Springtime In Michigan

        Spring has arrived here in Michigan!  This has been a wonderful time for our family as we are not use to having spring this early or to have it arrive this warm.  We are finding it really strange that we have now being mowing our lawns for about four weeks now and friends and family in Canada are still getting snow.  Definitely this is something that we could get use to! Along with this wonderful weather our family have found spring to be a very busy and fun time.  Between school, studying, bible studies, preparing sermons, visiting churches, and yard work we are having a blast.  Isn't it amazing how much fun you can having serving the Lord thorough so many different ways.  Here are some pictures of what we have been up to over the past month and a half.

This is Jaclynn standing in our backyard in the middle of March.  Who would of thought we would be having two weeks of 85 to 88 degree weather!

Greg sharing an update on our family and then sharing the word of God with one of our supporting Churches at the end of March.

A wonderful supporting church that we had the great privilege visiting in March.           

For spring break the kids and Julie spent time with my family is southern Michigan.  So her is Jaclynn enjoying time with her aunt!

The park had an Easter egg hunt for different age groups so here is Isaac waiting for the horn to blow.  Each group had around 60 kids looking for eggs so it was pretty crazy.

With having only one vehicle sometimes there is some waiting involved.  Here we have Isaac and Jaclynn resting after riding their bikes at the airport while we wait for Greg to return from a flight.

Finally,  here comes Greg in for a landing after having a great Saturday morning flight!
In my defense I was a few minutes late but they did show up early as well:-)

  This is the wonderful church that we have been attending while in Michigan.

Jaclynn with some of her Sunday school class on Easter morning as they sang a song and read a poem for the whole church.

Isaac and Franklin sang with a choir on Easter morning and sang two beautiful songs.  I was a little worried as they had Isaac stand right in front of the microphone. Thankfully, he was to busy with remembering the words to do something silly in front of the whole church.

The children in the Easter morning attire.  Notice that both our boys are in ties.  This has been there latest grown-up purchase which means that poor daddy wears a tie most Sunday's so he can keep up with the boys.

This is how my children normally pose for a picture!

Most evening you will find Greg and I hitting his text books as he will be taking his air frame license exam at the end of April.

                                     

      Thank you for keeping our family in your prayers as our remaining four months in Michigan are starting to look very busy.  As we wrap up the ladies bible study over the next few weeks, I have the privilege of jumping right into working with a team from our church as we prepare for VBS at the end of June.  Greg also has many different exams to take along with his daily classes plus he has a couple trips possibly.  One is still up in the air as he is looking at traveling to Canada briefly to write a couple written exams to upgrade his Canadian pilots licence.  And the other one is to Nampa, Idaho which is booked for the first week in July for another flight evaluation for MAF.  All three children have about a month and a half left until they are on summer vacation.  Then comes the most stressful and busy time of packing up and saying good-bye to all our new friends here in Michigan and heading to a new place.  At the end of August we will hopefully have the country that they are planning to send us to decided and the time table for our remaining time here finallized.  As well our family still needs to raise the remaining 12% ($792) of our monthly support that is still needed before we head oversea's.  Thank you to all our faithful friends, family, pray partners, and supporters.  You guys are wonderful and we are so blessed to have you in our lives!

Blessings

Certificates

As I have been working on getting a US Airframe & Powerplant Certificate I have also been spending some of my extra time jumping through the hops of getting a US Commercial Pilot Certificate with an Instrument rating.  Which has involved a couple written exams and what seems to be a lot of paperwork.  The paperwork may have been a lot less if I had of just filled the forms out error free the firs time ;-).  Now that this is out of the way I'm starting preparation for my first round of oral and practical exams that coincide with the general written exam I took last fall and the airframe written that I have scheduled on the 24th of April.  Once these are complete I will be halfway there so to speak as I will have the A portion of the final goal for the A&P Certificate.  I have attached a few recent pictures of the different projects I have been working on in class. 

First up is the alternator project that we each were given.  I forgot to take a before picture but there was a couple left untouched which gives a good idea of what my started out looking like.  Yes they are car alternators but they function pretty much the same as airplane alts. 

Here is the first picture on my project specifically, at this point I have disassembled cleaned with mineral spirits and started to bead blast the case. 

At this point all the cleaning is done and the testing of the winding's is complete, and the first coat of paint has been applied. 

Someone leaving parts from their project behind on my work space.  A nasty trick if someone wasn't paying attention and later tries to figure out where this extra piece was suppose to go.  

Painting finished and getting ready to reassemble, and put on the bench tester.

 Project complete and pasted the bench test.  I wouldn't however want to put this in my vehicle unless I was in a pinch.  Even after repacking the bearings it was still pretty noisy, not to mention there wasn't much left of the slip rings after I dressed the groves out of it.

