Greetings from 8° south of the Equator.

As we return to our routine and life here in Merauke we have noticed that some aspects are the same but some have changed. It was nice to return to the same house, neighborhood, eating at our favorite dining locations, and plugging back into our Indonesian church.  Along with the old, God has added some big differences or blessing  into our lives since we have returned. We have been joined by a new family (they actually arrived here while we were on home assignment while our other teammates moved to a new base). Also I have been given the additional role of base manager along with the flying and maintenance work. This means a bit more paperwork, decisions, and new stresses some days.

In this new role of being base manager I find it a great privilege of leading a this amazing  team.  We are made up of 1 other expat family (mentioned above) and 5 hopefully soon to be 6 national staff.  I liken our team to a well oil machine or a NASCAR pit crew.  Each one knowing his/her job/role and is able to do it well.  This is a huge blessing as I step into the base manager role, which has extra responsibilities but is a light yoke because of the quality of our team here.

These pictures were recently taken during our AVSEC (Aviation Securtiy) awareness course that Berto pictured in the upper picture lead for our team.  And even though you can’t see it in the pictures, you know its hot when sitting in the shade you are still wiping sweat off your forehead.

During this transitions of roles we find our team here in Merauke neck deep in maintenance yet again.  These pictures were taken a couple days ago when Julie brought the kids to the hanger to do a writing assignment for school.  According to one of the papers there wasn’t much hope of MAO flying again.  Thankfully though with some more hard work and some TLC we hope to up and flying sometime this month.  I leave the finishing date a bit open ended as licensed man power has been a moving target these days.  Since the kids visit we made some visible progress with the cabin almost all back in and the engine area is all closed up.  Just need to get those floats back under her.