MAF pilots are required to regularly inspect the airstrips where we fly to ensure that our standards for runway maintenance are kept appropriately. Last week I went to Ilu to check over the runway. It’s a nice long runway, but it’s perpendicular to the valley, which means there is a tight little turn at about […]
I bolted upright in bed—my heart racing.
Eerie chanting and wailing surrounded our home. I flung off the sheets and ran to the window. A few feet away a crowd of Haitians were singing, swaying, and banging drums. I crawled back to bed, admittedly a little shaken, and stuffed ear plugs in hopes of getting […]
Preparing to go back to Indonesia from furlough always proves a hectic time. There are goodbyes to be said, details to be finished and last minute supplies to be bought. This furlough I had a hard time finding shoes to my liking. I love flip flops, but they have to have thick, supportive soles […]
Have you ever read something hundreds of times and then… WHAM… a new truth leaps from the page? That happened for me the last time I read about Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, in Luke 1:5-7 (NIV). This truth jumped out at me in verse six:
Elizabeth was righteous and blameless, obedient and […]
It’s dinner time. The setting equatorial sun—every day the same time all year long—and my three kids tell me it’s time. And if the “I’m so hungry, Mama” over and over didn’t clue me in, the nearby mosque’s evening call to prayer does.
Today’s dinner is rice and groundnut stew. It’s one of Brad’s favorites and […]
Every once in a while I have a flight that I know will be forever etched in my memory. It could be because it’s traumatic, as is often the case with a medical evacuation. Or it can be a happy occasion, such as the one I experienced recently.
This story really begins decades before I was […]