We are into our last week here and are wrapping up afew projects. Tim got our counter tops done in time for the arrivial of the Weeninks'. They moved into the house we had been staying in and we moved next door to Brent's house. He is in Windhoek for afew weeks sorting out Visa issues so we are keeping the home fires burning for him.

New ceramic counter top that Tim installed.

Barb and Avery working in the garden

The Weeninks have been settling in and we are so happy to have them here. They are a great addition to the MAF family. After their being here a week we ventured out with Dr. Collins for a hike on Friday which was a national holiday.

Dr. Collins, Avery, Evan and Kristina cooling there feet after a hike to the top of a water fall

A view from the top before we hiked down.


Saturday we invited Tim's Angolan helper Bassilio and his wife Maryana and five children out for a pool party and barbque. It was great for them to meet and get to know the Weeninks'.

Tim and Delie warming up after a swim

Kids enjoying hotdogs and gazoza (pop) on our patio.

This week we also have Tanya, an optometry student from Guelph, staying with us. She is helping Dr. Collins with eye examinations, surgery, and teaching. We have really enjoyed having her here with us.

Dr. Collins and Tanya

Tim has been able to finish up most of the projects that he had set out to do. Following is an e-mail he sent to our son Matt explaining some of the frustration in getting things done here in a timely fashion.

Want to do some sheet-metal work?

First....buried cable from the airport generator shorts out...no power!

Can’t run air compressor at hangar for air tools.

Neighbors at Sonangol, the airport re-fuelers, have big generator so they share power via three extension cords connected together, will run water pump and fridge...one at a time, but not the compressor...

Bring generator from compound (small one) (too small) won't run compressor either.

Go borrow smaller compressor, still won't run off small generator.

Go pickup old generator from hangar...won't run, looks like it has been picked over for any useable parts ........but may, may be repairable.

Plan, D2, borrow gas powered compressor.....won't start ..........but shows more potential than old generator.

Tomorrow may be an interesting day!
Gas powered compressor was repairable after only three and half hours of tinkering and we were able to complete our “small” sheet-metal project.

Making a minor sheet-metal repair to the flap.

New 406 ELT installation.

We are of mixed emotions about leaving Angola. Excited to be going home and see what God's plans are for us for the future and to see our family and friends. Sad to leave behind our friends here and the adventures of Angola. We will leave here Sun May 10 overnight in Windhoek, Nambia, leave for Joburg SA Mon afternoon and arrive in Vancouver via London on May 12 where our grandchildren and daughter in law will meet us. We will spend the night in

Vancouver and drive home to Kamloops on May 13. We will let you all know when we are home in Kamloops.

Greetings and blessings from Angola.

When we talked to you last time we were looking for someway to fix the counter tops in our house. God blessed us with plywood. We are continually reminded of the many things we take for granted in Canada, like walking into the store and finding the same things that were there last time we visited, we just expect it...here it is always a surprise. My friend and neightbour Tammy, just popped in with a gift from another friend, Shelley, a big chunk of cheddar cheese...only in Angola, she said, is cheese considered a precious gift.

Tim, fitting the plywood for our countertops.

The flying has slowed down abit so Tim has the plane for two weeks to work on some projects he wants to complete before we leave. Changing out control cables and pulleys, installing the new 406 ELT (emergency locator transmitter), replacing the nose landing gear spring and a few smaller items.

View of some of the cables to be changed. These are the easy ones to get at! The new ELT goes on the green platform in the lower lefthand corner.

The new Garmin 496 GPS installed in the panel with an AirGizmo (that is what it's called, really!) mounting bracket just above the weather radar screen. (top, center of photo).

This past week we had a nice break and went to the beach for the day. It was pouring rain here, but lovely and hot at the beach, about a three hour drive away. We only got stuck in the sand once and had to be pulled out with the Land Rover. This of course just adds an element of adventure to the trip. We came back sun tanned and exhausted from playing in the water.

Megan abd Brent loading up for our trip to the beach



Josh, doing his Bay Watch pose, and Amy, shorterm
Missionary working at Tchincombe Farm.

Tim is way out in the water on the right

We have just over four weeks left before we leave for Canada on May 10. There have been some changes to Visa process and the family that is to take our place here, is delayed in Canada. Please make this a concern of prayer for us. It would be so helpful to be able to have some time with them here before we leave.

