Visitors, Flying and Planning

Yet another two weeks have flown by in a haze!

Visitors: On Saturday 14th our look-see visitors arrived to see the program they are planning to join later this year. They were with us for 6 days which we filled with visits to various places in Chad. We took them for a tour of a hospital so they know what sort of medical care to expect, a trip to the market and supermarkets so they had an idea of what foods are available here, a trip out to Orca (a big chain store across Africa similar to Habitat) to see what things they don't need to ship over because they can buy them here. On Sunday Matt drove them out to see the retreat centre and I took them along to volleyball to meet some of the other families in the mission community. We also took them along to meet the team that run Acacia Vulnerable Women's Ministry and to see Oasis centre running it's English classes.

At the same time John and Tracey Feil arrived in Chad (from MAF South Sudan) to help in the office for the next few weeks. John got stuck in straight away training our staff on the latest development of the Wingman flight management tool that we use for booking our flights. Meanwhile Tracey was able to tag along to some of the look-see trips and orientate herself a bit around the city. They have already discovered a patisserie nearby that we didn't even know existed! It is a real blessing to have them living next door and helping out in the office, meaning I am not the only manager in program. Tracey has also been persuaded to help us in the role of communications, writing up stories of flights in recent weeks. Luke thinks this means she is publishing lots of books about flying the Caravan!

John joined me for the medical evacuation flight

Flights: We haven't had many flights in the last two weeks, but they have been some fairly long ones. On Wednesday I flew a medical evacuation to bring a lady into N'Djamena after she had a heart attack. Last week I flew a team to Abeche for a Swedish organisation looking to start funding projects in the region. We met with a local team to hear about the work currently being done and to find out about the needs of people there. Possible proposals include a project to prevent women getting into prostitution,  a project preventing teenagers turning to drugs and alcohol and a school that teaches in Arabic but follows a Christian curriculum. Please pray that these projects will come to fruition to offer young people in Abeche a greater hope for the future. 

On Friday I flew the full breadth of the country, entering Cameroon briefly on departure and then seeing the border with Sudan and CAR in the East. The flight route took in Abeche, Goz Beida and Haraze, and whilst this is one of our more scenic routes past the mountains in the East it was also rather bumpy as we arrived in the midday heat. 

Medical evacuation

Looking across to Central African Republic

Planning: It is now just under 4 weeks before we come back to the UK for our home assignment and a short break. You can catch up with us on any of the following dates:

Sunday 19th June - 10:30 service at Martock Christian Fellowship, Somerset

Sunday 3rd July - 10:00 service at Emmanuel, Lower Weston, Bath

Sunday 10th July - 10:30 service at Bovey Tracey Baptist Church, Devon

Sunday 10th July - 18:30 service at Emmanuel Plymouth, Devon

Wednesday 13th July - 15:00 Cream Tea at Buckland Chapel (Free Ticketed Event)

Sunday 17th July - 18:00 service at St Thomas, Exeter

Saturday 23rd-Monday 25th - St Andrew's Parish Camp, Devon