On His Wings of Love: June 2015

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Base Life

Greetings,

Well we've been in the guesthouse apartment for just over a week now. No more worries about power outages here, when the power goes out just wait 10sec and it's back on via the base generator. Base life does have some perkes. The move went smoothly getting most of our stuff back into storage to wait for our move to Merauke early next year. My motorcycle is not seeing many miles at the moment now that I walk across the street for work. Hopefully I can fix that on the weekends with some rides.

The kids are enjoying having easy access to friends to play with during the day. New challenges for mom and dad "setting boundaries" so that there is a balance between family time and friend time. They've started some homeschooling as well, which has been going well from what I hear.

The month of June was a full one in my flight log book which is exciting for me. I was able to put 60+ hours into my log book almost all of which under the PIC (Pilot in Command) column. I had the privilege of serving a missionary family in Bokondini with a couple (some what rare) flights into Bokondini. Along with those flights I was able to serve the villages of Bime, Borme, Kiwirok, Kobakma, Mamit, Mulia and Nongme with several flights in and out carrying supplies and passengers.

July is around the corner now well pretty much here already. July we will be traveling back to Canada for a mini home assignment. We depart Sentani July 26th and head to Jakarta then on the 27th we depart Jakarta for the long journey around the globe arriving in the evening of July 28th. Not bad only 24 hours oh but wait, we are suppose to gain a day traveling back to Canada, so it turns out be 40+ hours travel time. There will also be a 12 hour layover in Seoul that we will have as well. So we ask for strength and endurance as we make our way back to Canada later this month.

Once on the ground in Canada we have a few things planned out schedule wise. Here is a rough calendar for our time in Canada.

August Training/Rest
September 1st to 30th Central, Alberta
October 1st to 6th Waldheim, Saskatchewan
October 7th to 19th Central, Alberta
October 20th to 26th Sayward, BC
October 31st Depart back to Indonesia

Please contact us if there is a date that we can put something in common down on our calendar with your calendar.

email: gregjuliefij@gmail.com or gdole@maf.org

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Power's Out Again

Well as our days living on Pos 7 are coming to a close, we got to experience one more (we hope our last) extended power outage. Last Saturday as it commonly happens during my Skype call with family the power goes out. Okay not to worry this happens often, it's just one of those annoying things that seem to happen regularly, during my Skype calls. Later in the day the power does return but it is already after my window of opportunity for finishing my visit with family. Oh well, there is next weekend. Well the day was a bit breezy and so the power was off and on a couple more times that afternoon, but still no big deal. Then a little after 10:00 p.m. the power goes out again. Still not a big deal other than it gets a little warm without the AC's. Usually the power comes back on in a couple of hours but this time we wake up Sunday morning still without power. We just thought maybe a tree fell on the line last night and they'll clear it today, however it is Sunday so who knows. It turns out that a new building that was under construction was built too close to the power lines. It's a miracle no one was killed working that close to the high voltage lines. Anyway the wind was swinging the power lines enough that they were contacting the building and shorting out the whole town of Sentani. Later on Sunday it comes to light that there is a power struggle between the power company and the building owner on who is going to budge. Either the building corner needs to be trimmed back or the power lines moved. And then there is the question of who is going to pay for it. This all is happening of course Sunday when offices are closed and decisions can't really be made. Which means the the power stays off. I'll be honest it was hard to keep a good attitude when driving by the problem area Sunday night and the area with the offending building still had power and everyone else down line was cut off. It seemed a bit hopeless as the only motivation for the building owner to do anything was pressure from his neighboring community as he still had power.

Thankfully we have a great team of friends here that helped clear some space in their fridges and freezers so we could keep our food from going bad. Eating by candle light is a nice change every once and while.

Monday roles around and I head off to fly my schedule like any other day thinking that this situation at home without power could go on for days and maybe we should move to the base earlier than planned. However it's amazing even here where things seem to take 2, 3 times or even longer then they should to get resolved, the was power back on at the house by the time I returned from my last flight of the day. Turns out that the builder did in fact have a proper building permit, and so the power company decided to pursue the Government to pay the bill to move the power lines being that they issued the permit to build in that location. As you can imagine there was a great cry of joy when the power came back on.

In other news our house is upside down in the middle of our move back to base in a little over a week from now. Julie and the kids made some good progress yesterday while I was out enjoy the skies of Papua. Today I'm at home helping were I can as well Julie and I will start to plan out our home assignment that is coming this summer. We will be back in Alberta sometime late July and will be returning to Indonesia end of October. As we work out details of where we will be and dates we'll be sure to communicate that as best we can. We would like to see as many people as we can so don't be shy please contact us if we don't contact you first.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

More Right Aileron Trim Required

Thankfully the solution was provided on Wednesday of last week for our IFR problem that had arose the previous week that I mentioned in our last blog. After taking care of that problem then came the a PFR (proficiency flight review) the next day which was successfully completed. With both of these items behind me the right seat next to me became vacant, and the airplane was a bit left wing heavy. Okay maybe not enough to make a noticeable difference! I couldn't have asked for a better day for my first solo flight here in Papua. It's not very often you can see the top of Cyclops (mountain between Sentani and the Pacific Ocean) 100 miles out. On the return leg I had the privilege of bringing seven passengers with me that wanted to get to Sentani. I was a little concerned about having passengers for the return trip knowing what awaited me back on the ground in Sentani. The ground crew was good about getting the passengers off the plane before the traditional soaking commenced. It also happened to be the kids first day of summer vacation so all the kids from the base along with ours had a great time joining in the water throwing.

Waiting for papa.

Waiting by the radio

Short Final

Taxing in to park

Good time had by all

Yep Franklin is now taller than mom.

Alva getting a wet shoulder.

After a quick change of cloths and handing in the paperwork our family climbed into another plane captained by Uncle Steve (my instructor pilot prior to my solo) and headed to Wamena to visit friends. This was the first time out into the interior for Julie and the kids. Saturday we ventured out for a drive and found a cool cave to explore. The boys seemed fearless, Jaclynn however was a bit nervous. The Wamena weather is cooler for sure but this Canadian blood isn't completely thinned out yet, but it's not as thick as it once was 2 years ago. Sunday we ventured out again and found a suspension bridge that well you'll see the pictures. Then we flew back via Trigana Monday afternoon.