PCM News: Accommodation in Mozambique

25 March 2012

Accommodation in Mozambique

In a recent post I was working on a container that the helicopter uses for fuel storage in Mozambique.

Obviously the places Mercy Air go are often are pretty far away from the flight base in South Africa and it's not possible to return every day. Therefore a trips can sometimes last up to 14 days. Now four containers have been positioned in Marromeu for the crews and mission teams.

For the past five years, Mercy Air has operated in the small town of Marromeu in Mozambique, on a regular basis. From there the Zambezi Delta stretches out over 10,000 m² to the Indian Ocean in the east. The area is very remote and doesn't have any infrastructure. That’s the reason the people who live there are dependent on support from the air.

With temperatures soaring to over 40 deg during the day and barely dipping below 25 deg at night, it is necessary to have comfortable accommodation for the crew. As there is no hotel or guest house in the whole area the Mercy Air staff were able to stay with a YWAM couple in their own house. But the couple have now moved away. We didn't want to give up our flight programe in the area and therefore we decided to position three living quarter containers along with another storage container in Marromeu.

Mercy Air has obtained and re-fitted these containers in South Africa.

One is for accommodation

one a kitchen...

and the other has laundry and ablution facilities.

Last week two flat bed trucks arrived at the farm

together with a huge crane whose use was kindly donated by Lowveld Mobile Crane Hire.

It took the best part of a morning to load the containers

before they started their long journey across the border and up to Marromeu.

Paul and Cathy

1 comment:

Mobile accommodation said...: Wow, great article, I really appreciate your thought process and having it explained properly, thank you! I really like this post.; 17 July, 2013

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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.