Some thoughts and Observations

Hello again, every time I sit down to write an update I am overwhelmed by how blessed we are to be part of such an amazing adventure. To have so many people praying for us and being interested in what God is doing in our lives really leaves me with such a sense of awe.

Work over the past few months has consisted of a whole lot of desk work (which is boring to blog about), but never the less essential as far as the program goes! I have been able to get in some flying, moving some national church groups, doctors and nurses, de-mining groups and even our MAF Canada CEO! Unfortunately, I haven't been smart enough to bring along my camera to show you all what we do and where we fly! I promise that I will have some for you in the new year. I do however, have some pictures of some of the exploring that we have been able to do with friends.

Sometimes to the road isn't that good...

Sometimes things need to be fixed...

Sometimes we are not sure where the road leads...


Sometimes we need to take a bit of a break...


But in the end we are always blessed by another spectacular view of God's creation!

This christmas we are thrilled to have Gary's mom spending the holidays with us. She made the three day trip from Parksville to Lubango, without losing any baggage or her sanity! Way to go mom! We pray that all of you will have a Merry Christmas and blessed New Year as you seek and serve our Lord and Saviour.

As the World Turns

I just noticed that we haven't made an update for almost a month. We were also told that our blog was boring, BORING, can you imagine that! So in an attempt to spice things up a bit I have decided to use a different font! No more boring ARIAL for us! Today we will be using TREBUCHET!. So without further adieu here is our blog in Trebuchet.

Things are going well. Kait got over her malaria pretty quickly, which was a blessing and Tami got back from a two and a half week dental appointment in Windhoek. Took a little longer to get her tooth fixed than expected, plus she gets to go back before the end of October for one more final tweeking. Oh well, what can you say except that things happen a little differently here then back in Canada. I, Gary, finally got my Angolan pilots license and completed my MAF check out on the Caravan.

Working with MAF Canada Chief Pilot Rick Willms.

Approach for landing at Mukwando.
The runway is inside a dormant volcano!
How cool is that?!

Checking the runway at Virei to see what condition it is in.

History in the making, first solo departure!

On Thursday I got to make my first solo trip in Angola! A three hour flight village in south eastern Angola called Mavinga, on the trip was a group from the Norwegian Relief Council that was finishing an aide project they had been doing there. This village has many people from opposing sides of the war living in it and it is good to see that they are working and living together in peace. The following day we took a group of Angolan ladies from one of the local churches out to another village called Chipindo where they spent the weekend helping the villagers in any way they could. It was a privilege to help these ladies as they were helping their follow Angolans spiritually and physically.
Church ladies from Lubango that ministered in Chipindo.

They were planning on returning to Lubango by truck, and I don't mean a nice Ford or GMC extended cab with cushy seats, more like in the back of an International Harvester 5 ton grain truck. They were very happy when we worked out a deal so that they could fly home in an hour instead of riding in the back of the truck for over 12 hours.

Last, but not least we wanted to include a picture of the lastest addition to our family, Dexter

Thanks for taking the time to check out our blog, we look forward to hearing how things are going in your part of God's creation.

Settling in.

