Moz, Lesotho, Zambia

I've been trying to find a spare half hour to write a quick update for ages and if I don't manage it now I can see it being at least another couple of weeks, otherwise you might all think we have fell off our side of the world.

What's been happening? Good question, and as it happens almost too much to write down in a few lines.

The flying has been hectic of late. Mercy Air has often had all it's planes out at the same time and we haven't had a staff meeting with all present for ages. I myself have visited 14 international airports in four countries in the last few weeks. Some of the highlights include:

Last week I did a flight for Dorcas Aid. They are a Dutch Christian Aid organisation who have many projects around the world. We spent a week flying a group of business people, who were either sponsors or potential sponsors and visited various projects in Mozambique, SA and Lesotho. We went to many places and saw much poverty but also the hope that is provided by an organisation who base their ethos on biblical principals. To be honest what I saw revived my faith in Aid Organisations and I was pleased to be a small part of bringing more hope to people who seemingly had none.

It felt strange going back to Lesotho but I managed to see some old frinnds for the one night I was there.

Yesterday we were about to leave for church when we got a call from a missionary in Mozambique saying that their local pastor had been taken seriously ill with a burst appendix. He was at least 12 hours drive from a hospital where they could operate and it was critical that he got there the same day. Using one of our fast twin engine planes Cathy and I were able to reach him in less that two hours and transport him to Maputo an hour and a half later. He would almost certainly of died had we not been able to provide a prompt response, although his condition is still serious and we would ask you to pray for him.

On another occasion I was fortunate enough to get a flight down the coast all the way to Cape Town with a small team.

Last week I took a mission team up to Northern Zambia and helped with the construction of an orphanage. A bonus here was flying over Victoria Falls on the way up and again on the way down.


Right now I am stuck at home. Today I was supposed to fly a team up to eastern Zimbabwe but the weather played it's joker and fogged us in the whole day. As I type, we are swapping stories with the passengers in our lounge who are now staying the night and planning a death 'o' clock start tomorrow morning.

For most of the last month we have had all four Mercy Air planes out in Moz at the same time. Our 'big' plane spent two weeks with a group from Medical Ministry International doing eye and dental work in a Muslim village in the very north of Moz. During their time they saw over 900 patients. At the same time out smallest aircraft was shuttling missionaries in and out of a town in mid Moz and also flew a mission trip to Zimbabwe.

We had a camera crew with us recently doing a small article for national TV, they were so impressed that they suggested a full on documentary sometime in the future.

We have also been very busy with guests and have had an almost constant stream of people visiting 'Chez Middleton' for periods ranging from just a night to a month. We even had to carefully book Matthew in when he came home from Uni. At the mo we have Rob and Issy Ford with us and if things work out right we plan to get away next week and tour Swaziland and N Natal together. This will be our first proper holiday since we arrived at Mercy Air over two years ago. Two weeks after they leave we will host another friend for three months who is visiting to help out with various projects on the farm

Matthew's back down in Grahamstown after a 17 hour drive and is not due back for another month.

Thanks for reading this. Hopefully chat again soon.

pcm

Moz Hub Conference

We just got back late last night at the end of ten days in N. Moz.

Cathy and I took a plane load of people up to N. Moz for a missions conference. Just getting there involved 1400 miles and over seven hours of flying. Cathy was part of a medical team we provided to help the missionaries up there.

The conference went very well with up to 60 missionaries attending at times. We saw some old friends and met plenty of new people who we might be able to work with in the future. It took us 7 1/2 hours by plane and can take up to five days for the missionaries to drive. Because of this, the Hub arranged for us to take a number of specialists up with us including a Dentist, Vet, Agricultural bloke, Doctor, Nurses (including Cathy), Hairdresser/beautician (for the ladies!), and a home Schooling advisor. The week also included a Language Accusition Course to help new missionaries learn the various languages of the numerous 'un-reached people groups'.

Cathy taking someone's blood pressure.

The dentist doing a check up on a mission kid.


One of these landed on my head the same night as I was walking through the compound where we stayed.


