Rebecca serves with her husband, Brad—pilot/mechanic and base manager—at the Palangkaraya floatplane base in Kalimantan, Indonesia. She enjoys getting below the surface to the heart of things, whether it’s during a history lesson with her kids, over tea with an Indonesian neighbor, or through her writing. Rebecca blogs at http://www.rebeccahopkins.org/news/.
An Indonesian woman remembers the impact a small red and white airplane made on her life—and the lives of so many others.
“When I was little, I wondered how an airplane could fly if it couldn’t breathe,” said Yunike Hermanus.
Yunike and I were talking about the Cessna 185 with the affectionate name of “Charlie Brown” that […]
MAF flights bring trainers to remote villages to teach culturally relevant Bible story-telling methods
“It doesn’t get much better than this.”
Brad Hopkins, our MAF pilot—and my husband—pointed at the clear blue sky out of the floatplane window. I glanced at my notes: Kuala Kurun—that’s the name of the jungle town to which we were headed.
“Just a […]
I made up this rule when I was a kid: If I’m afraid of something, I must try it.
So, that’s how I found myself strapped onto a wakeboard on a Borneo river.
As a required safety feature of our floatplane water base, MAF owns a speed boat, which is also a way our team of Americans […]
I take Eric’s 4-year-old hand in mine. He slows down my usually fast gait. I help him stay focused on the short journey to his Indonesian preschool. Our combined pace fluctuates, but finds its place somewhere in between what’s normal for either of us.
Some days, we’re dodging puddles from last night’s tropical downpour. (OK, I’m […]
As our year petered to a close, almost everyone in my family had colds and we all kept fighting over the single box of Kleenexes.
“So…I was wondering…” Brad said. “Why do you buy only one box of Kleenex for our house?”
Because that’s what I do when I’ve spent several months in a zillion different unplanned […]
The third in a series. If you missed the previous stories, here are links to the first and second posts.
I turned right at the store which sold individual packets of shampoo, jugs of water and batteries, trying to remember which way was home. I hoped I wouldn’t get lost. I’d just moved to Palangkaraya, Kalimantan, to our […]