so we won't duplicate many of the juicy bits here, but this should give you a rough idea of what's up down here.

Cathy has been particularly involved in a number of home births. Some of these have been for friends of ours at the church we attend – that is, the friends go to our church but the deliveries were at their homes – you knew that! The one was quite a drawn out affair as Cathy left our house at 04:00 in the morning and returned at 03:30 the following day.

Paul has been out flying a few times with his latest trip being a one day outing taking some British visitors to a Christian couple’s citrus farm on the Zimbabwe border. Looming large on the horizon are a number of possible mission flights to Moz. Two of them involve medical teams (dentistry, dispensing glasses and primary health care etc), another is a work team for another flying mission and there is one flight to a week long missions conference that both of us will go on. There are also a number of flights where we will just pick up members of teams from Moz at the end of their mission and bring them back to SA.

Matthew is coping well at uni. He is finding second year a step up from his initial uni experience as evidenced by the reduction in communication from him.

Lastly, to prove that a little fun is still possible, we went to visit friends in Swaziland this last week end and took part in a mountain bike race - held in a game park. I must say I felt a little like those bowls of sushi you see on conveyor belts as we cycled through the grass lands. We saw quite a few things during the race but fortunately none of them had big teeth and felt hungry.


Paul & Cathy