First Flight

Here we are in Manila for a break from the tribe, and after a week of relaxing and doing almost nothing (which is a good change of pace for us) it’s time to get back to work.  That is, we head back into the village next week and there are still doctor’s appointments to go to, shopping to be done and of course blogs to be written before we leave. We hope to bring you all up to date on what’s been happening with us since our last break in December, while we have fast internet here in the city. (We’re hoping to change that soon after getting back into the village, but more on that in another blog.) 

So without further ado, I think it would be appropriate to start with something that many of you have been praying with us about for well over a year now.  For the first time, we actually flew out of the tribe in the helicopter!  Hurray!  For so long now we’ve had to travel for 2 days over land, hiring all sorts of modes of transportation from jeeps to karabaw, and hiking through the mud just to get in and out of the village.  What a huge blessing it was to be able to walk 2 minutes away from our house, get into the helicopter, and ride 20 minutes to the NTM flight centre for northern Luzon. 

Of course it probably won’t be the last time we’ll end up going through the motions of hiring and hiking.  But, we can certainly appreciate the smoothness and simplicity of the helicopter, and be very thankful for the Lord allowing us to be able to get in and out even without it.

Please be praying for our pilot, Brian as he needs to go through a series of check rides with our NTM chief helicopter pilot who has already come over from the US once and will be back again in a month.  The Lord has worked it out already for another pilot to fly with Brian next week so he can take us back into the tribe.  (We thought we going to be back to hiking in the mud one more time, but the Lord is very gracious to us.)  Once we are back in the village, we will need to negotiate a rental price for the land which we would like to use for the landing pad.  This has already become a hot topic of interest with the villagers as it is seen as a prestige thing for the landowner.  Pray for wisdom and discernment for us as we seek to be fair and show a Christ-like example to the Ga’dang people. 

The following is a video clip of the first time the helicopter flew in.  Enjoy, we certainly are!

First flight into our village.