Some photo's of recent flights and around Nairobi.
Yes, we can find a "flat stanley" nearly anywhere around the globe. Here he is at 12,000 feet above the South Sudanese flat land and the Nile River.



Here is the airstrip in Yei with the SP staff gathering their things around the truck after we unloaded.








We landed just a little after some rains, but it was firm and all we managed to do was get the airplane dirty.






We spent a night in Yei and while there were advised of a possible medevac which came to the airplane the next morning. He was a Kenyan and even though we didn't know exactly what was wrong with him we decided to take him on down to Nairobi.








In the airplane getting ready to go. We both used disinfectant wipes. No, we didn't have gloves but they are one of the next things that will be going onto the airplane.







On final going into Loki where we had to stop for fuel. Loki is the airport where we used to fly out of back in the 90's when we were living in Kenya.





We had a nice bbq the other evening in our back yard with friends.

catching up....

Hi - here are a few pictures of the last few weeks for Micah and myself. Last week I went to Amani and helped a lady there by the name of Dorcas. We pieced together this quilt. This is her in the top picture - and laying it out. The pictures are out of order - sorry, I actually thought I had the "blogger" figured out! Still working on that! :) The below picture is of Maggie, she works in the shop where they sell their items. She is such a nice lady.

FYI - this quilt is called the Neutral 4 Patch. Ha - what do I enjoy more than neutral colors! I even need help with colors living in Africa! :)

We went to the Nairobi National Game Park about a month ago. We went after one of the first rains and thought maybe we'd see more animals. We saw quite a few - and lots of zebra!

Here is Micah and Twix again! Yes, Micah has this same "Central" shirt on! Will it ever wear out?! This is one of Twix's many funny cuddle up positions.

Ok, anyone want to guess what this is a glass of?

......and the answer is....water from our tap! eek, isn't that scary! Actually, it was just like this one morning. Not sure what happened. Our water city water is off from Tuesday - Thursday. This morning was Friday after it had just been turned on. Our main underground tank looked like this too - after it all the dirt settled to the bottom it was ok. Guess this is why we filter our water! :)

Fun things from the last few weeks.....

Here are some misc. pictures of events from the last few weeks. The first 2 pictures are of a friend of mine, Flora. She works at Tumaini Counselling Center, as a cleaning lady, the lady in the white t-shirt is Margaret the main cleaning/cooking lady there, and the lady onthe far left is Flora's mother.

Flora was hit by a car, Aug.2. A man was teaching his child to drive and he hit her, then they got out and switched places so it looked like the dad was driving and not the boy. In the mean time he literally ran over her with the tires and then thought she would have been too badly hurt, so they backed over her to finish her off! It is such a sad story. If she would have died, then the man wouldn't have to pay for her medical bills. But God was with her! The man did take her to the hospital. It the next few weeks she learned she had many broken bones. She said she layed in bed for 3 weeks without being moved or turned. She said she cried and cried as the pain was so bad. After about a month she was transfered to another hospital for better care. Finally when she could sit up she was able to go home. Only thing was, was that she had to pay all of her bill before she could leave. The man didn't pay most of it. We all at Tumaini chipped in to help her. :) So, here she is about 6 weeks after all that happened. She just kept saying how fatihful God is and that she thought so many times she would die, but He didn't let her. My oh my, their are so many people here with stories like this....

Next is Ruth Roberts first birthday party! Can you believe that she didn't even get messy eating her first piece of cake (even first real sugar!!)

Today we went bowling for the first time. It is about 30 minutes away when their is no traffic. Let's see....I won't tell the scores as Micah doesn't want anyone to know. :)

Lastly, a few weeks ago on Sat. Kurt, Micah and some friends all went Go-Carting. I think the pictures say it all.....Micah is in the green suit and Kurt is in the blue.

Ostrich Farm

Hi! Last Monday was a muslim holiday - Eid al Fitur - so Kurt was off for the day. So we decided to go with 2 other families about 45 min. away to the Ostrich Farm and "Resort". The farm raises ostriches from babies up. They had a few in the different ages, but not that many. They also had ostriches to ride, a pool and restaurant. We enjoyed the pool - it was cold - but refreshing after our tour. It has been warming up and very dry now. We also had lunch there. Kurt had Ostrich filet, Micah had an Ostrich roll (like filet rolled up with onions in it) and fries, I, well...I had fish! ha, pretty safe! It was a great to get away to something we haven't seen yet. Micah had some fun playing with the kids that were with us that day. Micah thinks he should have a little sister!! help! Like that's gonna happen! That is Ruth in the picture with him. She turned 1 year yesterday.

