(above) In March I attended an aviation seminar to renew my license along with other UIM Aviation staff.

Family

So I’ve been putting off writing this letter, hoping that by some miracle we would get paperwork for Carolina to come to the Northwest with us. Well, the reality is that we don’t even have legal custody of her yet, which puts a major damper on any international travel. So, I’ve finally decided to postpone our summer trip until next year. Lord willing by then we will have legal custody of Carolina. I would just delay our trip, and move it into the fall, but that would probably be too disruptive to the children’s school year, AND Lydia has agreed to come back for another year to teach the kids! Praise God for that wonderful help!.

When I first started into the process of trying to adopt Carolina, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake, after all, she was pretty much abandoned with Delia’s parent’s in Samachique, along with her dying grandmother. What I didn’t count on was the fact that people who abandon children and their parents don’t generally have the capacity to go out of their way for other people. Despite the lack of real progress in terms of legal custody, I am more confident than ever that in the Lord’s timing, Carolina will be our child. Please continue to pray toward that end.

We just finished building a chicken coop for our new chickies.

Aviation

The aviation program has been operating fairly smoothly recently. Only a few minor hiccups in the maintenance department. Of course there are always things to improve or fix at the hangar. Brent has been really focused on getting wind socks put up at more of the local airstrips, which has not taken much effort on my part, but I have enjoyed making trips to the airstrips to do work, it’s good to visit with folks in the villages. Also recently I’ve been working really hard on a computer program for the pilots and mechanics. It’s basically just a flight/maintenance log, that the pilots can fill out on their i-pads “on the fly”. All of the data that they input will sync back to the home office automatically thus reducing multiple redundant e-mails, and paperwork. It’s also going to be great for statistics and reporting on costs/hr. etc. Anyways, I’ve been working on it for a while in my free time (and now almost full time) and am really closing in on a finished product for the team. While working on this computer program I’ve been learning a new skill on the job, and I enjoy it a lot too. For those of you who make donations, the receipts that I send out for MMM are created and stored using the same computer program, (not that you really wanted or needed to know that, but now you do!).

We continue to fly missionaries and patients in both the UIM Cessna and the Hospital’s Carbon Cub. Both aircraft are working great and are used frequently, which is good for us in a lot of ways. Both Brent and I need to keep practicing the skills we have to stay on top of our game, and the aircraft engines need to be run so that they don’t get all dried up and rusty. Also on the emotional side of things, if there are no flights, the question arises “why in the world am I here?”. I’m sure you can see what I mean when I say that there is a certain level of activity that helps facilitate a higher level of professionalism.

We miss you all, and look forward to seeing you, when the Lord permits.

Sincerely,
Dave and Delia