jubilate's Xanga

Minneapolis

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:21:31 GMT

Jonathan (Kristen's brother), Rachel and Miriam joined us in Michigan and Grandma and Grandpa's place.

It was the first time we met our one and only niece. We're soaking in every minute we get to spend with her.

Bwoston in the Fwall

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:50:08 GMT

We're just loving it! Here are a few pictures from our days exploring Boston with Daniel and Tanya.

Boston Harbour:

Lunch at UNO'S

Bird's eye view of Boston from the Prudential Tower

Skydiving gone bad?

Plum Island

Paul Revere's House

Downtown church

Lynch Park on the ocean. Just a few minutes from Daniel and Tanya's house

Some guy named George on a horse

Cannoli's - a new experience for us, but one to be repeated

We may get mango and pineapple but we sure don't get these

Sweet juicy Honey Crisp Apples.

In 10 minutes we'll be starting our drive west (as soon as Kristen is done packing...)

See you soon.

House Panorama & King Julian

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:56:01 GMT

Ryan had a good trip to Madagascar and successfully acquired a Malagasy CPL. Finding themselves with a free afternoon, he and another pilot visited the Lemur Park where they greeted King Julian of I-Like-To-Move-It-Move-It fame.

Now Ryan is back into the busy swing of things here in Juba. Officially, he flies on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays. In reality, he sometimes ends up flying on other days, too. What is supposed to happen is that the one (soon to be two) other pilot with a Malagasy license comes up from Nairobi to fly from Tuesday through Thursday so Ryan can work in the office coordinating and scheduling flights. But, things come up and it doesn't always work the way it is supposed to! Meanwhile, I continue to wade through finances and HR stuff. I have also started doing some ESL with our Sudanese staff. We are really looking forward to being up here when the Hageneiers (the other Juba-based pilot and his family, currently on home assignment) are back--it will be much less hectic! Not to mention that we enjoy their company, too.

And here is a rather funky, and slightly blurry, panorama which at least gives you an idea of what the inside of our house looks like! Doing a panorama inside a rectangular room produces interesting angles in the picture. Sprawled out on the living room floor is a MAF dog named Ketchup who has wormed his way into our hearts, in spite of his high-pitched howling at night.

We have almost exactly a month before we leave for our home assignment. We're counting down the days until we can be with our family and friends in North America, but still feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the work that needs to be done before we go!

House Pics - Part 1 and a Surprise!

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:28:08 GMT

Several of you have asked for pictures of our house, or have asked what it is like living in a metal house in Juba. No, it's not like living in an oven--although this is the cool season, so maybe you should ask again when we're back in January (after spending December in Winnipeg!). There are ceiling fans in every room which really make a difference to keep temps down. When the generator is on (or in the rare event of Juba town power!) we can use the air conditioning in the bedroom. We're going to take a panorama of the inside of the house, but for now these are the pictures that I have.

Ryan went to Madagascar for a week to convert his license so he can fly a Madagascar-registered plane that we have in Juba, and of course he took our camera with him--so we'll get more house pics when he returns! And we'll probably have some interesting Madagascar photos to post as well. He is enjoying Madagascar and yesterday he said they were going to a lemur park.

Meanwhile in Juba, I had quite a surprise yesterday! I went to visit the Ministry of Regional Cooperation to deliver a letter. Everybody was very helpful, and I was finally ushered into the office of the person who could help me--and there was Kila, a friend of ours from high school! I did not expect to walk into a government office in Juba to be greeted with "Kristen!" and a big hug!! What a small world.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:49:39 GMT

Just a couple more pictures to share from Juba:

Juba airport

Timo Hageneier helping clean the plane

Our MAF office. We have a plastic table and chairs under the covered area to the left where we have devotions and any other meetings.

The inside view of our office.

Sometimes communication is a challenge...

Relaxing on the banks of the Nile.

As we drove in town one day we came across an area with lots of tanks and other remnants of war. On our side of town we don't have any of this--it was a startling reminder of what had been happening in this country for decades before the current Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Please pray for continued peace in Sudan. On the 22nd, the Hague will announce a decision regarding the border between the north and south. Pray that this decision will be received peacefully. We have had a request to be prepared to "relocate" (nobody uses the word "evacuate"!) one organization working in the border area, but let's pray that it doesn't come to that

Pictures from Nairobi and Juba

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:25:38 GMT

Here are a few more photos of Juba and our last month in Nairobi. One of the new things for me this year was that I started running again and I got to take part in 2 different 10K runs in Nairobi. It was a challenge but I really enjoyed it! Here I am with my running partner Jill after the fundraiser run for Bible Translation and Literacy.

Before we left Nairobi our small group from church had a farewell party for us. They even brought a cake and then insisted that we feed it to each other (because we hadn't done that at our wedding!). We really miss this group and look forward to reconnecting with them when we visit Nairobi.

Now for some Juba pictures. Here is a group of ladies that visited a local tailor shop (behind us in the photo). This tailor is well-known for his good stitching and he’s quite reasonable, too (especially considering the ridiculously high prices for everything else here in Juba!).

