Pages

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Adventures in Flying with Josh



I started my flight and maintenance training for the purpose of supporting people like these pictured above. Although being a pilot can be viewed as a romantic occupation, the basic purpose of my position here is to serve the people who are working directly with isolated people groups. Whether I am working in the hangar performing routine maintenance, entering data in the billing department, or flying a load of supplies into an isolated village, I get a chance to serve some of the neatest people in the world.



This picture was taken on final approach to an airstrip located at a village called Okpahik. There is a national mission school in Papua that is training up national evangelists, teachers, and pastors to go into the interior and minister to the many villages scattered throughout the island. Okpahik is one of the locations were people from this missions school go to fulfill their practical experience before they graduate.



One of the people from Okpahik that came out to greet us after we landed.



This is a common scene at the aircraft anywhere we land. It can get a little crazy sometimes as you offload the aircraft, load it up again and brief the passengers. This picture was taken in a village called Obokui. There is a national translator as well as the community that is supported by our aircraft. There are no roads or major rivers that come anywhere near this village.



This is one of our ramp agents from our home base in Sentani helping us get the next load of passengers on the aircraft. We had extra room in the aircraft that day, so we asked him if wanted to come along for the flight. Pius is a great guy and is always ready to help.



This picture of bananas was taken in a village called Pasema located in the central highlands of Papua. Yajasi supports a ministry called Oikonomos. There purpose is to train the people how to grow locally available produce and then sell it at a city in the central highlands called Wamena. Yajasi provides an aircraft twice a week to fly the produce out of these villages to Wamena where it can be sold. The proceeds from the produce goes back into the villages.



These are a bunch of school children in Pasema that were watching us as we unloaded a half ton of rice, salt and cooking oil and loaded up the bananas.



Two Yajasi Pilatus Porters are parked at the top of the airstrip in Koropun. Yajasi flew in two planes full of people for Koropun's Bible dedication. I remember when I was 5 years old two missionaries came to our church at Camano Island Washington. My grandparents took me to their presentation on Sunday night and I got to see for the first time slide shows of what life was like in Koropun Iran Jaya. Their names were Orin and Rosa Kidd. They were the first missionaries that I had ever met. After working in Koropun for many years, Rosa Kidd began translating the Bible into the language of the people of Koropun. On March 16th, the people of Koropun received God's word in their own language for the first time. It was incredible to see the dedication first hand and meet Orin and Rosa Kidd again. My grandparents have already passed away, but they would have loved to have seen the people of Koropun who they had prayed for, progress in the LORD.



Me and a man from Koropun who is all dressed up for the dedication.







Watching the ceremonies at the Bible dedication in Koropun.




Here are some of the pictures of flying in Papua





 
Images by Freepik