Happy New Year

Hello from a reconnected South Africa.

Actually it's a reconnected USA as our mercyair.org web server in the US has been down since before Christmas till last night. This meant that we couldn't send any mail out and any mail sent to us was probably returned, so please send again if you got any of yours back.

This then will have to serve as a brief pcm New Year Update.

Well, what a year! As busy as ever - here are a few of the highlights:

Paul flew the equivalent of 1.3 times round the world.
Cathy delivered 10 babies.
Matthew finished university and got his degree - a BA in Journalism and Philosophy.

We also went to the UK for two months and snook a visit in to Switzerland whilst we were there.
It was really good catching up with so many of you and being able to share what we're doing out here. We are also really grateful to those of you who pray for, and support us (either/or of course).

Matthew's spent the last three weeks back home with us but as I type he's sitting in Jo'burg International Airport with his girlfriend waiting to catch a flight to the UK. He'll be there for only two and a half weeks so a sighting of him might be rarer than Santa. He's hoping to return to SA and work as a freelance photographer in Durban.

We're looking forward to 2008 but it does help being able to start it wearing shorts and t shirt!


Regards

Paul, Cathy, Matthew

Fire!

As seems traditional, the break in communication is due to having little time to think, let alone write.

Paul was out just about every day last week. He was mainly flying for another mission organisation doing relatively local flights.
For the digit heads (like Paul) that all equated to about 3500 miles and 400 gallons of fuel.
It was a hard week not only for the long hours, but also that most of them were spent battling huge amounts of smoke. Our area and the north of Swaziland have had the worst forest fires in 60 odd years and huge amounts of land were simultaneously ablaze.


Hundreds of thousands of hectares have been mentioned which is probably half the size of Wales, but the consequence for us has been visibility down to a few hundred feet in places. Some routes that we would usually fly at 3500ft could only be run at 12000ft. The smoke covered the eastern side of South Africa from top to bottom and drifted over Mozambique to the coast.


Out of the smoke it was great, but the airstrips are in the valleys and finding them was a bit of a mission at times, especially when the sun was low.
The week ended with a long overnight haul up to Moz with a group that are developing a work in a remote area between Beira and Zimbabwe.

Cathy has had three deliveries since we last wrote, one of which turned out to be an emergency C section. She has continued her work with Africa School of Missions mainly with teaching and assessing the students in the local Government hospital, which is operating 'normally' since the strike finished.

We had a good time with Matthew at the Arts Festival although his girlfriend's Dad has been very ill recently. He's finishing up his fourth year at Uni and will be spending a few days in Cape Town with the photo journ department while we are in the UK.

Talking of which... Just to remind everyone that we are coming back to the UK for two months from 23rd August - so just over two weeks. We are hectically behind schedule in getting all our ducks lined up with regard to when we'll get round to visiting everyone. Some have written expressing a preference and we'll be getting round to arranging something as soon as... we can!
Someone has kindly lent us a car and a projector for Power Points etc. We still need to borrow a laptop though. It's actually about time we bought one of our own, so if anyone knows where we can get a good deal, then perhaps we could get it in the first few weeks of being home.

See you soon!

P n' C

Prison baptisms

Another quick update as we have been busy again.

Paul spent a week in Moz two weeks ago with a pastoral group from the US. They were there to help a mission team run three days of training and teaching sessions for local pastors, some of whom had travelled for over a day on a rickety bicycle to attend.

The missionaries there have also been working for a long time with the inmates of the town prison where 130 men share a 5m x 5m room. They are often in there 24 hours a day and only get one cup of corn meal and a cup of water per day. The inmates are imprisoned for anything from murder to stealing bread, and some can be detained for up to two years before their trial is even heard. Daily, the missionaries have given them medical and spiritual input but the highlight of this trip was when 20 men were baptised.


Last Saturday Paul flew a joint trip with Mission Aviation Fellowship and took another US team to the costal town on Inhambane. It was a long day (8 hrs flying and over 1000 miles) as we just dropped them off and Paul ended up flying back to SA at night. A year ago Cathy and Paul had taken a small exploratory team to various places in Moz as they were searching for somewhere to start an outreach (see 19th Mar 2006, 'Where to plant a church'). It was good therefore to be the first to fly a large team in to the location they had chosen.

Today (Tuesday) Paul was out again assisting Zumat with a couple of flights. He took some people down to Natal and then picked up some pastors and flew them to a mission station just north of Durban. Not in itself too spectacular, but the one hour flight would of taken them the best part of a day to complete by road. This was yet another day that ended well past sunset.


