Summer 2011 – A flight in the life…
This summer has seen Wings to Northern Canada begin a couple of different partnerships with groups doing ministry work in northern Manitoba. That fact has meant that our little airplane has been into a few communities on a more repetitive basis, which is exciting because as the airplane and pilot keep coming back, slowly some amount of rapport is built between both the people that are coming in on the airplane, and also myself and Wings to Northern Canada as well. Both in Garden Hill, which is 500km north-east of Steinbach, and in Pauingassi – a bit closer at 290km to the north, relationships are beginning to be formed between us and a few people in these communities.
As I wrote in our last letter, our presence in Garden Hill has been in support of Frontiers Foundation. Frontiers recently held the first graduation of their Standing Tree to Standing Home program in which local people are trained in the process of harvesting lumber from surrounding forests and processing it right to the point of building a home out of that material. They have a sawmill and kiln in the community and are able to supply their own framing and siding material and supply the labour to build the house, which in turn reduces the cost of building a house by one third.
Other than the activities of the various groups working in the community, another encouraging thing is that I’m beginning to be recognized by some of the community leadership as the pilot who brings in, (in this case), Frontiers Foundation.
Pauingassi is the other community that I’ve visited a few times this summer, and it’s been good to see a partnership developing between a local church here in Steinbach and that community. One of the main contacts in Pauingassi is the CFS (Child and Family Services) worker there. As the head CFS worker in this community, Eric is responsible for the welfare of children and families. As a part of fulfilling his role, he works with a number of different arms of government services, and Mennonite Church Manitoba. He’s chosen to partner with the church conference because over time this particular conference has shown a commitment to working in the various communities they have started in.
The progress in Pauingassi has been great, and yet there is still an enormous task ahead for the families in the community to function as families should. A number of years ago a large percentage of the residents of the community were regularly abusing solvents (sniffing gasoline). After few years of work, Eric and his organization have been able to work with the people to all but eliminate the problem. There are still many other issues to work through.
The first time I visited Pauingassi, they were preparing for a funeral service for a nineteen-year-old man who had committed suicide earlier in the week. This caused the plans of the team to be somewhat altered as a tragedy like this completely throws the schedule of the community.
The following week I returned to the community with another team from the same church, and there had been another suicide. This time it was the mother of the man who’d died the week previous.
Hopelessness runs very deep in this, and many other northern communities. Many people have numerous different ideas on how to deal with the problem, but we know that the only hope for a true healing of these communities is through Jesus Christ.
As we continue to bring in people to work in these communities, it is our hope and prayer that the workers will be a light of Christ’s love and hope in a world of pain. It is also our goal that as they do the work that God has called them to do, we will also be a light and encouragement to not only the people of the northern communities, but also to our passengers and the people we rub shoulders with at the various airports we visit. Please join us in praying for these things.
There are many of you whom we haven’t seen for quite a long time, (and those of you that we’ve never met at all), and I’m sure that our little family has changed quite a bit since we last met – no this isn’t an announcement of further expansion of our family – we just thought we’d give you a bit of a picture of what each of the kids are up to these days.
Jacob turned four in May. He has always been our big little boy, and people still ask if he’s 5 or 6 years old. It’s been really fun to watch and listen as he has developed his verbal skills a great deal in the past six months. He is also our cautious child. Although he has had access to a tricycle for two years now, he’s still taking his time in transitioning to the two-wheeled bike that we just got for him about a week ago. (Yes, it does have training wheels). At times we find our-selves taking lessons from him as he is almost always eager to say “oh, phank you!” for whatever is given to him.
Kaeden will be one year old by the time this is read, and has only just begun to threaten to crawl. He’s been a very happy baby, just like Jacob was. As seems to be the common thread with all three of our kids, he’s wearing clothes that are sized for kids six to twelve months older than his age. (I think some of this is just that when the clothes sizes were invented kids were smaller). He is the size of many 18 to 24 month old kids at church. Among his recent achievements are graduating to eating table food (Pablum no longer interests him), and getting his first hair-cut.
Alyssa is our little runner. Almost everything she does is at full speed, strength, or intensity. She is a great example of doing her best at whatever she does – even when she doesn’t want to do something, she does her best to not do it. She is also very sweet in her two-year-old way. When there is an opportunity to help Annie feed Kaeden, she’s right there to feed him the crumbs that dropped on the floor. Her vocal skills are almost as devel-oped as Jacob’s and it’s rare that we need to wonder what she is asking us for. Some of her favourite things is playing in the kitty pool in the back yard, and colouring. She is also very good at entertaining Kaeden, making him laugh by doing all sorts of silly things.
Praise Items:
-Praise God that He continues to meet all of our needs.
-Praise Him for the safe flight operations to date here in Manitoba.
-Praise Him for the lives that are being affected through the techni-cal ministry of MAF in Canada and world wide.
-Praise God for the provision of the funds for MAF to purchase the hangar here in Steinbach.
Prayer Requests:
-that Nathan will be a light in the various communities that he vis-its, and that we can be an encouragement to all those we serve by providing a transportation link.
-that God will provide an ongoing (or final) solution for our flight and maintenance training loans.
-for wisdom for us and the program leadership as we continue to work to develop MAF’s operations here in Canada.
-Pray that we’d be able to find another house to rent soon that does-n’t have flooding/mould issues.
-Pray that God will provide an airplane for us that perfectly meets the needs of this operation.
