Missions and more flooding

We have just got back today from another flight.

Similar to last week, this also turned into a dual purpose trip.

We took some guys from a church in Cape Town to visit missionaries in Marromeu, Moz. Two of the guys were actually thinking of moving up there to join the team. It's fairly rough where they live - no electric, and water comes from a well. Baths come from standing in a large tin bucket and chucking water over yourself with a cup. They have limited solar power and candles, but when the sun goes down it still gets very very dark. What you probably can't imagine is how ridiculously hot and humid it is there - you never really get dry after a shower. And then there's the insects....

The team there work with the communities along the Zambezi and especially down into the delta region where it flows into the Indian Ocean. They have recently obtained a boat for these purposes but we used it the one day to scope out the extent of the flooding on the river. As we traveled we heard of people who needed help. At one village we found a mentally challenged boy who had been accused of stealing - he didn't know it was wrong just to take food when he got hungry and so he was a good target. This time though, village justice took it's course and he had his big toe cut off with a machete - a month ago. He was very reluctant to get on the boat and had to be carried by the villagers. We ferried him back to Marromeu and took him to the local 'hospital'. After fetching the A and E guys ourselves he did get the stump cleaned and bandaged. He has no family so we took him back to where we were staying and put him up for a few nights. He will go to hospital again this coming week and then likely back to his village.


Relief organisations are mobilising for flood relief and we did another survey flight for Food for the Hungry International (FHI). It was interesting to compare water levels with what he saw last week. The river is certainly higher but not at the levels that the popular press would have you believe. Still, the situation is cause for concern and Mercy Air's helicopter flew up to the area today to be of help if needed.


We have flown over 30 hours in the last eight days, and we will definitely be trying to have a couple of days off this coming week.

Thank you for your prayers.

Mercy Air team

Medical mission and flooding

Just a quick update on this last weekend's trip.

We flew the medical outreach team to Inhambane where they travelled four hours inland with them to a place called Panda.

They ran clinics practically all day, every day as there was an almost endless queue of people from the surrounding area.


Meanwhile, we also flew two hours north to Moz's second city Beira from where he flew a Zambezi flood survey flight the following day. We carried people representing the Christian organisations Food for the Hungry and Humedica. There were also people from Red Cross, World Food Programme and the Mozambican Organisation for National Disasters.


So:
Is there flooding - yes.
Did we see huts surrounded by water - yes.
Under water - yes.
Have people been displaced - yes.
Did we see people stranded on the roofs of their huts or clinging to trees - no.
Were there any villages floating downstream - no.

The situation is of concern but not yet a fully fledged disaster. However, the volatile nature of the situation (rains and dam release upstream) does mean that all that could change in less than a week. Aid organisations are busy mobilising themselves at strategic locations along the river in order to be able to help if the need arises.

We are off again tomorrow taking pastors from Cape Town up to visit their missionaries (who actually live on the banks of the Zambezi). Whilst there, we have been asked to fly in some personnel and equipment for one such relief organisation. We will also do another survey flight further upstream from the one we did last weekend.

Mercy Air team

Floods and maintenance

Christmas and New Year has come and gone and we are now back into the usual cut and thrust of daily life.

The rush seems to have started early this year with three back to back flights from this w/e.

The first is with a US doctor team who are doing a four day medical outreach through the Nazarene Church in SE Moz

The day after we get back we are off on another five day trip to take some pastors from a Baptist church in Cape Town to visit their missionaries in central Moz.

This morning we got a call from a Development/Aid/Relief agency in Moz who are trying to co-ordinate efforts to deal with what appears to be yet another potential disaster. They want us to do a survey flight along the Zambezi from the Indian Ocean to the Zambian border. Water levels on the Zambezi are already way above the alert levels and quote - "this year's crisis could be worse than in 2000 and 2001, when heavy flooding swept through the country's central and southern regions."

Until the Mozambique Government officially announce that help is needed, little work can be done. In the mean time contingency plans need to be made, which for now at least, is where we come in.