All in all though it did work which is better than some of the other projects some of which fell victim to impatience and large hammers and others just outright didn't work from the get go.

This and the following pics are of a patch on a wet wing style of fuel tank that used to be a part of a Musketeer.  It's probably a good thing that this tank will never have to hold fuel again.  The hole that I'm patching is the one on the right the left hole is where the fuel cap goes 

The hole started out small but because it is inaccessible to the other side I had to make it large enough to get tools in through itself, by tools I mean a bucking bar which is a smooth piece of metal that  is used in conjunction with a rivet gun to drive the aluminum rivets that will be used to hold my doubler in place.  The tape is helping me draw out the placement of all the rivet holes I will drill into the tank skin and the double that is sitting above the tape in the pic.

With the doubler held in place with a couple cleco's I can now prepare a door that will screw on to the  nutplates that I will rivet on to the doubler as well.

 The black swill is in place and the clecos are being replaced with rivets.

 The custom made bucking bar to reach in the hole to buck the back side of the rivets.

All the rivets bucked managed to get most of them in without to many smiley faces.

The rest of the black swill is installed the door is screwed in place should be leak proof in theory.

Isaac's B-Day Pics

Birthday's are wonderful things particularly for kids.  Isaac celebrated his 7th birthday yesterday in aviation style.  Not sure where we got that Idea :-), dad may have been instrumental on that one.  We had along a friend of Isaac's from church and we set off for an adventure at the Airzoo in Kalamazoo.  We had a grand time looking at planes and riding rides and the full motion simulator seemed to be the biggest hit for the kids.  We ended our day with supper and more gaming things at Chuck E Cheese not Dad's Idea but he survived!  All in all we had a great time celebrating Isaac's birthday.  Hope you enjoy some of our pictures from our adventure.  I also added some of these pictures to The Kids Corner page

Franklin found his plane.

Jaclynn's space station design.

Isaac getting ready for space travel.

There was even a good looking women there.

Franklin to the rescue.

Jaclynn's turn to travel in to space

Hang on Isaac we'll save you!

Up up and away.

"Almost ready for my first solo."

First solo

Reporting for duty sir.

"Who did what to the general's car?"

"He did it."

"I miss driving the generals car."

"What about my wings?"

"Roger Five Niner Zulu left turn to heading 095" 

Our Isaac Newton

"Let me show you how it's done Franklin"

"I think this is how it's done"

Counting the Cost

    A fellow classmate shared the following story on his family's blog and it cut me to the heart. I wanted to share this story as well, not to bring glory to Phil or our classmate that lived this story but to show the kind of heart that I desire to have, "that there is nothing more important than following Jesus". I hope that I can encourage those that read this to also place Jesus in such a place in your heart.

Greg

Imagine this scenario… 


    A young family walks into a pawn shop. While mom and dad engage in conversation with the shop owners, the older son peruses trinkets while the younger son stays close to his parents. As they slip off their wedding rings and exchange them for cash, the younger son begins to cry. His tall boisterous father kneels down to make eye contact with his son and asks what is the matter. Through bitter sobs the boy says, “You and mommy are taking off your wedding rings and I want you and mommy to always be married. Does this mean that you and mommy are not married?” 


    The father stills and pulls the boy into his arms and gently rocks him. He whispers into his ear, “My son, your mommy and I will always be married. Our rings are only an expression of the vows that we have made in our heart. Our vows will never change or go away. Today, mommy and daddy sold our rings so we could follow Jesus and move to America to be trained as missionaries. This is our moment and, though it is sad to sell our rings, there is nothing more important than following Jesus. So we give up everything to follow Him, even if that means giving up something that we care a lot about. But, mommy and daddy will always be married.” 


    He hugs the boy again and wipes the tears from his cheeks. “Do you understand?” 


   “Yes Papa, I understand,” replies the son. 
________________________________________________________________ 


    This is the story of one of my classmates at SMAT. He and his bride sold not only their wedding rings but much more because they consider the call to missions a privilege and an honor. They consider the Gospel the greatest treasure on earth. 


    It is humbling to see the sacrifices of others for the sake of the Gospel. It is an encouragement and a blessing to rub shoulders with men and women who’s focus is on Christ alone. We know that we will be called to sacrifice as we pursue God’s calling for our lives, but it is nothing compared to the sacrifice that Christ made on our behalf. 


    May you be encouraged and spurred on by the testimony of our friends, and may you know that knowing Christ is the greatest treasure in the entire world. 


