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  • Post Surgery & Certification

    Hello once again!  What a whirlwind month and a half this has been!

    Update on Sheea

    Sheea has been recovering well and has weaned herself down to one pain pill every other day or so, depending on whether it is a good day or she is in pain.

    Thank you so much to all of you who have provided meals for our family.  Who knew there were so many great cooks in one area?!

    I am now having to fight to have Sheea not do things around the house, which is good in the sense that she feels well enough to attempt them, but the kids and I are trying to make sure she doesn’t over exert herself.

    Sheea has had a post-op doctor appointment on Thursday where they will hopefully give they gave her a clean bill of health.

    Flight Training

    After many attempts at explaining the actual progress toward our training goals I put together the graphic below so it will be easier to visualize our progress.

    The orange line represents the point at which I would qualify to be able to take the Commercial certification exam.

    Kids (Shane)

    Shane had his second soccer game Sunday evening and scored the only goal the team had and the crowd went wild!  Even in his playing I am thrilled to see his personality shine through.  If someone fell down (on his team or the opposition) Shane would go over and help them up.  Shane was played almost the entire hour as his tenaciousness was evident to all.  Up the field, down the field and right back again.  I don’t know where he stores all the energy, but he stayed on the ball the whole time.  He even used the reverse kick he learned in the one skills class he had taken to great effect several times!

    Kids (Becca)

    We recently asked Becca what she wanted to do for her eighth birthday.  In a matter of fact way she stated, “climb a mountain.”  Because that’s the kind of girl she is.  She loves exercise (didn’t get it from me) and the outdoors and wants to explore and see the animals.

    She then asked Sheea if she could try to find gold in a river too.  Sheea asked, “You want to pan for gold?”

    “Yes, pan for gold.  Well, do they let you keep the gold you find?”

    “Well, I think so.”

    “Then, yes.  I want to pan for gold.”

    So we’ll see what she actually settles on (especially once it’s made clear that we would probably not find any gold.)

    Prayer Requests

    • Praise: Sheea is recovering well!
    • Praise: Tony passed the instrument certification!
    • Sheea’s continued recuperation Sheea will be taking more Bible courses through Moody next semester, so pray that she does well and learn much that can be applied practically rather than just being an academic experience.
    • Debt repayment from the training so that Tony can continue to build hours toward our goal.

    Full story

    Comments (2)

  • Update on Sheea

    The surgery went well but Sheea has been in a lot of pain.  In addition to that she was throwing up a lot yesterday.

    They just took Sheea off the morphine she was on so that is progress.

    Please continue to pray that she is able to recover quickly and that the pain would dissipate quickly to a more manageable level.

    Full story

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  • Instrument Certified!

    Lots of good news to report in regard to training progress. 

    Training

    First of all, training went well, challenging, but I have been learned a lot.  I passed my Instrument Certification exam yesterday morning! (July 12th) This is a large step forward and it will allow me a lot more flexibility for planning flights and building hours.  Thank you so much for your prayers during this time.

    Expenses

    I have negotiated a better fuel rate with with the Fixed Base Operator where the plane I fly is based.  They were willing to do this because of the goals of my training.  And I am very grateful they made the exception for me as fuel prices continue to rise.

    I haven’t yet tallied the damage in terms of all the fuel, etc but last month donations far exceeded the minimum payment we needed to make on the training account!  Thank you to all who have been helping financially!  It is what is allowing me to move forward with all the training.  Because of the financial accountability through the church we have no easy way of knowing who donated what but we are extremely grateful to you all.

    Next Steps

    The first step is to once again pay down the training account so that there is room to build flight hours. 

    I currently have about 150 hours (I need to build 400 hours minimum).  Other than the hours I just need to complete a Commercial Rating next which should require a lot less training than the instrument rating.

    At some point I would love to build up hours by flying around the country to visit as many of you as possible.  If I did that I would probably have to go alone as long hours in a plane aren’t exactly kid-friendly.

    Nepal

    MAF has had to withdraw from opening their base in Nepal because of government hassles along the lines of requiring three million dollars be deposited in their banks for the privilege of doing non-profit work there!

    We are clearly very disappointed with this outcome but I told my Nepali friends that even if we weren’t able to fly in Nepal God used this to introduce us and allow us to befriend each other.

    While our own prayer would be that God would somehow change the outcome and allow MAF to operate in Nepal, our larger prayer would be that God would prepare us for wherever in the world he would have us serve.

    Prayer Requests

    As I write this, Sheea is in the scheduled surgery I had previously alluded to. Please pray for her rapid recovery and that she stick to the doctors orders of not lifting even a gallon of milk till six weeks later.  For those of you who know my wonderful but stubborn, stubborn wife…you know why I say this.  :)

    Full story

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