Pilot's Logbook: August 2013

Dave & Jill at Lone Creek Falls, South Africa

1st Corinthians 12 talks about the body of Christ…how each part is necessary for the whole to function properly. Have you ever had a broken bone or a sprained ankle? As you hobbled around, you probably found that you couldn’t accomplish as much as when your whole body was in good working order.

The MAF team in Mozambique is small, just three expat families. Each person plays an important role and if they are gone, their absence is felt. We find that we can’t accomplish as much without them. Dave and I experienced this reality upon returning from our trip from South Africa. One family took their vacation after our conference (whereas we took ours before) and the other family returned to the U.S. for a month.

With only one plane and one pilot/mechanic, it was up to Dave to keep the flight schedule going. Immediately, he was faced with some major maintenance. A part was ordered and we were praying that it would come in on time and so that Dave would have time to do the repair work before the next scheduled flight. On top of this, our first day back at the hangar was our scheduler’s last day on the job with MAF. We were hastily trying to learn his job, find out where all the loose ends were, and train someone new to take his place. Because it was the end of the month, all of the bookkeeping needed to be wrapped up at the same time as well.

It was a good experience for us to “man the fort” by ourselves for a bit, but we are glad we don’t have to go it alone all of the time…we were designed to operate as a body!

The first week we were back, Dr. Hanneke along with Jacinto, a Mozambican pastor, decided to show the JESUS film each night of the week in a different village during her week long visit in the Gurue area. Dave was there the first night to help set up and hundreds of people came to watch the story of the life of Jesus.