We will alsol likely leave the medical outreach to do this flight this coming Sunday.

Recently we were flying in the area and took this picture.


Each of these trips are likely to be relatively rough. On the first we will need to camp and the missionaries for the second one purposely live on the rough side of town where there is no electric or running water. February is also pretty much the hottest time of year. We're expecting there to be what the weather bureau describes as 'high discomfort indicies' which usually amounts to 35-40 deg with heaps of humidity.

The rush has not come at the best time for us really. We have been using the traditional Christmas lull to carry out maintenance on a number of our aircraft. The Beech 18 requires two engines to be changed and will not be back in the air till mid March and the 310 needs a whole heap of work doing and will be out of action for at least another four months.

This is hurting us quite bad as there is a great need which we are finding it hard to meet at the mo. The solution for us is newer turbine powered aircraft, obtaining one is very much in God's court right now though as they also come with a meaty price tag.

Mercy Air team

A weekend in the sky

We would of written back last week but as often happens, we got really busy.

We spent most of this last weekend in the sky - well 18 hours of it anyway. Two of our pilots flew up to Mozambique at dawn on Saturday to collect the body of a lady who had died in a car accident. Her husband and children also accompanied the coffin. We all spent the night at back at Mercy Air before setting off early again on Sunday for a place only a stone's throw from Cape Town. Some of the weather on the trip was a bit grim and on the way back they had to divert to a place south of Swaziland for the night. We eventually got back Monday morning.

The whole trip was about 3000 miles (5000k) which would get you over the North Pole from London to or almost to Boston. It's the sort of thing proper planes would do before breakfast but in a Beech 18 at only 10000ft, things happen somewhat more slowly.



Mercy Air team

Two light services

Another (hopefully) short update and some good news.

Firstly though, thanks again to all those who wrote in response to our last mailing and asking about fuel and visas etc. It's encouraging for us to know that so many of you are concerned.

Last week we were away in Moz again, this time with a group of US pastors. They were part of a team who were running training and teaching sessions for local Mozambican pastors. They did three sessions a day and covered a multitude of topics from spiritual warfare to sex. Each service was typically African with plenty of exuberant singing and dancing to start and finish.

In the evening the whole church was just lit by two electric light bulbs.


The local and US pastors were hosted nearby in the compound of a missionary where we spent most of the time helping out with practical jobs such as shelving, plumbing, security, hanging curtains etc. The compound had only been occupied for two weeks and one of the main issues was a total lack of any running water. Even drinking water had to be collected from 5 km away. We managed to get two bucket baths during the week which basically involved kneeling beside a half full bucket of water armed with a bar of soap and a plastic cup (no pics - sorry!).

Cooking for the week was also typically African.


On flying the team back to Durban we loaded the plane up with 1000 lbs of medicines that the team had bought over with them. These will be stored at Mercy Air and transported up to Moz when and as space allows.


And now for the rest of the news.


Mercy Air team

Chimoio Moz medical

A quick update on our trip last week.

We flew an American medical mission team into central Moz for 8 days.

Amazingly there was fuel available at the one stop in Moz for us to fill up on the way there, but that had already ran out by the time we came back. Fortunately we had one drum of fuel stored at the destination and that was enough for us to make it back home.

The accommodation was ‘sparse’ and we stayed in tents on the porch outside a missionary, Tracy’s house, and shared one toilet and a dribbly shower between 15 of us. The house is part of an orphanage for 25 children that she is involved with, and another task the team completed was to paint a mural on an outside wall.

The team was a seven strong group of Doctors and Nurses who were supporting Tracy in her work in the area. Most days we traveled for about an hour and a half by 4x4 to well out of the way places, where we ran clinics in churches that Tracy has helped plant over the last few years. She initially planted four churches, but six others sprung from those original ones within a year.

A young girl peers through a window.

Consulting inside a church.

While we used the church as a clinic, the villagers held a pastors conference and meetings outside.