Rainy Season in South Sudan

Yes, it is the rainy season in Southern Sudan where I do a large part of my flying. I thought it would be nice for everyone to see what kind of airstrips and freight I am dealing with on a week to week basis. I just can’t seem to fly the DC-3 without coming back looking like a mess. Angie has the difficult task of getting all of the grease and mud out of my tan pants and white shirts. We carry lots of tires, cement mixers, welding units, generators, truck parts, quads, food, medicines, and just about anything else you can think of when it comes to supporting the guys in Sudan who are building churches, clinics, schools, and running a hospital in Kurmuk. I heard the other day that we have rebuilt something like 260 churches and now they are starting to branch out to some more areas so there are more to go yet. It’s really interesting work that always seems to come up with something new that I haven’t seen before or been part of. We also do a lot of flying around Kenya supporting missionaries in the remote areas of northern, eastern, and western Kenya.

We often have to fuel out of drums because there aren’t enough fuel depot’s scattered around south Sudan. Here you can see one of the SP guys (Chase) standing on the wing fueling. But also we have to often pre-position fuel to some outlying remote airstrips for when the Caravan’s or the King Air need to stop by for fuel. We have 5 or 6 places where we do this. One of them is Pieri which is a small airstrip in the middle of South Sudan surrounded by swampland. (in the rainy season at least) This is one of the areas I used to fly into back in 1994-95. Back then it was normal to land and not see many clothed people, but today pretty much everybody is clothed and you don’t see the spears and jewelry like we used to. Storing our fuel under a tree like this picture is typical of how we do it. There is usually a guy who watches it for us and for payment we either give him the empty drum or pay him a stipend. Empty fuel drums bring a pretty hefty price in this place. Usually around $50 per drum. On this trip we loaded 7 drums onto the DC-3 (as you can see us doing) and dropped them in Pieri. That should keep us going a few more weeks.

Our King Air is finally about ready to start flying again. It has been down for some extended maintenance for the last month so yesterday I flew it on a test flight. It went very well and just a few small adjustments and it’ll be ready to start flying again. That’s good because the DC-3 is scheduled to start maintenance at the end of this month and will be out of commission for about two months. That means that we’ll be flying the King Air hard again during that time. There are a few trips already scheduled.

Weekend fun

Last weekend we went to the Nairobi National Museum with the Roberts. We walked around looking at all kinds of bird species, reptiles, and other animals. It was fun to see all of the different kinds of animals and some of the history of Kenya. Then when we went outside there was a boxing exhibition going on. We watched for a little bit before we left. After the museum we enjoyed a new restaurant called Acapulco.

This weekend we went ahead and got a bike for Micah. He has enjoyed riding it around the housing community where we are living.

Last few weeks...

I just thought that I'd put a few pictures on from the last few weeks. We have actually gone to a number of places, just around town here - with all the saddness of the memorial services for Frank and Ryan, and thinking, praying and trying to do anything to help the families, we have enjoyed doing things with friends - ha, mostly eating out and well just being with others. It has also made us also miss our family and friends more - as we have to just trust the Lord in his timing. :)

This is a picture for Warden and Brandon! See - Micah is juuuussst not quite as tall as me yet! This was taken at a new Mall like plaza with parking in the basement - it was quite funny as we could just walk thru it! :)

Here is Micah and his friend Jonah. He and his family just moved here a few weeks ago. So he and Micah enjoyed M's last few weeks of summer break.

This is Kurt and John. We went out to eat Ethiopian food with our friends Nate, Candace & kids. We always make a joke about the injera - the sour tortilla like bread. Nate calls it "stinky, wet ace bandages." So here is Kurt "bandaging" John with the injera - ok, the waiters probably didn't think it was so funny!

These last few pictures are from a place called Diamond Plaza. It is an outdoor mall with lots of little stores. It is all run by Asians so it feels more like you are in India then Kenya! :) Here is a guy cutting up fresh coconuts. He'd cut the top off so you could drink the milk out and then eat the coconut. They had one little area with these hilarious rides that seemed like they were from the 60's and were loud!! - but that didn't matter - kids love that!

Here are Kurt and Nate putting Dinah's Christmas present together! - Yes,that's right - Christmas in August! Candace and Nate got this for her for Christmas and they couldn't wait any longer to give it to her. We he had it stored at our house, so they are getting it ready for Dinah!