Christian Aviation Ministries

Some of you may know that one of my “day jobs” is Director for Sozo Media Group. We produce mostly Christian audio books and E-books.  We get to work with a great group of self-published authors along with publishing houses here in Michigan and across the world.

We have currently been working with Clare DeGraaf, a local Grand Rapids author on his new book The 10 Second Rule.  Clare is a great guy and one of my mentors.  His book oultines concrete steps for discerning ‘the next thing you’re reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do’, great insight for those who want to be missionaries in their own back yard.

CAM is offering an autographed copy of  The 10 Second Rule to individuals who donate $30.00 or more to CAM between now and December 16th. Donate here and specify “book” in your donation along with a mailing address and we will send you a copy!

You can also send a check to the address below:

CAM

P.O. Box 140871

Grand Rapids, MI  49504

Thank you for your continued prayer and financial support!

CAM’s funds are critically low.  Please consider a start of summer donation to keep our pilots training debts paid up.  Pray about monthly support of $20 or $50 to enable us to maintain the debt of the two pilot families we support.

CAM averages 3-4 requests per month for funding.  The need is great!

Blessings,

Joshua Billington

Director, Christian Aviation Ministries

Friends,

The attached PDF outlines the proposal CAM has sent out to over 40 foundations across the country.  We’ve posted it here for your viewing so you can get a better idea of the enormity of the need involved in supporting missionary aviation.

Currently, CAM is severely low on funds. We are believing for God to provide 1 year’s budget of $300,000 in order to support current and future missionary aviator/mechanics.  Please consider a monetary year-end gift of any amount in addition to your prayers we know God will provide.

Blessings to you all and Merry Christmas!

-Joshua Billington

Christian Aviation Ministries

CAM 2011 Foundation Proposal

I’m sure it is no surprise but it is that time of year.  CAM has had a rough few years from a financial standpoint.  We’ve been paying out an average of $600 a month to support training debt of our two pilot/mechanic families with hopes to add more missionary pilots into the CAM family.

Donations have been almost non-existent and we are almost at the end of our rope.  As scripture says, “you have not because you ask not”, we are now asking for any kind of financial gift to continue to grow this very unique and much needed ministry.

In addition to this plea, I also want to announce the partnership of Sozo Media Group with Christian
Aviation Ministries. Sozo is an audio/e-book media company dedicated to support CAM in its efforts.  So, if you are a fan of audio and e-books you can browse Sozo’s catalog on Christian Audio.com Click Here you can also follow Sozo on Twitter for information about their upcoming releases and suggest new titles!

Blessings to all of our supporters and followers, your prayers are coveted and felt.

Wednesday.  Spent some time at the Quest Tent drooling over the Kodiak then continued the hanger tour for more interesting stuff.  After that we made more planes at Kid Venture.  It was a lot busier in the afternoon than what it had been.  More kids, more stories.  It doesn’t take long to figure out a kid.  A few simple questions and you have a pretty good handle on what’s up with them.

This is our last day here at EAA.  Heading back tomorrow afternoon.  Its been fun but exhausting!

Here are some links:

Kidventure

Wed. Update

Tuesday, it already is seems like a long time here at EAA.  We were free again in the morning to look around.  We looked at some Shelby and Rouch Racing modified mustangs and finished up touring the hanger booths.

The P-51 and Corsairs were flying around too.  Man I love those things.  We listened a little bit to owner of the only privately owned Harrier talk about how he purchased this plane and rebuilt it. Talk about an expensive aircraft to fly… yeesh.

I had a chance to visit with some friends from Liberty and Letourneau Universities along with SMAT.  Everyone needs money to pay off training debt.  That’s our mission of course, however in this economy it is harder than ever to fill the enormous need.

We worked Kidventure in the afternoon and caught a bit of the airshow afterwords.  The afternoon air shows are cool for about the first two acts but after that it seems like they all do the same stunts.  There was a guy the flew a jet powered glider though.  I have to say that was pretty cool.  It looked so smooth and graceful looking floating in loops and turns.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings….