Not all fun and games. A Puff AdderI trod on one night. He was alive at the time but the application of a big stick soon sorted that out.

Thanks.

P n' C

In brief

Sorry, I think we've slipped a bit by not being in touch for a while.

Again its cos we've been up to our necks in all sorts of ... stuff (office work, planning for flights, installing a wood burning stove, house maintenance etc) and the flight bookings board has just sprouted a plethora of entries so we figured we'd best write now before we're completely immersed. We are just about to post our next newsletter out so we won't duplicate many of the juicy bits here, but this should give you a rough idea of what's up down here.

Cathy has been particularly involved in a number of home births. Some of these have been for friends of ours at the church we attend – that is, the friends go to our church but the deliveries were at their homes – you knew that! The one was quite a drawn out affair as Cathy left our house at 04:00 in the morning and returned at 03:30 the following day.

Paul has been out flying a few times with his latest trip being a one day outing taking some British visitors to a Christian couple’s citrus farm on the Zimbabwe border. Looming large on the horizon are a number of possible mission flights to Moz. Two of them involve medical teams (dentistry, dispensing glasses and primary health care etc), another is a work team for another flying mission and there is one flight to a week long missions conference that both of us will go on. There are also a number of flights where we will just pick up members of teams from Moz at the end of their mission and bring them back to SA.

Matthew is coping well at uni. He is finding second year a step up from his initial uni experience as evidenced by the reduction in communication from him.

Lastly, to prove that a little fun is still possible, we went to visit friends in Swaziland this last week end and took part in a mountain bike race - held in a game park. I must say I felt a little like those bowls of sushi you see on conveyor belts as we cycled through the grass lands. We saw quite a few things during the race but fortunately none of them had big teeth and felt hungry.


Paul & Cathy

Mercy Air Helicopter

Last week I sent a quick update cos we were all excited about our new helicopter arriving. Matthias, our heli pilot, has been busy since then hammering and banging in the hanger till late at night and the results can be seen in the following pictures:

And the proof of the pudding is in the flying.

Now that it is flying Matthias will fly down to ZUMAT to do some promotional work with the clinics. After that we need to do a big service on the engine and when that is completed next year we will start to use it for God's work here in southern Africa.

Please pray for this new avenue to Mercy Air's service, more especially that these first flights will be a blessing to the people served through the clinics and that the helicopter will be richly used by God to build his kingdom.

Thanks

Paul & Cathy

Dear World (UK branch particularly)

Thank you to all of you who responded to our 'we're coming home for Christmas' mailing a couple of weeks ago. It is good to know that many of you are keen to see us and have us share what we're doing with you.

The reason that we haven't responded sooner is that we have been away on a couple of trips.
The first (large doctor team) trip to Moz was cancelled at the last minute - well the night before anyway when the Mozambican National Health Director suddenly decided that they didn't need any medical help after all. This was however replaced by another three day trip at equally short notice.

The second trip was last week when we took another team in three planes to work at a hospital in Zambia, one hours drive north of Victoria Falls. Some of the group did medical work whilst others completed various construction and maintenance tasks. There were also a few pastors who attended to ministerial things. Cathy was able to come along and enjoyed working in the maternity unit as well as driving out to a couple of clinics. Here's a pic of her on baby weighing day. She also did almost 100 ante-natal checkups - sometimes on the floor or on a school desk - 2nd pic.


Paul was busy with practical things and one of the most satisfying jobs was building some swings for a church pre-school.

It is a long story of how we got it but Paul was able to fly this trip in Mercy Air's new Beech Baron.

So, we'll be writing to many of you personally this coming week to start arranging our itinerary and we look forward to hearing from many more of you soon.

pcm

Anniversary in Moz

The last few weeks have been quite manic but to prove that work and play can co-habit nicely:

The 5th September was our wedding anniversary but there was a mission flight on. As there were only three passengers I phoned up and asked if they'd mind extra company. That didn't seem to be a prob so I can now boast to having flown Cathy to the Mozambican coast to celebrate the event. The guys we went with were a real hoot and we got to stay right on the beech - pretty much idyllic.