The question we are being asked most by people here is, "How does it feel to back?" Well at this point it feels like malaria for Kait, a trip back to Namibia for Tammy to get a tooth fixed, no Angolan pilots license for Gary, a weekend trip to a friends farm for Matt and Josh meeting someone who likes computer games as much as he does. So the answer to the question is, "The same only different." Kait is doing better and hopes to be able to go with one of the missionaries out to a clinic tomorrow. Tammy's tooth that we thought we had taken care of in Portugal has been giving her a lot of trouble so she is flying out of Lubango on Sunday to Namibia so she can see the dentist in Windhoek on Monday morning. Oh well so much for a root canal costing less here than in Canada! As far as Gary's license goes, well let's just say that this is the bureaucratic process at work here in Angola. The gentleman that signs the licenses is busy in meetings and is concerned that since Gary hasn't flown since January he is a little out of practice. You can pray for these issues that they would be resolved quickly and that Kait and Tammy would be back to feeling 100% again.
Matthew has already been able to go spend 5 days out at a farm called Tchincombe, where some SIM missionaries are running an enormous ranch for one of the national churches. He was pretty stoked about the whole thing and spent his time running around with Jeffrey, who is also 14, hunting and exploring and doing all the things that boys should be able to do on a farm. Josh, being Josh is just as mellow as ever. He has discovered someone who likes computer games as much as he does. The only problem is he is our MAF mechanic and now Gary is going to have to make sure that the two of them aren't distracting each other from the work that both of them need to do!
Over all things are going well. Gary is up to his eye balls in being checked out on the airplane by MAF's chief pilot. This involves lots of work on the ground and about 50 -60hrs of flying in the plane. The goal in the end is to be a qualified MAF captain. After that comes a month or two of training to take over as Program manager in Angola. Meanwhile Tammy is working hard on making the house a home. Homeschooling the boys and figuring out where to buy, what to buy, how much to buy and what to pay! I, Gary, think that she has the biggest job of all.
This post is getting long so we will say good-bye for now. Please continue to pray for us, we notice more then ever the difference that it makes.

Arrival

After two years of planning and praying and traveling and packing and unpacking and packing and unpacking...we have arrived in Angola with all of our luggage and all five of us! Wow, it's amazing we are so in awe of God and how He works and moves and takes care of us. This is just a short post to let all of you know that we have arrived safe and sound in Lubango, we'll write more soon, when we have settled in a bit more.

We are packing,

What a lame-core title.
So. As the title says we are packing. Once again.
And by we, I mean them. (This is Kaity, just in case you didn't know.)
So. Tomorrow we are leaving for Angola. And, this means that in the past year we will have lived in 5 houses. That means that every 2.4 months, we would move. Or every 10.4 weeks or every 73 days,or every 350 hours, or every 4200 minutes we would move. Basically, I feel as though we haven't unpacked since last summer (we didn't move till October, but we started packing in August.). Tomorrow, it will be (almost to the day) 5 years since we went to Angola the last time , (not counting the time Dad went by himself.). Things have changed since the last time we were there; There is a pool now. People have moved away, and people have moved to Angola. We are expecting a new addition*. Which makes our family of 5, become 6. We are older. We think we are wiser. We are taller (except Dad and Mom, they haven't grown taller since highschool.). There is a new mall in Lubango. (which is great, because the people are starving, yet they can still make a big mall.)
Anyways. I hope this has been an enjoyable blog to read. Let us know what you think!
Love Kaity.




*the new addition's name is Dexter.
**Dexter is a dog.

Packing

Another day of packing, that seems to have become a fairly normal phrase in our lives. We are down to our last week here in Portugal and are getting anxious to be in Angola. We are once again living out of suitcases and maneuvering around our huge duffel bags that are ready to go. We went to the train station yesterday to make sure we have the latest schedules and to ask about all of our luggage. The nice gentleman told us that the train didn't really have room for our luggage...since it is really just a commuter train we do understand, but it is funny. So our big bags will be shipped by truck on Monday to our hotel in Lisbon, I am praying that we arrive before the bags do. On Tuesday the 7th we will go by train to Lisbon, the next day take a 2 1/2 hour plane trip to England, wait for 6 hours before the 12 hour plane trip to South Africa. A short 4 hour wait there, then a 2 hour plane trip to Namibia where we will enjoy the company of the Knightly family for a few days. We will be doing some crazy household shopping, dishes, pots & pans, a vacuum cleaner etc. before heading into Angola. The length of our stay in Namibia will depend on when Gary Toews (MAF program manager) receives his passport back from the immigration guys in Luanda. I (Tammy) had the last of 4 dentist appointments today for a root canal, it was not as bad as I thought, but I still feel like I have been smacked around a bit. Gary was happy with the bill, it was 180 Euros, which we think is somewhere under $250.00 Canadian that is with 3 x-rays and 4 appointments. Matthew thinks that since it was so cheap my tooth will likely fall out soon...I pray not. Please pray for us as we travel and also that all of our luggage will arrive where and when we need it. We are thankful for your prayers, for the phone calls and care packages, and notes, we have been so encouraged!

