I wasn't remotely concerned even for a second despite...
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
I’ve been reminded a few times over the last few weeks
that I haven’t done an update in a while! It is not for a lack of things going
on, we have actually been quite busy. However, I realized it is all things that don’t seem too
exciting to me, but one of our recent visitors reminded me the other day that
even though my life may seem normal to me, it is still quite different than
those who have never experienced it.
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| What happens when our crazy life in Congo starts to feel normal (I promise Nick was just pretending :-P |
To pick up where I left off last time with my post
on our family conference. We had a great conference which left us all pretty
pooped, so we laid low for a week. Though Nick kept super busy with
flight requests going up and down but also with our office renovations and move. For the last year, we
have wanted to move the MAF office which was located downtown to the Airport
where we fly from. This is to help streamline our work, instead of people needing
run back and forth from the office to the hangar and back all the time it is
now all in one place.  |
| The new office space above the Hangar |
Then after several months of no visitors to the
program we had three visitors’ in one week! We had Mike Shutts who is a maintenance
specialist in Uganda come for about 5 days to help. Since our maintenance
specialist left about a year ago now and a few other people coming and going it
has taken some adjustment to figure out the new workflow with all of the work needed in maintenance. It is hard when all of our mechanics are also Pilots because there is less continuity then when we are able to have a full time mechanic in the hanger. If you could pray for God to send us a maintenance specialist for our program, we really need it, but in the meantime we really appreciate Mikes willingness to come and help us out.
We also had our Regional Director Souleymane come for
his yearly visit. We were able to schedule our staff Christmas party while he
was here which was lots of fun. Nick spent a lot of time with him going over
program details and ideas for the future. It was a encouraging and profitable time for them.  |
| Our team at the Christmas Party |
Then we also had Brad Bell the CEO of MAF Canada come to
Kinshasa! His visit can be summed up in a fun comment that he emailed me after
he arrived back in Canada.
"Thanks again for such a great visit. I recognise that having visitors is a lot of work. Thanks for taking such good care of me. I wasn't remotely concerned even for a second despite; being stranded in a remote rain forest, being extorted by police, rumours of protests, and Nick's effortlessly driving through traffic that would terrify even the most hardened Toronto driver."
Haha, but I promise he did see a lot of the good sides
of Congo as well. He got to visit all around Kinshasa, go on a few flights and we even took him Fabric shopping (though he is too embarrassed
to admit he enjoyed the experience ;-).
As we headed into the Christmas season, we enjoyed the kids ‘Marche de Noel’ last Friday and they just have a few days of school left until their Christmas break.
We are looking forward to some down time during Christmas and even plan on going camping!
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| The Kindergarten classes singing at the Marche de Noel |
As we headed into the Christmas season, we enjoyed the kids ‘Marche de Noel’ last Friday and they just have a few days of school left until their Christmas break.
We are looking forward to some down time during Christmas and even plan on going camping!
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