God's blessings for a triumphant Easter celebration to all of you!

Hello, after a delay of some time in updating my blog. Once again I had trouble downloading but was able to download onto Facebook, so if you have access to that you can check out a couple groups of pictures we put on. there in these last weeks.

We are doing well and it has been a busy couple of weeks. There has been a short term medical team visiting. MAF has done several flights transporting them to various locations. This week the plane has been flying the US Aide team around the Southern Angolan region where there has been severe flooding and 20,000 people have lost their homes. While the plane was gone Tim had hoped to do some renovating of the kitchen counter, which is splitting and the partical board is flaking. However as often happens here, we can find new formica counter top, but no edging, we have tile and grout but there is no plywood anywhere in the city to build the base. So we wait.




This past week we had the priviledge of hosting our MAF CEO Mark Outerbridge and his daughter Marnie at our home. In the picture above Marnie is trying her hand and head at caring water. Notice the expression on the little girl behind her.

This week I was able to go with one of the women who is staying on the compound. She teaches crafts to people in the local communtiy churches. Here we met with a group of teenage girls. They are crocheting with plastic bags, which are in abundance here and a real garbage problem.

They were also making beads out of paper and making jewlery.

Tim, Brent Mudde and Mark Outerbridge

Tim celebrated his birthday last Saturday. We had mexican food and I made him a choclate cake and coffee ice cream.

We have another 2 weeks staying in the house we are in before Erwin the new MAF aircraft mechanic and his family arrive. We are fortunate to be able to stay a couple weeks in Katherina and Miguels house while they are in Germany. When they come home with their two little girls and there new baby boy, we will be staying with Brent the pilot who lives next door to us.

Friday night is pizza night here on the compound. Tim has just finished cooking the chrizo and I have manged to hoard enough cheese to use, we may add some fresh tomatoes and green pepper, nothing to exoctic but its what we have and always an adventure to see what others bring. It is also Brent's birthday tommorow so I have made a carrot cake. Someone gave me some homemade cream cheese...so the icing will be a treat.

I better get busy, thanks to all of you for your support and prayers

Tim and Barb

Hello to all. We have been here almost a month and we are doing well. I have had a very hard time loading pictures to our blog and today I was on a roll and able to load six... some days I can't even load one. So will fill you in on what has been happening.

This is a picture of Teia and Jurrusa (8 mths)in our home. Teia is our new house help. This is new to her and to me and we are learning together. It has been very interesting as we do not share a common language. However we do manage to communicate. It is stretching my knowledege of Portuguese and my Eng/Portg. Dictionary gets a good workout. I have become more confident using many new words and phrases...my favorites are " como se disse isso? (How do you say this?)and esta corecto? (Is this correct?) desculpa (sorry) is another good one. Teia comes two days a week. We pray this will be helpful for her as well and open new opportunites in her life.

Tim inspecting the propeller of the airplane.

Basilio has been busy this past week, along with helping do the inspections, he has been distributing Portuguese Bibles at the hangar. One day he had over twenty people come by asking for their own Bible. He has them write their name on a sheet to keep track of who has gotten one and then has a brief chat about the Bible and how to find things in it. One day he talked with a man for almost an hour about finding things in the Bible to help in the man's Christian walk. The one picture I wish I had been able to get was the airport guard sitting at the gate as we left for the day reading her new Bible.

The rain has taken a toll on the roads. This is a road we took to a old colonial hot springs with some friends on one of our days off. Six hours over bumpy roads...maybe that has something to do with my sore back. Sometimes even within the city the roads can be a challenge. Improvements are being made however and more are being paved.

Today Tim and I ventured into the city to do a little exploring. We saw a few interesting sights and we've included a few of the pictures like the one of the barber shop above. There are many shops like this in the city with similar art work.

Some young men carring some tin along the street, close to the "River Ladies" where we buy our produce.

We found this interesting sight yesterday and went back to get a picture...an Angolan ice-cream shop. Only walls and a floor with a soft-serve ice-cream dispenser and an umbrella for the rain. (we didn't buy any ice-cream)

A moth we saw at the airport...God is an awesome creator!!