Cathy continues to teach every day at Africa School of Missions and also delivered a baby of a local lady recently. She has two more deliveries planned within the next three weeks.
She is applying for a work permit as her voluntary visa will expire at the end of June. This is a complicated process so please pray for success otherwise Paul will have to learn to cook real quick!

Matthew starts his mid year exams this week. Please pray that he'll do well in those.

Don't forget that we'll be in the UK from the end of Aug till the end-ish of Oct. Book us whilst there's still time!!!

Cheers

Paul and Cathy

Bits and bobs

Just a quick update to let you know how things are down under-ish.

We have been very busy at Mercy Air lately.

Paul has been doing some flying for Zululand Mission Air Transport (ZUMAT) again in their 207. Most of these flights have been one day affairs so for him it’s actually nice to get out of the office and go flying, but still spend the night at home.


This Thursday he’s off to Moz for a week with a group of pastors who will be running teaching sessions for local pastors. Then he’ll have two days at home before collecting another group in Johannesburg and taking them to the Mozambican coastal town of Inhambane for their outreach.

We’ve changed the big radial engines on the Beech so that's thundering round the sky again.


The Cessna 310 is in a million bits (engines, wings, undercarriage off and ready for inspection), and the 210 is as busy as an agitated mosquito. The heli has done a couple of outreaches in Moz and will be off there again on the 23rd of this month.

He’s practically finished the next Mercy Air newsletter which is a weight off his mind but there are still loads of officy things to do.

Cathy delivered another baby a week ago and is fitting the post natal care in with a busy teaching schedule at Africa School of Missions.

Matthew is gearing up for his final half year at Uni. After that teaching English as a foreign language in Thailand for a year looks favourite. We will go and see him at the Grahamstown festival again this year as his bedroom floor amounts to free accommodation for us!

Other than that, we are busy with a few mountain bike races and trying to find enough time to get our heads round coming home.

We will return to the UK on 23rd Aug for two months. If you’d like to see us – or have us come and see you, then please let us know.

Thanks

P n' C

A flood, a storm, a small helicopter and a very large Russian cargo plane

Gooten TargFirstly, thank you to all those who have written in response to the last few updates we have sent. We will try and write back personally when we have time.

Paul just got back this afternoon from another trip in Mozambique.

There are two centres of relief operation in Moz at the mo as the country is reeling from two natural disasters, the flooding along the Zambezi and Cyclone Favio which hit last week in the south.

He flew the helicopter crew back to Beira where they'd left it during the storms, and then helped reassemble it.

All the main aid organisations are involved, Oxfam, Red Cross, WFP etc, and while the heli was busy doing sling load food drops, Paul was shuttling incoming international workers between the main centres. The centre for the flooding is at Caia and the one for the cyclone is at Vilanculos. Both are only about 130 miles from Beira (in opposite directions), but each is also at least a days drive away. In the aircraft this is reduced to one hour, which obviously saves huge amounts of time, and means that the logistics of getting aid to the people who need it can be accomplished far quicker. It was also encouraging to see the number of Christian Relief organisations involved such as Food for the Hungry, Humedica and Operation Blessing whom we were partnering with.

There was a huge Russian cargo plane that bought in a Norwegian Red Cross mobile hospital and doctors for Vilanculos. He flew the advance team down whilst the shipment was being trucked down.

The Ilyushin 76 with one of the many trucks than transported the 25 tons of hospital to Vilanculos.

There were 6000 building in Vilanculos that lost their roofs including the hospital and the prison!

Thanks

Paul n' Cathy

Relief updates

Again, we just want to keep you in the loop of what's happening in our large-ish corner of the world.

Below are two articles, the first sent out by Matthias, our heli pilot and the second by Operation Blessing, the main organisation we flew for last week.

Paul is flying back up to Caia, Moz tomorrow with Matthias and will stay for as long as necessary, to fly in support of the helicopter as well as other organisations who are involved in the relief effort.

It will be interesting to see how things have changed since the cyclone hit last Friday.

Thanks

Paul n' Cathy

"When we lifted off the Mercy Air Base in White River, SA, with the Helicopter two weeks ago, we had no idea how drastic our plans were going to change. What was supposed to be a “regular” dental out-reach with a Dentist couple from Switzerland, together with the Community Church of Mozambique and local health workers, turned into a full blown disaster relief operation.

Half way though the programme we got reports from Paul, another Mercy Air pilot who had done some survey flights over central Mozambique. We stopped the work in the far south, loaded up and headed north to the uncertain situation of the flood stricken Zambezi river basin. What we found was a disaster, with aid only just starting.

