Under Wings

Psalm 91:4 "He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark."

Caught these bunnies seeking a snack and some refuge under the wings of an airplane, how comforting to know we too can find comfort under wings, only infinitely safer ones.

A morning in the life

One of these days maybe I'll be with it enough to get pictures throughout an entire day but for now it is a mornings worth of a day, which really gives you a good idea of what goes on here.

Breakfast & devotions in the dining hall

meeting with people who stop by

or taking them up for a flight

Other people are up in the air working on other things like the internet

Sometimes I go on adventures to our metropolitan of a post office

There's always a project going on that they guys are working on.

Just a little peek at my morning

Meanwhile in Alaska

    

    So I have rather dropped off the radar since leaving South Carolina, but never fear I am here, in Alaska. So far the biggest thing that has been the shock factor is the looooong daylight hours. I don't know what to do with myself when the sun is up at 5 AM and doesn't set till 10:30 and we are still gaining several minutes of light a day. The other intestine thing about Alaska that I am still trying to figure out is how they can eat so much ice cream, I thought summers in NY included lots of ice cream but in Alaska the delights of ice cream know no season.
     We spent Saturday and Sunday afternoon at the Great Alaska Airmen's Show in Anchorage with the DC-3. Hundreds and Hundreds of people came through the plane and we had many opportunities to share what we do and what God has done to bring this all about. Many great connections and conversations with people. Now it's settling into life here and figuring out how things work up here in Alaska and my new duties that I will have here.
       I will put a few photos in of the more well know aspects of Alaska and the more photographable parts of my life, snow, mountains, and planes.

The DC-3 at the airshow

flying into Anchorage 

The best laid plans

Yesterday was packing day, the day everyone was flying off into the sunset(or rain clouds as the case may be), some in different directions. The departure of the dc3 was/is weather dependent so due to rain, and the fact that closing up a fifth wheel takes longer then anyone plans or remembers we arrived at Bell Aviation, where the DC3 has been all week, and is the second home for kingdom air in South Carolina, for departure around 11. There were various friends there to see it off and they did one last test ride over the city with a group of passengers. Due to their late start Carolyn and I took off for the airport around 1:10 before they had returned from this warm up trip to check in for our flight to Oregon (leaving at 2:20) to visit the Kings daughter. We got checked in and headed back to sit at our gate after running the gauntlet of TSA. About 10 minutes after we got back to our gate I got a call from Dwayne that they couldn't find the certificate of registration anywhere. Now you must understand this is an oversized postcard but you can't fly without it. We had gotten it via express mail earlier in the week and we had talked about how we couldn't lose it then we proceeded to pack up everything we owned and now the question was where was it. I had no memory of putting it in a box or briefcase though we had several boxes of papers and paperwork.

        We were talking though all the boxes it could be in when I thought of the "safe place" I have often been keeping things in my laptop sleeve. Sure enough there it was with me through, security, and flight boarding in 10 minutes. So one of the guys from bell jumped in his car raced around the airport to meet me at TSA and have a security agent carry that one piece of paper that I had almost taken off with in my carry on. 

It is amazing how important in our world a single piece of paper can be the difference between grounding a plane and taking off. After running back up to the gate and sitting down I just kept thinking what might have happened if I had got on that plane with that sibgle piece of paper. 

It is plain that "a man may plan his way but the Lord directs his steps". We had the details worked out for today to the nth degree but it still could have been grounded by the absence of one piece of paper, so too without God's hand in my life I cannot accomplish anything. 

On another note we all made it safely to the destination of the day, Carolyn and I to Oregon and Dwayne and the crew made it to Thier stop on the Tennesse/ Kentucky line.

The DC-3 Arrives

The Thundering bird

Dwayne & his baby

       

Our 1944 DC3 with some friend's 1937 Cadillac. Pictured Left to right are Brian Lites (mechanic), Ian Hengst (Pilot) Anne & Chuck, and Dwayne

Jesus, Others & You

"Therefore pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another".                                                                                                                                   Romans 14:19

       How many times in my life do I desire something simply because I want it?
      Often I fear. Not that everything I want is bad and needs to be disregarded, but too often I see I value my liberty & choices above the thoughts and feelings those around me. I have discovered it is easy to have an opinion on everything, in fact it is a universal human reaction that in any situation each person will have an opinion. And I tend to think my opinion is important. But I have learned that really most of the time my opinion is not important, and having an opinion doesn't make me more like Christ.
       I have come to realize that in Christian living my personal liberty (to do, say or think certain things) shouldn't be importance. God has not called me to live for myself but rather to die to myself. "For we are constantly being delivered over to death (to self) for Jesus' sake so that the life of Jesus might also be manifested in our mortal flesh" II Corinthians 4:11. I am called to die to self so that I can live to Christ, and the way that I know I am living to Christ is when I am living a life pursing the things which make for peace and building up of others. A Christ like focus and motivation is that of unity and encouragement which gives God the glory. God has given me the grace and liberty to do an infinite amount of things but a godly focus would be on the things of peace rather then on my own desires.

A day in the life

One of these days I will get my act together and do a photo blog of a day in the life but for now I will just write about today as it seems to be a mostly "typical" Saturday and include a few pictures.

8:15  Head over to "the farm" from the Bell's house (Pastor friends of Kings where I am staying) -- "the farm" is the Bell's hanger & airstrip and home for Dwayne & Carolyn

8:30    Arrived at "the farm"; Dwayne was up flying with a student and when he sees the car he starts texting me some to do's & to call's for the morning. This morning there was 2 phone calls and a trip to the store for batteries.
8:45   Make a pot of Coffee & Check in with Carolyn before heading down to IGA to get Batteries and lunch supplies
9:00   On the drive to IGA make a couple phone calls (taking on the cell phone while driving is legal in S.C. and I have decided should be everywhere)
9:30 Get back from IGA and reply to some emails from KAC summer students & various people on DC-3 trip logistics.
10:00 Help Carolyn with some online financial issues. Another student arrives and start preflighting one of the planes.

11:00 Start lunch prep
12:00 3 Visitors fly in from Tennessee (a couple headed to Alaska as missionaries & their pilot friend) to talk to Dwayne over lunch about Missions in rural Alaska.
12:30-2:00 Lunch for 8 (3 from TN, 2 Students, Dwayne, Carolyn & I)
2:00-4:00  Visitors from Tennessee fly out and a second instructor arrives to fly with students. I clean up lunch and work on some more correspondence and a few typing projects.

4:00-5:30    Everyone lands for a break and the 1940's Biplane goes out for a spin, more visitors and helpers come and go.

6:00-7:15 Don Bell, one of the pilots, his wife and I go up for a hot air balloon ride(this was a first and not something I normally do though it seems to happen from time to time)

7:15- 8:00 Land, pack up and chat with the people whose yard we landed in. They were thrilled we landed there. It made their day and they loved the "Jesus is Lord" message. After we were all packed up we headed back to farm. Don told us about the lessons ballooning has taught him about faith, we have to make the step of faith into the basket but where we go is in the hands of God and we have to trust Him.

8:00-9:00 Eat dinner with Dwayne & Carolyn do some correspondence and talk over thing that need to be done the next day
9:00 - Load the plane for the trip to a church we are flying over to tomorrow then head home to the Bells.

Well looking back it wasn't quite a "typical" day but it was not an atypical day here. Anyway just a peek at all that is going on here.