Português Sem Fronteiras

So, today marks a red-letter day in our language training! Our tutor, with endless amounts of patience and perseverance has helped us complete the third and last book in our grammar lessons. What does this really mean? It means that for the moment I don’t have to worry about the difference between a “Preterito perfeito simples do indicativo” and a “Preterito mais-que-perfeito do conjuntivo”

Now where did I leave that «conjuntivo?»

It means that we shift into more of the conversational part of our studies. Which means I have to worry about not mixing up “cansado” –to be tired, with “casado” –to be married and “cacar” (the second “c” sounds like an “s”) to hunt. Isn’t it interesting how all those words are related? I have a funny feeling that we are going to be wishing that we were back in our grammar books! But then again the whole point of this exercise is to be able to communicate verbally. We have been chatting with people in broken Portuguese, so we are looking forward to improving that skill as much as possible over the next couple of weeks.

That’s right in a little over two weeks we will be on the move again! We are all excited about getting to Angola and getting settled, but as usual we will miss all the new friends that we have made here. God has again be gracious and softened the impact of leaving our home in Canada and giving us new friends wherever He takes us.

I am not sure if we will have another update for you all from Portugal, but if we don’t, the next one will be from Angola YEEHAAAW! Sorry, that’s the Alberta influence coming out!

Recent wanderings

Things continue to progress even if we are ready or not! We are already counting down the days till we leave Portugal. It is a strange thing to be thinking about leaving when so much time, energy and prayer has gone into getting us here. The language learning continues, it is a real roller coaster of victories and... I wouldn´t say defeats, but reality checks. We are understanding more each day, but speaking the language needs some work. We have met a new couple in our church, he is American and she is Portuguese and they want to meet with us regularly to help us to speak better. I think that they are taking pity on us, which we truly appreciate. God is so gracious.

Last week we were able to sneak off on a trip to Germany. The fares were so ridiculously cheap that we couldn´t pass up the opportunity to go. We were told that it was a good idea to take a break at some point and far be it from me to follow advice. It happened pretty quickly so this is the first chance we have had to tell you all about it. We were able to visit with our friends from Three Hills, Dave and Barb Schulz, as well as Mark and Laurie Wiebe from Kamloops, who both work at Black Forest Academy. It was graduation time so things were pretty hectic for them. While they were busy we were able to go into France and visit with Sam and Cecile Herrmann. For those of you that don´t know, Gary worked with Sam in Three Hills flight instructing. It was pretty cool to catch up with friends from Three Hills and Kamloops in France and Germany. We included some pictures of some of the places we went.

Kandern, Germany- home of Mark and Laurie

Holzen, Germany- home of Dave and Barb

Colmar, France- close to Sam and Ceciles

Zurich, Switzerland- not even close to the home of Matt, Tami and Josh

Matt blazing down the Bobsled run at Steinwassen Park, Germany

Josh being as excited as Josh gets!

Gary concentrating so he doesn´t crash...which he did...note wound on knee, there was another on the other and on both shoulders...must not let the kids WIN!! Oh by the way Harvey, I destroyed my sunglasses in the crash! Actually the lady behind me ran over them, I am going to need to order a new pair...again.

Well it is back to work again and looking forward to the next move to Angola. Hey, one last thing, we want to make a little book with the pictures and birthdays and anniversaries of all the people that pray for and support us. If you could e-mails us that info it would be great, that way we can meet the new people that have joined our team, but we have not yet met and have a face when we pray for all of you. Thanks and adeus!