We also visited the local prison where Tracy has been working for a while now. Conditions here were rough also and there were about 130 men sharing a room of about 5 x 5 metres. They are often in there 24 hours a day and only get one cup of corn meal and a cup of water per day. The inmates are in there for anything from murder to stealing bread, and some can be in there for up to two years before their trial is even heard. She usually visits twice a week and we were able to offer medical consultations, present the gospel and then hand out oranges and pray for the guys afterwards.

We also helped at another orphanage as well as doing house calls in the local villages.

We were also able to help with some running repairs to the missions Land rover.

Thanks

Mercy Air team

Midnight medivac

One of our pilots has spent most of Easter Monday asleep.

He had a very pleasant Easter Friday getting out for a walk with a British couple who have come to help with aircraft maintenance for four months, and also with his son who had to take some pictures for a photo journ assignment.

Sat and Sun were fairly typical until 6:55 Sunday evening when we got a call with reports of an attack that had happened in Moz that required medical evacuation from the Mozambican coastal town of Inhambane to Johannesburg - now now. The frantic activity didn't really end until 09:00 the following morning when he landed back on the Mercy Air Farm again after a whole night of flying. To cut a long story short we had to arrange for flight permits, airports to open, customs, immigration and air traffic control guys to pitch in the middle of the night, for fuel - which is becoming rare during the day and a whole bunch of other incidental things that you usually need a week to sort out for a 'normal' flight. His wife didn't escape unscathed as she was also up most of the night flight following as he called every half hour to give a position report (co-ordinates that is, not whether he was vertical or horizontal)!.

Fortunately, the still moonlit night was about as good as it could be for this kind of flying which made taking off from our farm a bit easier, although we still had to get all the staff to position their cars at intervals down the strip so their headlights could provide illumination. Also landing on the runway in Inhambane took two attempts as the runway was only lit by a few burning paraffin lamps, some of which had blown out by the time we got there.

Obviously due to the nature of the incident and the fact that it all happened in the wee small hours we don't have any pictures, except for one of the paramedic sleeping on the stretcher on the return leg back to Nelspruit the following morning.


But what we really want to convey is thanks to those of you who pray for us regularly. Flying into Moz at night presents its own hazards and we don't always get chance to mail prayer requests round beforehand. We are however so appreciative for the prayer cover we do get that goes to ensure that we can serve safely in cases such as these.

Mercy Air team

Where to plant a church

Hi there. This is just to say thanks to those of you who prayed for us last week, and to tell you a little about our trip.

Pretty much everything went really well. We took three American AOG (Assemblies of God) guys to a number of different places in Moz. They were looking for somewhere to start a new outreach so in each place we went, they/we met with the local people to find out what was already being done and what need there was.

The first place was Inhambane on the coast where we had to cross the estuary in a rather shaky ferry.

We flew up in near perfect weather but that night had 12 hrs of heavy thunder and rain so good timing there!

We traveled by local taxi and then on foot to one village were we were greeted in a very traditional manner by everyone singing us into the main meeting place.


The second place, Cuamba, was inland and almost 5 hrs flying further north (it would probably of taken almost 3 days to drive). While our passengers were having meetings there Paul and Cathy got out with their Brit missionary hosts to visit some mothers in the bush who had malnourished children. The twins shown below were 2 years old and weighed only 6kgs. Another 18 month old child was severely malnourished and needed to be taken to the clinic.

We also visited the local market which was certainly an experience.


Last place was Mocuba, 1 hr south east. The airstrip also seems to be the main thoroughfare in that part of town and we always generate a lot of attention when we go.

Again a good flight followed by a horrendous storm about 2 hrs after landing. We got to see some missionaries here that we had flown for about 2 years ago so it was great to catch up again.

We asked you to pray about the fuel and the good news was that those places that said they had it, actually did, so we were able to fill up without problem.
The one military place we landed at only kept us waiting for an hour whilst they 'confirmed' our landing clearance.
The weather played ball and even though there were storms around, there was enough clear for us to pick a way through.

