A life less comfortable

The following is the story of a, perhaps, prophetic t-shirt given to Steve by our daughter Megan several years ago. One Christmas our daughter Megan ordered a t-shirt online for her dad. The shirt had an outline of a little airplane with the words "Give Props" above the said image. It was cute since Steve is a pilot of  small airplanes and around that time we were raising money for a new propeller for our Gabon program's Cessna 207. Fast forward to last Fall 2017 when Steve was contacted by Ron- a pilot who was considering donating his airplane, a Diamond DA20, to MAG.  Ron had been renting a few planes he owned to local flight instructors and was ready to move away from that rental business. Ron had heard of MAG through Damon Whitlow, one of the flight instructors who had rented the Diamond aircraft from Ron. Whitlow was a volunteer for MAG at the time. Steve initially asked Ron to consider another organization to donate the Diamond aircraft as MAG has a small fl...

Abrielle Braxton, my dear friend and teammate crossed over to the other side of eternity on December 6th. I met Abrielle about this time last year at our MAG Christmas party. She and her husband Joel came into town for the festive occasion. They had been poised and ready to launch onto the field to be MAG missionaries in Rus Rus, Honduras nearly three years ago when Abrielle was diagnosed with cancer. Since that time she and her amazing husband Joel had been fighting against the cancer with chemo, radiation and, most recently, a bone marrow transplant. They moved to Burlington, NC last February as they had been given positive results that the cancer was gone and they had been put on a maintenance schedule to have regular check ups. We were thrilled to receive them and have them on staff with us.                                             Abrielle and I work...

Healthy, Resilient, & Effective in Cross-Cultural Ministry by Laura Mae Gardner is the latest book I've been reading, highlighting, and bookmarking. This book calls itself, "a comprehensive member care plan." As I am the Member Care Coordinator for MAG, Missionary Air Group, it makes sense I am carefully engaged within the pages. What is member care? I'm so glad you asked! I will quote the sample job description from Gardner's book, "to prepare, equip, strengthen and empower our staff for effective life and service within our organization... and beyond!" Sometimes I've described member care as the soft skills required for effect international workers. In MAG's case we specialise in aviation that primarily supports medical missions in Guatemala, Honduras and Gabon. The technical skills of the job are obvious, you must know how to fly a plane and maintain it. As an international worker you likely will need to learn another language and cul...

 A few weeks ago I was able to join some dear friends to pause life a bit and linger together. We talked about all kinds of things but what truly anchors us is not our classic canvas chucks but our shared striving after a Spirit-led life.  Leanne's Prius carried us miles stretched across smooth ribbons of road. In the air conditioned hybrid we found our conversation drawn to the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5-7 The Message (MSG) You’re Blessed 5 1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said: 3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. 4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. 5 “You’re blessed when you’re cont...

I thought this year was supposed to be like the CoverGirl commercial back in the day, " Easy, breezy, beautiful. " We were given a wonderful opportunity to come back to Cameroon to live and work with SIL Aviation and be with Sam for his senior year of high school. Win, win, win! What could go wrong?! I took the scary, exhilarating, brave step to go back to school after a 20 year absence by taking classes online. Steve dove into his assignment with the aviation department with gusto. Sam rejoined his classmates at RFIS after a year long absence. We joined into the community excited to connect with friends and UBAC kiddos. We reunited with old friends and made new ones. Things were going along swimmingly. I started jogging and ran my first 5k after many years of not having a regular exercise regime. Megan came to visit during Christmas time and we had wonderful time together reconnecting as a family and exploring beautiful new parts of Cameroon. LIFE INTERRUPTED  The...