Here are a couple pictures from around our neighborhood. This street is just outside our compound, and this shop is at the end of that street. The shopkeeper here doesn’t speak any English, so we are working on our Juba Arabic!

Last weekend we climbed the Jebel (which means “hill”) just outside Juba. It was beautiful. That's Juba in the background--it's actually pretty big.

Juba!

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:02:58 GMT

We've arrived! Two years later than expected but here we are. We touched down on Sudanese soil the on Tuesday morning after spending the night in Loki. We've had a busy first week - Kristen finishing up some papers for her Minnesota teaching license, while I was flying every day. It was sad to say goodbye to so many friends in Nairobi but we are really glad to finally be here.

Crossing the Nile just before landing in Juba.

Ethiopian with our MAF colleagues the night before we left

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Tue, 26 May 2009 04:09:44 GMT

One of Kristen's French students thought he recognized her last name. Then he remembered that he had done a report on MAF a few years ago and had mentioned me within the paper. He gave the paper to Kristen who brought it home to share with me. I read through the paper, learning all about MAF's achievements and various programs worldwide. It was well done. It made me proud to be flying with MAF. Then I got to the last page...

After a compliment like that what can you do but take the guy flying! It finally worked out this Saturday for Daniel to come along on a flight up the Rift to Lodwar. Daniel is now in 11th grade and has already started training for his PPL. He hopes to finish this summer. He grew up in Tanzania and often flew with MAF there, which sparked his interest in aviation. After highschool he plans to finish is CPL and gain experience in the airline industry and maybe one day also fly with MAF.

Changes, May 10 2009

Sat, 16 May 2009 04:29:02 GMT

Today marks the beginning of change for us. We’ve been putting it off long enough, but after I made the suggestion this afternoon that maybe we should start packing it wasn’t long before our living room was a mess of boxes and suitcases. Our move to Juba is scheduled for June 8. We’ll try and send a bit of stuff up every week on regular MAF flights starting this Monday when I fly up to spend the week assisting the Juba base. Somehow deciding what to send and when to send it is more challenging than it feels it should be.

Every weekend this last month we’ve been out of the city cramming in as much of Kenya as we can. We’ll certainly miss living here – our friends, our church, delicious fresh fruit, beautiful landscapes, Snoopy…not so much the chaotic traffic and waking up 6 am on Saturday’s to haul water because there isn’t enough pressure to reach our inner tank.

I hitched a ride a few weeks back in MAF’s pressurized PC12. Leaving flight level 270 for descent into Nairobi, Kilimanjaro appeared crystal clear above the clouds and was covered in snow. This is fairly uncommon these days. Kili has lost massive amounts of snow over the last few decades. Seeing it so full of snow now we decided it would be a good time to go camping in Amboseli, a game park just north of the mountain. So last weekend we did. Some friends from Rosslyn joined us and of course I was explaining numerous times how much snow there would be and how awesome the views were going to be. We were only in the park a few hours before the clouds cleared giving us our first sight of the highest mountain in Africa. Except there was no snow! I was mildly embarrassed. It seems it was just the lighting on the mountain when I saw it from the air that gave it the appearance of being snow-covered. Even without the snow we were still able to enjoy the abundance of wildlife in the park.

- Looks like snow to me...I saw it twice like this in a month

But really there ain't so much.

You always hear about monkeys and bananas but I wouldn't have thought they would really prefer them over any other kind of fruit. After seeing how this monkey reacted I think differently. She (I know that because of a distinctive lack of fluorescent blue) caught sight of them from 30 meters away, ran straight on to our hood, and starting pawing at the windshield. I lowered my window just a crack and she ran to my side and stuck her arm through as far as she could. Quite entertaining but they're really quite a nuisance around the campsite.

This is at a place called Old Fangak. Jill Seaman is a doctor from Alaska and has been here for around 20 years I think. We fly meds, staff, patients in and out supporting the hospital.
I don't know the story of this Hawker-Siddeley 748 but it makes for a great playground. There's another one sitting a hundred meters off the end of the strip. That one went off the end thinking he was at a different strip than he was. There are quite a few airstrips in this swampy section near the Nile and the one he thought he was at is a few hundred meters longer - which he found out the hard way. More fun for the kids I guess...

And the answer is.....

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:06:21 GMT

Thanks for those who responded. Most thought the plane was taking off because: 1.) The plane does not have landing flaps down and 2.) I left Graeme on the ground in Pagak and therefore he could only have taken a picture when taking off.

In response to that I'd say in this picture and at this angle it's pretty difficult to distinguish between 20 and 30 degrees flaps. I reread the article and I see it was a bit ambiguous as to what happened to Graeme after I dropped him off in Pagak. I actually did go back and pick him up, so he did catch me on takeoff and landing as you can see below.

The most significant difference, as Mathias suggested, is the dust, which you don't find when the plane is landing. So congratulations Mathias. Now who are you?

Continuing on the same theme I pose my next question: In this picture, is Snoopy taking off or landing?