We met many people and listened to some amazing testimonies of what God is doing in Moz. We heard of a Muslim child that was having fits and the hospital were unable to stop them, the father then took the boy to Christians who prayed for him and the fits stopped. The father and mother said that they would remain Muslims but said that the child could be taught about Christianity and attend church as they had saved his life, they later sent their other kids too!

Thanks again for your prayers and support.

Mercy Air team

Moz, Lesotho, Zambia

We have been trying to find a spare half hour to write a quick update for ages and if we don't manage it now we can see it being at least another couple of weeks, otherwise you might all think we have fell off our side of the world.

What's been happening? Good question, and as it happens almost too much to write down in a few lines.

The flying has been hectic of late. Mercy Air has often had all it's planes out at the same time and we haven't had a staff meeting with all present for ages. We have visited 14 international airports in four countries in the last few weeks. Some of the highlights include:

Last week we did a flight for Dorcas Aid. They are a Dutch Christian Aid organisation who have many projects around the world. We spent a week flying a group of business people, who were either sponsors or potential sponsors and visited various projects in Mozambique, SA and Lesotho. We went to many places and saw much poverty but also the hope that is provided by an organisation who base their ethos on biblical principals. To be honest what we saw revived our faith in Aid Organisations and we were pleased to be a small part of bringing more hope to people who seemingly had none.

In Lesotho we visited many of Dorcas's projects including a World Food Programe food distribution centre.

Yesterday we were about to leave for church when we got a call from a missionary in Mozambique saying that their local pastor had been taken seriously ill with a burst appendix. He was at least 12 hours drive from a hospital where they could operate and it was critical that he got there the same day. Using one of our fast twin engine planes we were able to reach him in less that two hours and transport him to Maputo an hour and a half later. He would almost certainly of died had we not been able to provide a prompt response, although his condition is still serious and we would ask you to pray for him.

On another occasion we were fortunate enough to get a flight down the coast all the way to Cape Town with a small team.

Last week we took a mission team up to Northern Zambia and helped with the construction of an orphanage. A bonus here was flying over Victoria Falls on the way up and again on the way down.


Right now we are stuck at home. Today we was supposed to fly a team up to eastern Zimbabwe but the weather played it's joker and fogged us in the whole day. As we type, we are swapping stories with the passengers in our office who are now staying the night and planning a death 'o' clock start tomorrow morning.

For most of the last month we have had all four Mercy Air planes out in Moz at the same time. Our 'big' plane spent two weeks with a group from Medical Ministry International doing eye and dental work in a Muslim village in the very north of Moz. During their time they saw over 900 patients. At the same time out smallest aircraft was shuttling missionaries in and out of a town in mid Moz and also flew a mission trip to Zimbabwe.

We had a camera crew with us recently doing a small article for national TV, they were so impressed that they suggested a full on documentary sometime in the future.

We have also been very busy with guests and have had an almost constant stream of people visiting for periods ranging from just a night to a month.

Mercy Air team

Moz Hub Conference

We just got back late last night at the end of ten days in N. Moz.

We took a plane load of people up to N. Moz for a missions conference. Just getting there involved 1400 miles and over seven hours of flying. One of the pilot's wives, Cathy, was part of a medical team we provided to help the missionaries up there.

The conference went very well with up to 60 missionaries attending at times. We saw some old friends and met plenty of new people who we might be able to work with in the future. It took us 7 1/2 hours by plane and can take up to five days for the missionaries to drive. Because of this, the Hub arranged for us to take a number of specialists up with us including a Dentist, Vet, Agricultural bloke, Doctor, Nurses (including Cathy), Hairdresser/beautician (for the ladies!), and a home Schooling adviser. The week also included a Language Acquisition Course to help new missionaries learn the various languages of the numerous 'un-reached people groups'.

Cathy taking someone's blood pressure.


The dentist doing a check up on a mission kid.


One of these landed on Paul's head the same night as he was walking through the compound where we stayed.


Not all fun and games. A Puff Adder Paul trod on one night. He was alive at the time but the application of a big stick soon sorted that out.


Thanks.

Mercy Air team