We are enjoying our time seeing and experiencing new things again and meeting new people. At present we have three missionaries staying in our guest rooms from northern Nambia. they are doing evangelism training with some of the churches here. It has been great meeting them and being able to pass on a blessing by provding some B&B.

Blessings to you!

L. Tim, Terry & Brenda, R. Bob, Barb Wenda

We left Kamloops Saturday Feb. 7 with a fun send off brekafast from off from our good friends.

We are so thankful for all the friends we have that are supporting us in so many many ways. We are blessed!!

Betsy and Tim with two of our four big boxe

Our awesome neighbors gave us a ride to the bus depot., and we on our way to a third Angolan adventure. We over-nighted in Vancouver and then off on our flight to London, Johannesburg, and Windhoek. We were blessed with good flights, good seats, and only 4 hr layovers in both London and Joburg. We arrived in Windhoek with all our luggage tired and happy to stop traveling for a day. We had a great dinner out and a visit with Dagmar a friend at the guest house in Windhoek who we had met on other trips in and out before. By 9:30 the next morning we were off to the airport. When we arrived we were relieved to hear we could take all of our boxes in with us (for a slight extra fee) as there was enough extra space. That afternoon we made our final destination of Lubango and under Bassilio's careful guidance cleared customs with out a hitch. Off to the compound (Mitcha) to settle into our usual house and to enjoy a welcome supper with the pilot Brent....he is a great cook.

This is the Radome, it houses the weather radar antenna. We were able to get the repaired antenna and display installed and funtioning. Pilots are very happy to have it available when flying during the rainy season with all of the thunderstorms. Most of the parts that we had ordered last Fall have arrived and we have been doing repairs and replacing parts on the days when the airplane isn't flying. We were thankful for the hangar today as it was raining heavily while we worked on the plane.

Driving in the city has been a challenge, I came home to wait it out after trying to get to the airport for over an hour. Several streets are blocked for "repairs" and a very large truck had gotten stuck at the river crossing closing it for most of two days. I likened it to dancing in highschool, no real pattern, people moving around trying not to run into each other. Unfortunately the moving around part just stops and you sit.....and sit..........and sit.........until somewhere sombody's vehicle is able to move ahead a little bit and then it starts all over again.

We have had trouble downloading pictures for the our blog so we will send this one for now and try to send afew more later.

Prayer request for:

Safety for the pilots in this season of thunder storms.

Brent and Tim's visa's that they will arrive soon

Barb as she trains new house help who does not understand English.

Hello From South Africa

Our flat at Mercy Air called "Rock Flat".



Yes, that is a rock in our kitchen...the



wall is built around it





Sorry about the delay in getting more info on the blog. We had a huge thunderstorm shortly after we got here and it took out our Internet signal and then it took some time to get it up and running again. We have really enjoyed our time here and Tim was able to get the work done he needed to.













Tim and Dwight (pilot missionary for SAMMinistry www.sammintries.org







We have met lots of wonderful new people as the farm Mercy Air is located on has several guest flats that are open to Missionaries to stay at while they are doing business in nearby Nelspruit, medical appointments or just taking a well deserved rest. Yesterday as a special treat Lynn and Dwight Lagore from Mozambique took us on a day long tour of Kruger Park. What an awesome trip! We only covered about 1/5 of the 20,000 sq Km but saw so many animals including 4 of the Big 5...leopard, elephant,rhino,and cape buffalo. plus giraffe, zebra, baboon, monkey, crocodile and more.


Tim and Barb at Kruger Park.....they are the ones on the right!!

We had fun today hosting Tim's co worker Basilio and his family for lunch and a visit.

As you can see Tim is right in his element!!




Tim and Dle .
Basilio and baby, Lydia, Miguel,Maryanna,
Dle and Florindo








These are a couple of projects Tim and Bassilio were able to complete this week.



Propeller assembled




jack stands for lifting the airplane


The rainy season is here and this is a view of the road we have to take to and from home, the rain will soon errode it into deep ruts and gullies. There is new developement going on all over the city and they have tried to come up with drainage solutions but this portion of the road is still

needing wome help.

We will be leaving this week for South Africa, hope to update you when we arrive there

Blessings

Tim and Barb