I just noticed that there aren´t any pictures of Kait! She did come along, but she didn´t hang around with mom and dad, so alas no pics this time. We´ll get her into the next one.

Wow, God just keeps on being God

It is with a great deal of humbleness and awe that we want to let you all know that we have reached our support raising goals! It is truly fantastic how you have all prayed and given and today we can let you know that we are fully supported! God has done so many amazing things in this time through all of you in so many different ways, we can´t even begin to list them all. This marks one part of the adventure and this by no means, means that we are letting you all off the hook and that we don´t need your continued pray and support. We just wanted to let you know that even though you may think you only have played a small part you have joined together with many others to let God do something awesome! We look forward to seeing how God uses all of us and that includes you for His honour and glory in the future.

Through the eyes of Josh

Hi everybody, first of all I would like to say that life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. In this case my box of chocolates has every kind imaginable. Life here in Portugal is very...different to say the least. For instance, I have never had to take an elevator to take out the garbage before, never seen so many National Geographic movies before, so many cigarette butts on the ground ever, or ridden so many buses that are driven like race cars. While we have been here we have met some people who own a restaurant. We eat there regularily now, but the first time we went there, I ordered a hamburger and thought, hhmmmnn a hamburger, a nice bun with cheese and maybe even some bacon. So I waited and waited and eventually they brought it out, but there was no bun, or bacon, there was only meat and cheese, and then they gave me a fork and knife. It was good, but not as good as a Mount Olive Evangelical Free Church " Cruise Night" burger, good gravy I miss those! All in all, it is not so bad here, I mean other than being bored lots of times, it is kind of fun here. The weather is just as random as Three Hills, except there is no snow, but I do enjoy it here, so anyway...ahh keep your stick on the ice. Josh

Through the eyes of Kait!

We have turned over the blog to Kait for this update...not sure what we were thinking!

As I sit here, watching a Jane Austin classic, I can´t believe how fond of Portugal I have become. Here are my top 10 reasons why I love Portugal/ living in Portugal.

1. The coffee is stronger, better and generally more enjoyable.

2. The streets are cobblestone.

3. They are more passionate about soccer, than we are of hockey.

4. They have «novellas» (Soaps, soapies, soap operas...) on TV all day long.

5. You can fit more people on a bus.

6. The bus drivers are all former race car drivers. They have two speeds, fast and faster.

7. The streets are narrow and the drivers are fast.

8. The english shows aren´t dubbed, they have sub-titles, which makes learning the language so much easier.

9. There are pastry shops on every corner. On one street there are 10!

10. The Portuguese love shoes more than me, there must be a million shoe stores in Oporto.

Now in my opinion, for every pro there is a con. 10 things I have learned to dislike while here.

1. I get the worst «caffine hangovers» I have learned my lesson, only one «cafe» a day.

2. Though the streets may be romantic, they are annoying to walk and ride long distances on.

3. When they celebrate a holiday they use fireworks, all day and night long.

4. The acting on the soaps is really bad, probably worse than any episode of Degrassi ever recorded...ack!

5. When the buses are loaded, my nose dies, because it gets really smelly.

6. The bus drivers stop suddenly. it is amazing that I have not suffered any internal injuries.

7. I have no con about the narrow roads or fast drivers, except that I fear for my life when a bus zooms past.

8. The english shows all start at eleven at night.

9. I visit the pastry shops on a daily basis, I feel like I have gained 200 pounds.

10. I have no complaints about the shoe stores.

So really I have only 9 cons...wait 8 for my 10 pros. All in all I find this country lovely and beautiful. It has bewitched me and I love it.

Well, there you go, life in Portugal through the eyes of Kait. The boys will be sharing over the next couple weeks...should be interesting.

At Work...no really!

I figured I should take some time and show you all that we are actually studying and learning portuguese. The following pictures were not staged to hide that we are travelling around the country and living like gypsies.The kids are also working twice a week with the same tutor that Tami and I meet with during the week.

