A Wing & A Prayer

The first half of May Don spent in front of his computer working on the scheduling tool he is developing with the other scheduler Mark. We are trying to devise a system where we can enter the data once and have it appear automatically in the several different places it’s needed. We have a set of Excell spreadsheets that we have been using and Don has been modifying them and adding several additional spreadsheets to hold the multitude of information. Then as we use these spreadsheets we find problems or errors which we then have to fix. Sort of USE-FIX-USE approach.

March has been quite a struggle from the beginning. We brought 18 Moravians to Anchorage on 22 February but were only able to get 9 back a week later on 2 March. And even then we had to fly them Soldotna so we could trade airplanes because the left brake on the one we had did not work well enough to go into village strips. By the time we landed, fueled the new airplane and got airborne again we ran out of time to pick up a pastor Kraft and his family and plane load of household goods (he was moving to Kenai).

Hello again supporters and friends. We are back in Alaska and were re-introduced to Alaskan weather with beautifully clear skies and temperatures in the –30°F range in the mornings. This lasted about two weeks and today we had a high of 40°F. We’ve also seen several moose in our yard – yep we’re home.

...............................................................................................–28°F on our doorstep......

On 2 October, Brian and I were part of a three plane flotilla that flew pastors and their families into the camp at Port Alsworth, that is just over the Alaska Range west of Soldotna. Brian and I flew several of the Arctic Barnabus Staff, who were running the family retreat, on the first leg of the day. Then we went down towards the Aleutian Chain to Larsen Bay to pick up Debbie Hill and five of her kids. Then it was a hop over the mountains to Kodiak to pick up Allen & Linda Ross.

On 1 September we flew a Caravan and a King Air to Hooper Bay. Bob and I flew nine volunteers in the King Air while the Caravan was full of cargo including two 540 lb barrels of spray on insulation and four tanks of propane. We both had eight passengers each going back to Soldotna.

August started off with a bang on 5 August. On August 5 at 12:30 PM we flew from Soldotna to Wasilla where we picked up 5 junior high kids from the Alaska Native Youth Conference and took them home to Togiak. On the way weather was not looking so good, so we stopped in Dillingham to get fuel. While in the air, we tried to make arrangements for the refueling but we were unable to get hold of Bo, our normal refueler at Dillingham, on the radio or by phone.

Don’s first flight in July was to take an Alaska Bible Institute group up to White Mountain for a week of activities. While in the air we talked to Mark, one of our other pilots who was flying the slower Caravan and asked why he had scheduled the slower aircraft to flying the longer trips that day. As a result of our inquiry we were sent to Red Devil to pick up the pastor and his family and take them to Anchorage instead of the Caravan. Even with this extra trip we got home only half an hour behind the Caravan.

From Don:
June started out with a flight of cargo to Togiak with one King Air and a Caravan. After loading two 500 lb crates containing outboard motors into the Caravan it was full. Into the King Air we loaded drums, other musical instruments, shelves, paper towels, a filing cabinet, a mop pail, and two 100 lb propane tanks. We returned to Anchorage with 15 Global Partnership Ministry people who had been in Togiak for a week.

In May no flying was scheduled so we could prepare all the aircraft for the heavy summer flying schedule. Because there was no flying this month we spent two and a half weeks in California attending our daughter Cheramie’s graduation from Dominican University in San Rafael, just north of San Francisco – that’s the last child through college. Since there are no flying pictures we're including some pictures of God's Alaska - I feel very privileged that He has allowed me to see the magnificent beauty here.

From Don:
April saw Don flying two weekends. The first weekend he flew Covenant Youth of Alaska (CYAK) to their Spring Blast in Mountain Village. We started by picking up the leaders from Anchorage and taking them to Mountain Village. We left not being sure that the weather would let us land. On our way out the weather started to go down not up as forecasted.

In March Don went on a 10 day excursion around the state. The weather was absolutely clear with blue skies during the day and temperatures around -10°C or 14°F. At night it went down to about -25°C or -18°F. You pay for clear skies in the winter.

In February Don flew with Larry, from Samaritan’s Purse, back out to Hooper Bay with the 50 Christmas Boxes we were short the first time. Dave & Steve Peterson hitched a ride so they could do some finishing work on the Samaritan Purse houses. From there we headed off to Scammon Bay, just 40 miles north with the 14 cartons (about 240 boxes). However the wind prevented us from even attempting a landing (also the runway was reported very slick due to being covered with ice from a recent thaw). We decided to continue on to Bethel, where we parked at the Hagland Aviation ramp.

January started with MARC helping Samaritan’s Purse to deliver Christmas Boxes to the kids in Aniak, Hooper Bay, Kokhanok and Nondalton. We filled the King Air with 40 cartons each holding between 12 and 20 Christmas Shoe Boxes that Samaritan’s Purse collects from all over the US (~ 40 million) and distributes them throughout the world. This is the first year that they have included Alaska in their distribution. Accompanying us were Chief Renard Faber and Sam Craig.

General Information: Thank you for your patience while our Website was out of order. You can now read our monthly news letters of January through July, 2007 with pictures. The newsletters are arranged in chronological order with the latest one at the top. Only the first ten lines of each news letter are displayed. To see the whole newsletter click on "Read more" under the words or on the month listed on the left of the page. The pictures are also a bit tricky, so we have included instructions. Click on "Pictures" at the top of the page to see the instructions. We have also included a list of pilots and the mission organizations MARC supports at the top of the main page. Click on "Pilots" or "Alaska Missions"