Scotty Arrives in Liberia

One of the big advantages of home schooling is that you can add in impromptu field trips.  A week ago Josh and I were able to head to the airport and meet "Scotty" as it arrived from it's cross country trip from Uganda. Here is Josh's report and some photos he took on the day.

On Friday 5th October I was waiting at the airport for Scotty.   The plane 5x-SCO or "Scotty" as she is known to us, was coming from Uganda to now serve in Liberia. It was coming because OPE needed to return to Uganda for an engine change. So OPE is going to Uganda and Scotty is coming!

 I waited excitedly on the ramp for Scotty to land. The V2 flight tracker said that it was arriving any time. I stood on the Pickup Truck scanning the air and then out of nowhere I caught a glimpse of Scotty in the blue sky.

When she landed it looked like a very soft landing... I wished that I was in the plane.  Scotty landed quite far away because the runway is very long. It was very cool watching the plane taxiing and finally she got to the ramp.

 Greg the pilot, turned the engine off. My dad and Andrew Mumford  (pilot) and one of our friends from England went up to the plane and welcomed Greg.  We had fun searching the plane for Scottish flags that the Ugandan engineers had hidden all over it!

The next day, Greg would start again to make the long flight back to Uganda with 5X-OPE.  It would be great if I could go with him!

International Interactions….

So following a busy week of maintenance, carrying out checks on several of the avionics, installing a satellite tracking system in the instrument panel, removing the wing struts to carry out some Non-Destructive Testing, it struck me how cool it was how many nationalities were involved in the week…

Here on the ground in Liberia there was myself ( British), and our country director who is Swiss.  We do our maintenance in a hangar surrounded by Americans and Liberians that help out. 
I had two guys come from the MAF programme in Kenya, one is Finnish and one is Kenyan.  We also received help and support during the week from another British guy based in Uganda and the Chief Engineer there who is Dutch.  Also an avionics engineer who is Swedish was also involved…..

How awesome is it that all these people of different nationalities, cultures and backgrounds can work together to get a plane operational again to help transform isolated people in remote places!

A Time of Transition

Transition is never easy.... we have had more opportunity to practice the art of skillful packing, living with bare essentials and saying goodbyes but that does not mean we necessarily enjoy it or find it easy. 

Unfortunately our new MAF house is not complete so between 27th and 31st Dec we were busy packing and moving to a temporary home on compound. Yes, there were tears at leaving our first home in Liberia, moving farther from play mates that have been immediate neighbours and become close friends and lessons to be learned about the temporal nature of  life here on earth, when  a piece of furniture fell from the truck and some treasured possessions got damaged. 

In all of it I have been constantly reminded to find the grace and strength for this season through deliberate thankfulness.  God is good and as our family continues to look forward to a new home there are many things to be thankful for every day;

• We enjoyed some wonderful days celebrating Christmas, relaxing at the beach and enjoying family time.
• Fostering Beulah for this season has been refreshing for my soul...her wonder and amazement at so many things that are new to her but had become part of the scenery for me. (I'm going miss our morning walks together!)
• Our temporary house has the most amazing beach view from the lounge where I can enjoy my coffee and soak up Gods splendour
• We have amazing friends  and workers here that gave up their family time over Christmas and were so helpful in getting us moved.  
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While we were busy with our own transition and remained on the compound for most of Christmas break the nation of Liberia voted in the second round of elections.  We are thankful that the elections were peaceful with a jubilant mood in the city on the day the results were announced (we know because we found ourselves stuck in the traffic for 5 hours that day!!).  The Inauguration of George Weah (former footballer) takes place on 22nd January.  Pray for wisdom, integrity and humility as he leads this country. Pray that the coming years would be a time of stability and development for Liberia.

 


Whilst stuck in traffic on the day the results were announced we saw quite a few sights we normally miss because we go by them much faster.  Amongst the things that caught my eye was this dining set....a location for a future date night perhaps? maybe not...the odour was not exactly likely to give you an appetite!