Our tutor says that things are going well and that we are indeed making progress, although sometimes I think she is just being polite. Tami and I figure that after we leave our lesson she collapses in a heap of tears and mourns the destruction we have wrought on her beautiful language. Well, maybe I am being overly harsh, but it sure seems my mouth wasn´t designed to make the sounds I need to. In spite of it all we are enjoying things immensely. God has blessed us and we can´t thank all of you enough for your support and prayers. We are making friends with a family that owns a little coffee shop close to our apartment. We are praying that we will take advantage of opportunities to share the gospel with them.
On the weekend we went into the city to check out getting monthly bus passes for all of us. Where we live is like living in Airdrie outside of Calgary. We caught the bus into the city and found the Transit offices fairly easily. After taking care of the passes we headed to a large shopping mall in another part of the city. We explored a bit had supper in the food court and then headed outside to catch our bus home. Did I mention that it was raining buckets? We waited in the tiny shelter with a bus load...no really...of people. Our bus arrived about 30 minutes later and we all piled on and started to head home. We realized we were on the wrong bus when we saw the town hall for Matosinhos. That´s like catching the bus in downtown Calgary for Airdrie and finding yourself heading out of Calgary for Okotoks. Oooops! The bus driver was kind enough to let us off at the right stop to catch the proper bus. Did I mention it was raining buckets? We waited about 20 minutes in the tiny shelter before catching the correct bus home. We had to switch buses at another stop where we again were in a tiny leaking shelter for 30 minutes till our final bus arrived. We have been enjoying our little sight seeing excursions around the city of Porto...no really! We look forward to hearing how things are going in all of your lives. Until next time «adeus»

Pictures

We have posted some of our pictures on flickr
Just click on the link above, hope it works. We are hoping to keep adding to it as we figure this all out.

Still feeling like a tourist!

Is this all a dream!?

The view out the hotel window in Lisbon, can´t believe we are actually in Portugal.

10 fifty pound bags and 10 carry on bags to get on the train from Lisbon to Porto. Let´s just say the train guys were annoyed with us for delaying the departure of the train...even though we arrived early in Porto in the end. By the way there is no one to help bring the bags up the four long flights of stairs to get to the platform...yes I´m whining.

Here are a few pictures of the area where we are living.This is our apartment, it´s the ones with the open windows to let in all that warm spring air!

A view from the apartment. Oh look, the trees are green! Yes that is another poke at all you winter bound people!

Some of the streets in our area.
Tami is going to start a website where she is going to post the plethora of pictures she is taking.
Adeus!

Life in language study

Hello, here we sit at the internet cafe, which has become a regular hangout since we can't get an internet connection at our appartment. We seem to have gotten into a routine now that we are over our jet lag, I can't remember ever sleeping for 14 hours, ever. A normal day starts with Gary & I walking over to our language tutor's apartment for a 2 hour class on speaking and writing portuguese. We are certainly re-learning our english grammar! Or perhaps learning some of it for the first time....do you know what a penultimate is? I didn't. We have classes every day of the week, with the weekends to practice, or do homework, which seems to take a lot of our time. The kids have an hour with the language tutor, Mrs. Machado, three times a week. They are getting more confident all the time and are working hard at their homework, some days. The past few days they have even ventured out by themselves, once to find some other kids to play soccer with and the other time to go to the neighborhood pastry shop to buy bread and treats. At the pastry shop there is a lady from South Africa who is quite happy to speak English with the kids, I think they will be spending more time there than necessary! In the afternoons Gary & I usually do our homework, this is a huge effort that sometimes takes four hours. We hike about the city to buy groceries and have walked to a nearby mall three or four times. Since we live on a hill, we are certainly getting into shape, which of course means that it is ok to go to the pastry shop regularly! NOT!!!
We have been humbled by the generosity of people here and their willingness to help us as we figure out how to get around and how to just live here. We are equally thankful for those who have sacrificed for us to be here, we keep that in our minds and hearts as we study. Thank you for your letters of encouragement, we miss you all and think of you often. Drop us a note!

