PCM News: April 2012

22 April 2012

Interesting places to sleep

Last week Paul flew out with an education team to Chimoio and Marromeu in Mozambique on a trip which included a few interesting accommodation options.

In Marromeu, while the team traveled by road to the YWAM centre, he stayed at the new Mercy Air 'Shipping Container Base' (http://pcm-mercyair.blogspot.com/2012/04/accommodation-in-mozambique.html) and helped Mikael, a Swiss volunteer, with a few jobs. First they put a roof on the departures lounge..

and then installed some security lighting..

which gave quite a moody effect at night.

They, well Mikael, also installed a windsock..

The education team came down and spent two days flying into the Zambezi Delta..

On Thursday the team flew back to Chimoio where they were picked up and driven one hour north to ASAM, where we saw the progress made on the Mercy Air house.

While there was just enough room for the team to stay there, Paul got to stay in a tent..

Mind you, how many bush tents have a nice comfy double bed?

The next day he spent some time with Rick Cogbill whom he had flown up the previous week (http://pcm-mercyair.blogspot.com/2012/04/educational-medical.html). He saw the workshop he was building and watched him give a lecture to some of the Mozambican students.

The inspection pit

Lecture about suspension

Lastly, they visited the 1.2 km long airstrip as well as the hanger that was shipped from the US in a container and erected earlier this year.

After that all that was left to do was to fly back to SA just in time for the weekend and to prepare for next weeks flight to the north of Moz.

Paul and Cathy

10 April 2012

Educational, Medical, Mechanical

In some respects we felt a bit like a Swiss Army Knife during the last trip, doing a bit of everything in one small, neat and efficient package.

The initial call was to take Rick, a Canadian motor mechanic, up to Mozambique so that he could continue to develop an auto workshop training facility at a mission base that Mercy Air is connected with.

To help him fund this there were also people connected with Mercy Air/YWAM's education ministry who contributed and traveled up for meetings. We had also received a call a week earlier asking us to transport a missionary who had been involved in a car accident and who had head and spinal injuries.

For Paul this meant a lot of parallel planning and initially spending two days in Nelspruit helping the car mender man shop for all manner of tools - boy shopping in the extreme.

The result was not only a shed load of tools, but a huge tool box for them all to live in. Rick's penance was that he had to dismantle the tool box so it could fit in the plane.

The following day people and cargo were inserted into the plane like a 3D jigsaw and delivered to Chimoio in Mozambique. Paul then flew on another 1h45 up to Quelimane on the coast where some missionaries took him to the local hospital to meet Elias. Elias was part of a team that had been driving up to Nampula in the north of Moz three weeks earlier when he had had an bad accident resulting in injuries to his head and spine. After stabilizing he was now faced with a two day drive on dirt roads in the back of a minibus, or a 1h45 flight with Paul.

The next day they went to the hospital where they transferred Elias onto our stretcher and wheeled him outside...

where he was loaded into the back of a pick up truck...

and driven at 5kph, due to the heavily pot-holed roads, all the way to the airport.

After loading him on the plane they flew the 1h45 back to Chimoio...


Any passenger with his thumbs up is a good sign!

where he was met by friends and family.

Paul then picked up his original passengers and returned to South Africa via Beira where they landed after heavy rain, resulting in an interesting picture of the plane 'floating' on the apron.

Paul and Cathy

02 April 2012

Bling Bling 210

We used to have a Cessna 210 which for many years looked like this..

Then for a while last year we had a 210 that looked like this..

Now we have a nice bling Cessna 210 that looks like this..

This is a good thing.

Just like with any home decorating, things had to get quite messy before they start looking any better, and such is the case with our 210.

It spent eight months in the shop for a refurb that included new paint, interior, carpets, upholstery, and an avionics upgrade. It's first work outing is due for the middle of this month.

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.