PCM News: Flying for Life - Dental Project

13 April 2018

Flying for Life - Dental Project

Mercy Air recently continued flying in support of Flying for Life with Paul taking a dental team up to a special needs centre in a very rural part of the Limpopo province in the north of South Africa.

Again, a very early start was required

Although the team was mainly dental Patrick, an artist, also volunteered his time to work with the children.

Getting to know Patrick on the flight up

The team on landing at Tshikondeni

The centre was reached after a two hour flight and a 45 min drive through the drizzle and low cloud on muddy dirt roads in an old taxi. It still saved a three day round trip by road from Johannesburg though!

Parents bring their special needs children to the centre daily, while they are at work. Funding is being sought to upgrade the centre, which is barely large enough for the children they look after.

The dentists work through "Smile of Joy', an organisation founded to work with the underprivileged and special needs children.

First the children had a check-up to see what work needed to be done.

Before the dentist saw them.

As the dentists were setting up, our resident artist Patrick started painting the outline sketch of the centre on the wall for the kids to 'colour in'.

Meanwhile, in the dentists chair....

Eish, makes you shiver! But lasting relief is not far away

The waiting kids getting some colour on the wall

All the equipment was taken up in suitcases, which were then just opened out on a couple of chairs to work from.

A picture of the team with the kids and the wall painting at the end, perhaps giving some idea of the cramped conditions there was to work in.

We flew back at night to a local airport and collected the Kodiak the following day. This did allow for a photo-opp with our 310 showing the matching paint scheme.

Thank you.

Paul and Cathy

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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.