We may be away from home again for an extended period of time, BUT its a small price to pay for assisting people who don’t even have a home any more, and have lost loved ones in the floods.

The days are filled with flying Humedica’s medical teams directly to those in need as well as air lifting food, water purification and shelters into the affected areas of thousands of people in need.Flight operations were suspended as Cyclone Favio moved onshore last Friday, destroying houses and infrastructure. Several people lost their lives and many were injured. Another large Cyclone is already forming over the Indian Ocean.

Thank you very much for being part of our crew through support and prayers in this extremely busy time. Blessings, Matthias."

Mozambique dispatch: A white flag as waters rise. Report by David Darg.

David Darg is an aid worker with U.S. humanitarian organisation Operation Blessing International, which is working with charity partners Humedica and Mercy Air to reach communities stranded by rising waters in the Zambezi flood basin in Mozambique. So far we have located and served three communities, each one containing over 1,000 Mozambicans seeking refuge from the floods. As the water approached, the people ran to higher ground and became trapped on all sides. Consequently they have no food, adequate shelter or access to clean water.

Since identifying them we have been ferrying a constant supply of food and relief items to these communities by helicopter. With their homes destroyed, the people are living in grass huts, which are great for keeping the sun out but not the rain. Yesterday and today we have been dropping plastic sheeting as fast as we can in anticipation of Cyclone Favio. It's frightening to think that the people we are now serving could be wiped out if the cyclone brings too much rain.

We are flying Mercy Air’s Eurocopter and a Bell Jet-Ranger is on the way so as soon as the storm passes we can get right in to the hardest hit areas with two choppers. The International Red Cross and World Food Programme are supplying us with all the relief goods we can shift as we are one of only three helicopters on the ground. These "islands" can only be accessed by small choppers like ours and presently evacuation isn't an option for the people. On almost every flight we take we are discovering new pockets of people trapped by the floods. As we fly over mile after mile of swollen rivers and swamps where crops were growing just weeks ago it is chilling to think of how many more people are stranded in this vast area. Many of the inhabitants of the flood region made it to safety and are being cared for in camps by NGOs. But for thousands more this crisis is getting worse. We are targeting these emergency cases at maximum capacity and there is no doubt that we are saving many lives. Our prayer is that the lives we are saving today are not destroyed over the coming days by more rain.

We discovered the community Canga by accident during an assessment flight on Sunday. We had been searching for homes underwater and trapped individuals and never expected to find 1,200 people surrounded and desperate. Our pilot spotted a white flag flying from a tall wooden pole. We hovered to take a closer look and saw a red cross on the flag. The people were pointing frantically as if to say they needed medical attention.

When we returned in the afternoon we were told that because of lack of food three children had died the previous day. We immediately returned to deliver food provided by the World Food Programme and yesterday dropped a team of three doctors to tend to the urgent health needs of the community.

Landing on the first food drop was an amazing experience. The people were singing and cheering, knowing that someone had finally come to rescue them. Yesterday we took the head of the International Red Cross emergency response team, Alexandre Claudon de Vernisy, on an assessment to Canga. Alexander was amazed to learn that a local Red Cross representative was amongst those stranded on the "island" and it was he who had erected the flag. The representative told us: "I knew that if I put up a flag you would come to save us". It's an amazing story and we hope it will have a happy ending although we are prepared for the worst."

David

Missions and more flooding

Sorry to trouble you all again, but Paul just got back today from another flight.

Similar to last week, this also turned into a dual purpose trip.

Paul took some guys from a church in Cape Town to visit missionaries in Marromeu, Moz. Two of the guys were actually thinking of moving up there to join the team. It's fairly rough where they live - no electric, and water comes from a well. Baths come from standing in a large tin bucket and chucking water over yourself with a cup. They have limited solar power and candles, but when the sun goes down it still gets very very dark. What you probably can't imagine is how rediculously hot and humid it is there - you never really get dry after a shower. And then there's the insects....

The team there work with the communities along the Zambezi and especially down into the delta region where it flows into the Indian Ocean. They have recently obtained a boat for these purposes but we used it the one day to scope out the extent of the flooding on the river. As we travelled we heard of people who needed help. At one village we found a mentally challenged boy who had been accused of stealing - he didn't know it was wrong just to take food when he got hungry and was a good target. This time though, village justice took it's course and he had his big toe cut off with a machete - a month ago. He was very reluctant to get on the boat and had to be carried by the villagers. We ferried him back to Marromeu and took him to the local 'hospital'. After fetching the A and E guys ourselves he did get the stump cleaned and bandaged. He has no family so we took him back to where we were staying and put him up for a few nights. He will go to hospital again this coming week and then likely back to his village.