Tuesday update

The transformation of sleepy little Wittman Field into the “worlds busiest airport” has completed.  It is as overwhelming as years past.  Chad and I arrived at the grounds at around 7:30am to have breakfast at the MASA tent and to find out if we had the morning shift of making foam-plate airplanes.  We fortunately ended up with the afternoon shift which allowed us to look around a bit.  We started our quest for “free stuff” and by the end of the morning we secured 2 t-shirts and 2 hats in booty.  Not bad for the first day.

Ford Motor Company dumps a ton of marketing money into this thing, which I guess is good, since they are in better shape than any other US automaker.  They always have a great exhibit and this year they feature a SR-71 style Mustang–Very sweet ride. They also have every model they make there for you to look at and sit in.  It’s fun.

Oshkosh Truck also has a big exhibit of all of the vehicles they make.  They had everything from cement mixers to Airport firefighting trucks to the military’s replacement of the hummer. Lots of big, expensive equipment.

One of the strangest things we saw today was a 1 seat helicopter this guy invented that runs on hydrogen peroxide. It had little jet engines on the ends of the blades and flew for about 1.5 hrs.  It was very weird, but cool.  I’ll try and get a picture of it up here soon.

After our romp around the grounds, Chad and I had lunch and set out to kidventure.  This is a tent filled with all kinds of flight related crafts, one of which is the foam-plate airplanes that we were in charge of.  They also have helicopter rides, 3 hangers filled with very old vintage planes, RC flying for kids, and a ton of other things.  While working the booth, we met some Germans, Canadians, Chicagoans and a kid from South Africa.  Its pretty neat to interact with a broad range of God’s creation in a short period of time.  Our German friends said they come here every year and that we American’s are more “kid friendly” than over in Europe.  I thought that was an interesting comment.

Here are some more highlights from Monday:

http://www.airventure.org/live/

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! The weather was perfect and the skies were filled with flanks of airplanes as we pulled into Countryside Christian Church. The service was good and it seemed to go faster than the one back home so that is always a good sign.  After the service, we all piled in the car and headed to Ardy & Ed’s Drive in in Oshkosh before going to the EAA Grounds.  Ardy & Ed’s is a “must experience” when in Oshkosh, its kinda like driving into Happy Days. Home made root beer and the best fries and burgers this side of Chicago.

We walked around the grounds for about 2 hours watching the planes come in and get moved into position.  People were scrambling to get their booths and displays set up. Ford had most of their cars there and their main tent was up and ready to go.  The Ford Tri-motor was just coming in off the line.  Busy times.

Photos to come soon! Stay tuned.

Saturday was a day of running all over the Fox Valley picking up sound systems, hand washing stations and other various dining hall accouterments.  Ben Campbell, Chad and I managed to pound an entire box of mint patty cookies from the near by Rippin’ Good Cookie factory in Ripon, WI while transporting equipment.  I have to say, Rippin’ Good mint patties beat the skirts off of a legion of Girl Scout Thin Mints.

MASA has a 40′x60′ dining hall tent that will feed approximately 250 missionary pilots 3 meals a day right on the grounds.  It is a fantastic ministry that saves organizations like ours all kinds of meal expense. This year they have pretty much everything to make the tent look like a banquet hall less the Ice sculptures, water feature and chocolate fountain. We even hauled in trees and planters to add to the ambiance. The only problem is the mud, there has been lots of rain and the airport is very saturated.  I’m sure it will dry out before the festivities start tomorrow.

In the evening, we grilled up some steaks for dinner and had great company of 12 people for dinner and a fun-filled evening of target shooting and movie watching.  Tim Dontje, a MAF MK came in for the week and was kind enough to share his Glock for the shooting fest. Pardon the pun but it was a blast.