Phil Vana

Halfway Point

     I could hardly believe it when Greg brought it to my attention that we are now halfway through our time here in Michigan and for Greg's course. Which means in a few more months I have to start thinking of packing again and preparing to move again. This time around should be so much more fun to pack with my mother close by as she is great a packing a huge amount of things into a box or suitcase. Our household has been extremely busy over these past weeks as we have found ourselves involved with many different ministry's, school projects, and extra challenges.  Greg has been enjoying his bible studies with different men from school and now he is preparing to lead our adult Sunday school class at church for a few weeks.  He even had the privilege of leading the Wednesday night study last week for our church.  I am so proud of how Greg has willing followed God's leading as he has stepped into these roles which have nothing to do with airplanes.  Sometimes I think that going to school is the easier part of Greg's day as God has been asking him to step out of his comfort zone and do different things.  A few weeks ago I started hosting the ladies bible study in our own home and I really enjoy having all the ladies over as we fellowship together and learn more about Him.  Of course I think that Franklin enjoys having the study here more then me because that means he doesn't have to start school until after lunch time!  And last week we had a special visitor from Alberta (our brother-in-law) who was in the area for training was able to come for the weekend and catch up.  I love Isaac's reaction when we told him who was here.  He said, "what in the world is he doing all the way over here for?"  It was a great visit and Greg was even able to take him flying so he really got a good look around.  The children were even able to send a message on video back to grandma and grandpa through their uncle.  All the children are doing great and it seems like their favorite thing to do lately is EAT!!  We just went through a few weeks of all three of the children going through growth spurts at the same time and they ate us out of house and home.  Thank you for all your prayers and support as we continue to serve here in Michigan.

 Look what Greg found in Michigan!

                                                   

Taste almost like home!

                                                         

Welcome to Michigan Andy!

                                                       

Franklin hard at work doing his school.

                                               

Practicing up for when the snow gets here, do they get snow in Michigan?

                                             

Mechanics

Some may wonder why is the mechanic's license is require?  Which is a fair question.  Well some might think it is so I can fix things in the jungle when the plane breaks.  Which is somewhat true but it is rare for this to happen as aircraft used in mission type work like we will be involved with tend to be maintained at a higher level than other general aviation (GA) aircraft.  And for good reason, as we are operating these aircraft in harsher environment than the typical GA aircraft of North America.  So if fixing the airplane on a remote jungle strip is not the main purpose of getting this training what is it?  There are a few reasons and yes one of them is the above situation it's just not the main reason as I have come to understand.  Most mission aviation bases have limited resources and for efficiency proposes by allowing programs to run with fewer maintenance specialists on staff.  If the pilots are able and qualified to pitch in with the basic routine maintenance tasks not only in the physical aspect of doing the work itself but also being able to do the paperwork as well.  This frees the maintenance specialist to focus on the larger projects and the more serious repair work.  This skill also increases our skills as a pilot in the way that we have a more intimate working knowledge of our aircraft making us more proficient in it's operation and dealing with emergencies.

In a nut shell this training will allow me to be apart of a more efficient team on the field as well as a better rounded pilot as to what I would be if I was heading to the field with just a pilot's license in toe.

Snow Day?

I'm not in Canada anymore!  It's 37 F (3 C) outsides with some fog and mist which calls for school closures?  I braved the trip into school, well not really I was already there before I was informed of the closure.  Isaac however did get the day off and was prompt in rubbing it in as he sent me a couple emails throughout the day telling me what he was doing on his day off. This affords me some extra time this morning to share some of the things that God is working on in my life I guess.

Since acquiring the title of missionary, reading has become a little more important in my life, not that it wasn't important before.  Anyway I have just recently finished reading Don't Waste your Life by John Piper.  And yes I have been working through this small book for the almost a year now (I'm a slow reader unlike my wife).  I'd also would highly recommend others to read this as well.  One of the main points that I pickup on was where are my priorities or treasures?  Questions like where am I spending my time, money, gifts & talents?  Really these questions should be asked where am I spending God's time, money, gifts & talents that have been in-trusted into my care?  As I work through questions like these I'm realizing that there are some real lifestyle implications.  Thankfully the Lord is gracious as we seek Him more as we work through these lifestyle changes to bring more glory to our Awesome Creator.

Finishing off one book I have now moved on to a new one.  One in fact that was an assignment of sorts that I was given by the CBP Officer that processed our paperwork when crossing into the US last summer.  The book is titled Like a Mighty Wind by Mel Tari with Cliff Dudley.  I've only made it to chapter 3 and already really enjoying the book.  So far the book has been an account of Mel experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in very real and physical way.  An experience similar to the one you can find in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the book, it is also written more in a reading level that I can handle with my limited reading skills.  So hopefully I can finish this one a little sooner than my last read :).