Prayers, Preachers, Planes

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us. Yesterday Jenny got up and her fever was down. I waited for it to pop back up like it had every day all week, but it stayed down...10:00, noon, 2pm...she went out and helped pick up sticks in the orchard...still down....she went out and played with the lambs and fell in the mud...still down...bedtime came and she hadn't had a fever all day. Amazing. I am grateful.

Today we all went to church and Paul preached. I am going to brag: I think my husband is a good preacher. Actually, I think he is a teacher more than a preacher. Sometimes he gets notes from 7-or-8-year-olds telling him they like his sermons because they can understand them. Middle-aged and old people seem to like him too (except for one who says he talks too fast). He also uses illustrations, often from family life, but always asks our permission first. When he was ordained, I told him I am willing to be embarrassed for the sake of a good illustration. Anyway: I am proud of my guy.

I noticed on a few blogs recently that people were talking about the new movie End of the Spear. I have not seen it myself but was talking to my brother Fred about it and found that he has some interesting connections to it. Fred's wife is Loraine, whose dad, Mel, was a MAF pilot and mechanic in the jungles of Mexico for 20 years. He knew Nate Saint personally and he worked on the plane that the 5 men flew in to the Aucas, making some modification to it to make it more usable for jungle flying and doing the drops they did.

Mel also trained in another man before he left Mexico, and this other man did the same modifications to the plane used in the movie that Mel had done to the original.

Last summer Fred took Mel to the famous annual air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where MAF always has a display. There they got to talking freindschaft (relations/connections) (Fred says all the MAF people know each other and make connections like Mennonites do) and it turned out that the man Mel had trained in was there. They met up with him and not only was he there, but he had after all these years found and bought the old plane that Mel had flown in Mexico, and brought it to the airshow. Fred said it was a very emotional reunion, Mel and his old plane. Here was the cargo net that the natives had woven for him, and there were all the little touches he had added to make it more efficient.

During his years in Mexico, Mel flew about as many hours as a normal pilot, but his takeoff and landing numbers were off the charts. He worked in a relatively small area, and he could fly in 10 minutes what would take 3 days on foot. He also landed on some of the most makeshift, risky little runways, and it was only by God's grace that he lived to tell about it.

God bless the missionary pilots. They are a special brand of people.

Quote of the Day:
"I wish I had that from girls."
--Matt, when I was expounding on the benefits of compound interest