PCM News: Preparing for the worst

21 January 2020

Preparing for the worst - Hoping for the best

After helping extensively with cyclone Idai in Mozambique last year, Mercy Air has reviewed its involvement and put an enhanced disaster management plan in place, to be even better prepared should anything similar happen in the future.

Quite a lot to choose from

One of the issues we faced was the supply of aviation fuel. Things worked out well for us last year, but it could have been very different and we identified that making our own plans could be very pertinent.

Checking each one for condition

To that end, we recently sourced and collected 28 fuel drums from the anti rhino poaching air wing in the Kruger National Park.

We had to drive through the park to get to where the drums were - seriously!

We have since taken them to Maputo for filling and shipped them up to a mission base in central Mozambique.

It was a very hot day!

It is a place we visit often so if, hopefully, there is no emergency to deal with, the fuel certainly won't go to waste.

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.