Here's a pic of us on the way there:


The next few weeks are set to be busy also.
We're taking a large doctor team (large number of doctors not a small number of large doctors) to Tete in northern Moz this w/e till next Thursday then we have two days at home before taking a different doctor team to west Zambia for a week. It would be nice to have a rest after that but I fear I will need to write another Mercy Air newsletter.

Paul

Somewhere different in Moz

On this day in history… well exactly a year ago anyway, we arrived at Mercy Air after a 12 hour drive from Lesotho. We’ve done so much since then it feels more like three years.

First thing to say – thanks to all those who wrote back and to let you know that the result of my biopsy was negative.

The last few weeks have been no less busy so here’s a quick update on what we’ve been up to.

Firstly Paul flew a one day trip to northern Mozambique returning a group of trainees back to their home town. A total of 1300 miles which would get you well into Russia from London or from Florida to Maine.

Then we spent a weekend in Pretoria representing Mercy air at a Missions Conference.

Just over a week ago we picked a US church group up in Johannesburg and flew them to Manica in Mozambique where they helped local missionaries with a number of projects.

We had never been there before but found it to be a poor place, as is much of Mozambique, but the people were friendly, colourful and grateful for our involvement. A lot of the day was spent just living, collecting water and buying food from the market.

One day we cleared an area, dug the foundations and collected bricks for a pastor’s house.

On another we leveled an area for a new church building. This involved removing loads of old bricks and five minutes after we begun we were joined by the local women and children who were keen to help.

We had long tiring days usually starting at 7am and finishing most nights past 9pm by playing football and basketball with the local youth.

Best part of the trip for us was that Cathy could come along - her first trip to Moz.

We’d love to tell you about it all in detail but that would take far too many words and we like to keep this short and chatty (otherwise you’d likely not read it all). Please get in touch though if you would like to hear more.

Next week Paul will be working on a Mercy Air newsletter and doing some flight training for his instrument renewal.

By way of rest and relaxation this weekend Paul has a 95km orienteering mountain bike race. 50km will be during the day then the remaining 45km back through the forest at night.

Matthew has finished his term now but has exams over the next three weeks.

pcm

Scary animals

Cathy and I remain busy at Mercy Air. During one period I spent three weeks ‘on the road’ with only one day at home.

I was initially away for a week in Mozambique taking a group of Dutch missionaries to visit their colleagues. A relatively straightforward trip apart from a battle getting in to Maputo to pick my passengers up due to the biggest downpour you've ever seen at the approach end of the runway.
At our destination strip the local kids were very curious as we were one of a handful of aircraft they see on the ground each year. They welcomed us by swarming the plane - a good reason to shut the engines down quickly!


After returning from that trip we had a day to sort ourselves out before Cathy and I went down to Natal to help another mission flying organisation for a couple of weeks. Zululand Mission Air Transport (ZUMAT) primarily operate as a flying doctor and air ambulance service to local hospitals and have been operating in the area for over 25 years but are short of pilots just now. They have four aircraft all with short takeoff and landing capability, which is necessary to get in and out of their 300m (984ft) long strip on the side of a mountain. Paul flew most days sometimes in fairly marginal weather to places ranging from international airports to short dirt strips with game animals on. Cathy was able to accompany him on many of the flights which was a bonus. Paul has since been back to Zumat for another two week stint but this time without Cathy. This required a box full of ‘heat this up in the oven for 10 minutes’ type meals!

Not all work and no play though as we have both entered a number of mountain bike races the last few months and Paul did his first triathlon recently and didn’t do too bad - for a veteran!

Cathy has started volunteering at Africa School of Missions which is a bible college preparing missionaries for overseas service. She teaches basic medical skills and is part of a team which visits a rural clinic once a week. She finally got her registration for both nursing and midwifery with the South African Nursing Council. The next hurdle is to apply for a work permit which will allow her to practice in a variety of areas.

Despite not looking too perturbed this bloke apparently had a 4" long 1/2" deep gash in his head.

One last pic of something we found playing with the cats in Matthew’s bedroom. Paul’s fingers are on the left at the same scale.
Anyone for a visit?!


Paul and Cathy