Dec 14th

Well, last week started my official in-country flight training time. That means that I have all my licenses and permissions to fly in Ecuador and can start getting "checked out" in the Ecuadorian air space and in the airstrips that we land in.

I fly with an MAF instructor, but pretty much do all the work of preparation, flying, talking on the radio and customer interaction. He still helps me when I run into something new or unexpected, but more and more I am on my own.

Today I started out expecting to only do one flight that lasted about an hour to a community near the eastern border with Peru called Wirima. The purpose was to take gasoline into the community to support a team that went in yesterday. I´m not sure exactly what the team was doing, but they were members of the Sápara nation. The government of Ecuador, in its infinite wisdom, decided two weeks ago to disallow the mixing of flammable materials on passenger flights. That means that people flying into jungle communities can´t take gas with them! It is very unfair and has no basis on safety, but we must comply. So we flew the work team in yesterday and their fuel in today. That means that for the 40 gallons of fuel that cost about $80.00 in Shell, ended up costing them about $700 by the time it was flown into them.

On the way back, we got a call that an 11 year old boy had been bitten by a snake and needed to be flown out. We had planned a stop in that community (Torimbo) anyway to pick up a school teacher to take out to Shell, so it worked well.

Some of the strips we fly into have limitations on how much weight we can take off with because they are so short and there are tall trees or mountains on the departure path. This was one of them, so in order to get everyone out, we had to take the teacher and one other passenger from Wiririma to a community about 5 min away with a longer strip, go back to Torimbo to pick up the child and his dad, then fly to the other strip to pick up the original passengers, THEN we could make it back to Shell with all of them.

I am very excited to be doing this and being able to help the people in who live in the jungle of Ecuador in this way. I am sure to learn a few phrases in the local language to be able to greet the people in their language as well. Today was all Sápara communties, but they speak the jungle dialect of Quichua. So I learned how to say "good afternoon" in Quichua: Ali chisha. I´m sure that is not how it is spelled, but I write it how I hear it and they seemed to understand me!

We´ll see what I get to do tomorrow!

November Newsletter

It´s been an exciting month for us here in Shell. As the kids get settled in school and we become more adjusted to our lives here, God has really opened up so many ministry opportunities and has blessed us in so many ways.

The most exciting news to share is that I have finally completed all the requirements and I have my commercial pilot´s license! It was a long and somewhat frustrating ordeal, but it was very beneficial to learn the system and meet many people working in the aviation authority along the way. I even got a chance to visit one of the flight schools in Guayaquil here in Ecuador to see firsthand how they are run.

Right now, we are awaiting word from another branch of the aviation authority to approve me to fly specifically for Alas de Socorro. This is something that all the air operators in the jungle go through and we are hoping to hear word any day now. Also, the operations permit for ADSE expires next week and we have yet to hear if it is going to be renewed. Please pray that it will be renewed very soon. If we do not hear anything, we will be forced to cease operations until it is approved.

Earlier in the month, we had a 4 day weekend and the boys in the family took the opportunity to travel into one of the jungle communities on foot. One of the employees of ADSE, Felix Wisum, is a Shuar native and he offered to take us to visit some of the communities where his family lives.

The plan was to start out early in the morning by bus. The first stop was about 3 hours away where we got off the main road and caught another bus along a side road. That bus ride was about an hour and half and it left us at the end of the road. The rest of the way was about a 4 hour walk at a very leisurely pace. We were in no hurry and stopped along the way to see the sights and go swimming.

The first community we stopped at, Saant, had a surprise waiting for us. Little did I know that Felix´s wife had arranged a formal welcome for us complete with ceremony and a delicious feast for lunch! I was overwhelmed at the welcome that was given us by people who had never met us before. The reputation of Alas de Socorro is so strong that the people of this small community (that doesn´t even have an airstrip) felt honored that we would visit them.

But the honor was truly ours as we were given many gifts to commemorate our visit along with the president of the community offering to allow us to stay at his house that night. I enjoyed very much talking with him and learning about the struggles that his people are trying to overcome in the face of changing cultures, growing populations and encroachments from outsiders. They are very hungry to grow in God´s word and a relationship with him and we hope to be able to visit many more times in the future.

We travelled the next day passing through Makuma, the site of the Bible dedication ceremony from our letter two months ago, and then on to another small community where Felix´s brother lives called Kuamar. We enjoyed fishing, swimming and looking at the stars while we got to know Felix´s family better. The final day of our trip took us home with the reverse route. It was very enlightening to experience firsthand the difficulties of travel even to this relatively easy to reach community. Our trip, one way, took about 9 hours total between walking and busses from Felix´s brother´s house to ours, here in Shell. It is a 25 minute flight.

With mixed emotions, we have to share that Sam went home a little earlier than planned. We had hoped to keep him here until the end of the school year, but felt it was in everyone´s best interests to allow him to return home early. We very much enjoyed his stay and we know he has memories and experiences that he will never forget. We hope that he will continue to do well at home and put into practice all the good things he learned by being here in Ecuador.

Even though we are down one member of the family by Sam leaving, we have many new additions! One is a Rottweiler puppy named Ralphie-Girl. Our Rott dog that we had in Florida was Ralph, and we liked the name, but this one is a female. We didn´t plan on getting a dog, but we had some unfortunate dealings with thieves, so we thought it would be good to get a guard dog.

We also have our very own flock of chickens. One of the areas that many indigenous people living in the jungle of Ecuador face is lack of edible meat. As communities grow, the hunting becomes very scarce. Additionally, they pay about $3 for EACH shotgun shell. They face many difficulties with a protein-deficient diet and have very few sources of protein. So we are going to learn how to raise chickens to supply eggs and meat and pass on to the communities who are interested in learning about this to supplement their diet. We spoke at length with the people of Saant and Kuamar about this project and they are very excited. While they do own chickens, they run wild and they don´t know how to keep self-sustaining flocks or collect eggs, so they are not very useful.

This is another way you might help us. If you know anything about farming chickens, goats, pigs, fish (Tilapia), you can help us! We will be sharing more information about this project as it develops, but we have a lot to learn. This is going to be a great way for us to meet people and not only help them with a physical need, but share God´s love with them and become better disciple makers!

We commit everything we do to God,

David, Maggy, Joni Karina, Joshua, Jonathan, Jennifer