And off they go!!

Last spring (January- May 2012) I took a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) class and learned how to make maps. We had a large project to do throughout the semester incorporating what we had learned. I used that project to make a map for Lesotho MAF. Now, 5 months later the maps I made are on their way to Lesotho! I sent them to a MAF Lesotho pilot, Danny Hulls, who is in the states till the end of October when he will return to Lesotho. MAF Lesotho will get a large map (3.5 ft x 3ft) and a fold up map (26 in x 20 in).

The maps ready to be rolled up and sent off.

Tracking confirmation of the maps! They are getting sent to Danny who will take them to Lesotho.

With this project I mapped out where all the existing airstrips were located as well as where possible new airstrips could be built if there were a need. Also incorporated in the map are many towns and villages and you can see if a town has access to an airstrip or a medical clinic. I defined access as being a town within an 8km or 5 mile radius of an airstrip. With this map the MAF team in Lesotho can assess where there are fewer people being reached physically via airplane as well as spiritually. The possible locations are ranked from poor to excellent based on how many villages and towns are around the area as well as the surrounding terrain and roads. The MAF team could take these maps to the Lesotho government and propose to build airstrips in the best possible location and possibly get grant to do this. It is in the Lord's hand what happens with these maps and it is to His glory that missionaries can go into remote areas and spread the gospel!

 

Missionaries are all over the world both far and near! I recently found out that one of the people who fly out of Bowman field is a missionary pilot with Agape Flights ( http://www.agapeflights.com/) which fly to Haiti and in and around the Caribbean Sea. I get to meet with him soon and learn more about what he does and how God has been working through him. 

Here's a link to MAF's frequently asked questions http://www.maf.org/serve/overseas/faq#.UHsPeFEutUN in case you were curious about MAF and the process of becoming a missionary pilot with them. For the pilot requirements, most missionary aviation organizations have similar requirements. 

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:8   

 

^{Fly with Christ,}

^Helen

 

A taste of the future!

Here's a video posted by a MAF missionary showing the training pilots go through before they go into the mission field. All this training is done in Idaho. One day (in the next couple of years) I will be doing the same thing, flying in and out of airstrips in the mountains.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7XtRJJ_iFo

Here's also a quick update:
I had 2 lessons this week and they went quite well. We even practiced unusual attitudes! For clarification I am writing attitude and not altitude in this case. Attitude means the characteristic of the plane. Think of a person's attitude- bad attitude, good attitude, mean, sad, grouchy, joyful, etc. It's the characteristic of the person. In the same way the attitude is the characteristic of the plane: whether it is nose down (pointing downward), nose up (upward), turning, etc. So in practice, my instructor will make the plane be in a high nose attitude and the airspeed will be really slow (close to a stall configuration). What I have to do is 1) not look while he is setting it up) and then 2) when he tells me to look up I would push the nose down, level the wings, and add power to get my airspeed back. This is all done within 5-10 seconds. Another scenario, would be the plane is nose down and picking up a lot of speed and in a turn (similar to what happened last time I flew in the bad weather- see last post). To correct this, I would pull the power off/ close to it, pitch up (nose up), and level the wings. Once I got level again I would add the power back in to resume normal cruising speed.

Flying in the mountains in Lesotho!

I am getting close to taking my test and feel I am getting a better grasp on how the instruments work and what they mean. After watching the video I get a wonderful, excited, wanting to jump out of my seat and go into the mission field kind of feeling! 1) It reminds me of Lesotho, flying in between the mountains- I want to go back there asap! 2) The video is one of the final steps before going out into the mission field and God has given me a desire to go there! 3) It's pretty cool the kind of strips they are landing on! A couple weeks back I actually go to land on a small grass strip near Louisville and that was really cool! and 4) because it has the theme song of an awesome flying movie, Top Gun!

One of the air strips in Lesotho on a mountain

God surely has plans for me and I can't wait to get there, but I guess I just need to take it one day at a time because He puts things right where they need to go!

Fly with Christ!
Helen

The Fright of Flight

            God surely has a way of showing me his glory, majesty, creation, and saving power! On Thursday I was flying with my instructor and practicing approaches normally. We had marginal weather with cloud bases around 2000 feet and the tops around 3500 feet. We were popping in and out of the clouds around 3000 feet and were setting up for a hold over the NABB VOR (a specific point from where you start approaches into Clark County Airport (KJVY). I begin to start a turn to come back inbound to the VOR while we are flying through a cloud. I’m controlling the airplane by looking only at the instruments not outside. All of a sudden I see the instruments indicating that we are descending, slowly at first and then faster. I begin to try to fix the error but it was not working. I immediately said, “what’s going on?” My instructor quickly took the yoke and began to attempt to correct the plane’s attitude (the way the plane is oriented- nose down, nose up, turning, etc.) In the mean time I am looking up to see where we were but find that it is a vast whitish- gray sea of cloud. God surely provides safety in time of need because we soon popped out of the cloud in a small opening and could see that we were heading toward the ground. My instructor continued to work with the controls to get the plane under control. We leveled out around 2500 feet I think and then began to ascend back up to 3000 feet and regain our heading correctly.

Back at the hangar looking at the low clouds

            This was the scariest thing I’ve ever gone through because you could not see what was up or down until we popped out of the cloud. It was quite the lesson in trusting God that He will keep us safe and protects us when we are in need. I let my instructor fly the airplane for the next few minutes while I sat there stunned but regained myself. We radioed Louisville approach to tell them we were ready to begin our approach and then I went ahead and took the controls and flew the approach and then we continued back to Bowman field. After we got back to the hangar we talked about what happened and that you have to be careful in IFR weather conditions (cloudy/ marginal weather/ storms, etc.) because something could happen in a split second. We do not know exactly what caused us to go into an unusual attitude but it could have been a combination of a downdraft and turning. It was an interesting and scary way of applying what I learn in studying and training: that being unusual attitude recovery, emergency procedures, and weather phenomena. We did not declare an emergency because we were able to recover the plane before anything really bad happened. We also noticed that ATC (Louisville approach/ Air traffic control) did not contact us that we were below our altitude (which would immediately pop up on their screen as a warning) possibly because we were still above the published altitude for the hold or because they were busy with contacting several planes that were arriving. It was a humbling and eye opening experience that will surely help me when I am flying into the middle of nowhere as a missionary. It is a great lesson in trusting God to help us in our time of need.

Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

Jeremiah 29:11 ^“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare^[a] and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

God not only saves us from physical danger but from spiritual danger from being completely separated from Him and having to live eternally in Hell. God created everything perfect and in his image. He created us and the sky and the animals and nature and everything to be part of his kingdom. Yet sin came into the world and this caused a gap between us and our perfect God. However, Christ came into the world to save us from our sin and from the eternal judgment and took the judgment upon himself even though He was innocent just so that we as believers could come before God and be seen as righteous. In response to this we need to repent of our sin and believe in God and that Christ is the only way to God.

Fly with and trust in Christ for your salvation,

Helen

Sunset: God's wonderful creation!