| From Trevor:
December 12, 2006
Hi Jack,
Hope things are going well your end. Am down loading emails now and will read your mail shortly. I really enjoyed the trip to Vanimo. Lorretta found it pretty hot but was adjusting better by the time we left Monday. There is a nice breeze which blows from the ocean from about 10 each morning. The water is so nice to swim in. The Hotel was right across the road from the nicest beach in town and we really enjoyed swimming there. The people were real nice. Everyone told us it was safe to walk around and we did. One of the MAF ladies told Lorretta this morning she really enjoyed living there it was so peaceful.
Anyway I had a look at the hangar. It’s a great hangar with good office facilities. The cargo and passenger handling area needs some work. And guess what! Garamut happened to have a house that had just become vacant which the owner is willing to work a deal on so we rent both the hangar and the house. It is a really nice little house. Only 2 bedroom but has everything we will need. It will be fine for us all until we can find a second house. It is fully furnished so we don’t have to find furniture etc which would be hard in Vanimo.
I ran into Silas. He is the guy who used to manage the Vanimo Beach Hotel. He has recently moved back to Vanimo. A real live wire and is interested in a senior position with the Aviation company. I guess you and he could work together and then as other interests take your time Jack he would be capable of managing the mundane side of the ground operations. He is a share holder in another building on the airport too. It has more cargo handling space but no hangar. I feel the hangar is important as it has the trolleys and some tooling and spares etc which will be helpful when we get to the point where we want to set up a work shop later on.
The other hangar that I looked at has great potential and would be better than Garamut's in a number of ways. A lot more space. It is two levels on the office side and has accommodation built in to it. But it is terribly run down and would take a lot of cash and effort to make the whole thing into what it needs to be. I feel if we were to obtain it, it would be a long term project. Possibly we would buy it in its run down condition and slowly do it up as we have the cash and the time and materials. Will get you to look at it and tell me what you think when you come.
The people in Madang have agreed to help us with their workshop for maintenance. I had a long chat with the engineer and the boss there yesterday afternoon and Simon followed up with phone calls today talking over the legal stuff with the plane being Australian registered and all. The engineer there is willing to help us out with things that crop up between Simons visits which is really great.
Now I just have to chase things along in Moresby when the boss at NAS comes back from overseas tomorrow. We need to get some paper work done and the aircraft needs to go down there for them to see and for the chief pilot to fly with me. There is only 18 hours left on the plane now. Simon will be up here January 1 to do the next inspection. I was wondering whether we would do all the hours before hand but now I think we will be finished the 100 hours before January. So that works out well for everyone concerned.
I met up with a guy who is into buying Vanilla and other spices and bush produce while in Vanimo. He has a few tons of Vanilla stranded out at Edwaki. Looks like we may get that as back loading for some of the flights we do out that way with people and goods from Vanimo. I was told that Frieda River mine is still operating and that there is work in and out of there too.
Francis, the elder I have been talking to on the phone up there, was kind enough to run me out to Warastone to where the District Director lives. He just stood there in disbelief as I told him what we were wanting to do to help him. He has some layman a few days walk into the interior but there are big centers beyond that where he knows there are church members but has never been able to go. He has to charter an aircraft to get there and does not have anywhere near the money in his budget to do that. We explained to him that we would be passing by those places often and that he would be welcome to just hop on the plane when ever he needs to, to go supervise the laymen out there and run nurturing programs to strengthen the church and prepare it for evangelism.
The pastor at town church in Vanimo is Pr. Vai. I first met him down South west Papua where he was ministering a few years back. He is a very lively guy and is excited about the possibility of getting some of the town lay people out into the bush to run programs and help move the work forward in those unreachable places where we will be going.
I will need to get a fuel trolley made. Two would be very useful. There is not much in the way of materials up there for doing that sort of work. We may have to get it made elsewhere and ship it in. The plane will be going over to Madang every 100 hours for inspections so will try and combine that kind of shopping with those trips.
Over all I feel pretty excited about the possibilities up at Vanimo. I am very thankful to God for His untiring providence and the way he has opened the doors we have needed to get us to this point. It has been a long road with some interesting twists and turns. It looks like we will get the maintenance done on the aircraft the first week of January and then I will head up to Goroka, pack my stuff in the plane and head down to Vanimo second week of January to get organized there and start work.
Thanks for the newsletter. That should stimulate some dormant interest among people who have been supportive over the years. Keep up the good work with the web site. I really appreciate it.
God bless
Regards
Trevor
Glossary of terms and abbreviations:
AAS - Adventist Aviation Services
DD - District Director
Omaura - Bible College in the Highlands
ADRA - Adventist Development and Relief Agency
MSA - Mission Support Aviation - That is us!
AOC - Air Operators Certificate - needed for commercial operations
CAA - Civil Aviation Authority
MAF - Mission Aviation Fellowship
SPD - South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists
NAS - National Air Service (Moresby business that is helping us with the AOC)
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