We Have Arrived

This is just a quick note to let all of you know that we have safely arrived in Porto! We are recovering from jet lag and will starting our language training in the next day or two. At present we don´t have internet at our apartment, but as soon as we do we will write a better update. Blessings on you all, God is so good!

Ready, Set....

Just a quick note to let you all know that it looks like we will be departing for Portugal on February 10 from Calgary. That's right, our passports have arrived and the flights have been booked, so barring any unforseen circumstances we will be climbing aboard a British Airways Boeing 777 at 8:40pm. It has been an amazing journey to this point and we have been so blessed by all of you. You truly are all playing a huge part in us serving with MAF in Angola. Your prayers and support have encouraged and humbled us as we have continued to seek God's leading in what we are doing. We look forward to serving together with all of you as we head to Portugal for language training and then on to Angola! It will never cease to amaze me how God uses natural human vessels to accomplish His supernatural plan for this world. Isn't it awesome!! Remember, if God can use Gideon, who was hiding, He can use you for His glory as well!

D-Day

Well yesterday was D-Day! What does that mean? It typically means it's the day when something exciting is going to happen, for us it was supposed to mean the day we were to head off to Portugal for language training. Well the Lord has decided that He wants us to hang around just a little while longer. Not a big problem, it seems that the agency in Angola that handles passports likes ours so much that they want to gaze on our "non-smiling" faces for a few more days! Fortunately we have learned not to purchase airline tickets until passports are securely in hand. This is actually turning out to be a good thing because it is allowing us to tie up a few more loose ends before we go. Also it meant that we got to go out with Tami's cousins, Arvid & Debbie Nottveit and 3 of their kids to a Newsboys concert in Edmonton. What a blast! We are hoping to head out somewhere between the 10th and 20th of February depending on when we get our passports and whether British Airways goes on strike, seriously, I am not joking! We are learning to trust in God's timing. We'll keep you all posted on the time line as we find out what's going on!

14 Days and counting!

When I first started this update I was sitting at a desk in Palmer Lake, Colorado where we were taking a language acquisition course before we head to Portugal for actual language training. It is now only 14 days, Lord willing, before we board a plane to take the next step in serving the Lord with MAF. All of the plans and projects that seemed so far off in the future are now just around the corner. We are so blessed by all of the faithful prayers and support that we have received, are receiving and will receive. There are a few things to still complete before we head out such as Provincial exams for Kait, drivers license for Josh, learner's license for Matt, a renewal of an IFR rating for Gary, packing, visiting, dentist and doctor appointments and the return of our passports from Angola so we can go to Portugal. Passport...that almost seems like it's becoming a bad word. We would appreciate your prayers on all of these matters.

Back to the language course in Colorado. Mission Training International has been helping people to prepare to go cross culturally for about 50 years. The staff and teachers were a great encouragement, it was such an amazing time of learning and fellowship. I actually now believe that it is possible, for an old person, such as myself, to be able to learn a second language and be able to speak it!! We met all sorts of interesting, and I do mean that in the most positive sense of the word, people from all over the world who are preparing to serve the Lord in many different places, all over the world. It was such a blessing to meet so many people that are willing to go places and do things for the Lord that are way out of my comfort zone. It was a blessing to hear how God is at work in so many lives and how these people are listening to and following His leading. Our God is such an awesome God!

Again we want to thank you for all your prayers and gifts of support, it humbles us and we pray that we will glorify God with what you all have given. Our monthly support level is still around the 80% mark. Pray with us as we trust in the Lord to take care of this need. We have seen His supply in the past and know that He will take care of things in His time in the future. Please let us know how you are doing and remember that "A heart without Christ is a mission field and a heart with Christ is a missionary"