Relief organisations are mobilising for flood relief and Paul did another survey flight for Food for the Hungry International (FHI). It was interesting to compare water levels with what he saw last week. The river is certainly higher but not at the levels that the popular press would have you believe. Still, the situation is cause for concern and Mercy Air's helicopter flew up to the area today to be of help if needed.


Paul has flown over 30 hours in the last eight days, and we will definitely be trying to have a couple of days off this coming week.

Thank you for your prayers.

P n' C

Medical mission and flooding

Just a quick update on this last weekends's trip.

We flew the medical outreach team to Inhambane where Cathy travelled four hours inland with them to a place called Panda.

They ran clinics practically all day, every day as there was an almost endless queue of people from the surrounding area.


Meanwhile, Paul flew two hours north to Moz's second city Beira from where he flew a Zambezi flood survey flight the following day. He carried people representing the Christian organisations Food for the Hungry and Humedica. There were also people from Red Cross, World Food Programme and the Mozambican Organisation for National Calamities.


So:
Is there flooding - yes.
Did we see huts surrounded by water - yes.
Under water - yes.
Have people been displaced - yes.
Did we see people stranded on the roofs of their huts or clinging to trees - no.
Were there any villages floating downstream - no.

The situation is of concern but not yet a fully fledged disaster. However, the volatile nature of the situation (rains and dam release upstream) does mean that all that could change in less than a week. Aid organisations are busy mobilising themselves at strategic locations along the river in order to be able to help if the need arises.

Paul is off again tomorrow taking pastors from Cape Town up to visit their missionaries (who actually live on the banks of the Zambezi). Whilst there, he has been asked to fly in some personnel and equipment for one such relief organisation. He will also do another survey flight further upstream from the one he did last weekend.

Cathy will not be on these trips as she will be busy with lectures and clinics at Africa School of Missions.

So, a very busy time for us ahead.
Please pray for safety, good weather, and protection for Cathy at home.
We'll let you know more in a weeks time.

P n' C

Floods and maintenance

Christmas and New Year has come and gone (hopefully you all got our Christmas Newsletter), and we are now back into the usual cut and thrust of daily life.

The rush seems to have started early this year with Paul being on three back to back flights from this w/e.

The first is with a US doctor team who are doing a four day medical outreach through the Nazarene Church in SE Moz. The good news (for Paul at least) is that Cathy is also going on this trip.

The day after we get back Paul is off on another five day trip to take some pastors from a Baptist church in Cape Town to visit their missionaries in central Moz.

This morning we got a call from a Development/Aid/Relief agency in Moz who are trying to co-ordinate efforts to deal with what appears to be yet another potential disaster. They want us to do a survey flight along the Zambezi from the Indian Ocean to the Zambian border. Water levels on the Zambezi are already way above the alert levels and quote - "this year's crisis could be worse than in 2000 and 2001, when heavy flooding swept through the country's central and southern regions."

Until the Mozambique Government officially announce that help is needed, little work can be done. In the mean time contingency plans need to be made, which for now at least, is where we come in.

Paul will likely leave the medical outreach to do this flight this coming Sunday.

Recently Paul was flying in the area and took this picture.

Each of these trips are likely to be relatively rough. On the first we will need to camp and the missionaries for the second one purposely live on the rough side of town where there is no electric or running water. February is also pretty much the hottest time of year. We're expecting there to be what the weather bureau describes as 'high discomfort indicies' which usually amounts to 35-40 deg with heaps of humidity.

The rush has not come at the best time for us really. We have been using the traditional Christmas lull to carry out maintenance on a number of our aircraft. The Beech 18 requires two engines to be changed and will not be back in the air til mid March and the 310 needs a whole heap of work doing and will be out of action for at least another four months.

This is hurting us quite bad as there is a great need which we are finding it hard to meet at the mo. The solution for us is newer turbine powered aircraft, obtaining one is very much in God's court right now though as they also come with a meaty price tag.
Not quite a jack of all trades, Paul has however been helping with the maintenance recently in order to get our 210 back in the air in time.

Cathy continues to teach at ASM and last week delivered yet another baby belonging to a missionary couple serving in northern Moz.

Matthew has now retired to the safety of his fourth and last year at Uni in Grahamstown. It was good to have him back over Christmas.

We'll write again when we get back.

P n' C