the schedule, as i see it

Thank you for your prayers for us lately. Please don’t stop. Rod’s schedule is still very crazy and he will be gone for many days over the next weeks, and many weekends.

Right now, with people on home assignment, Rod and Jim Streit are the only two DC3 pilots, and it is a two-crew airplane. Therefore, every time that it is scheduled to fly, Rod and Jim are out flying. We are very grateful that Brian and Sandi (Stoltzfus, my cousins) are coming back out at the end of June. And, another pilot returns sometime in late June as well. That will ease up Rod’s schedule some.

• Please continue to pray for stamina and safety for him, for alertness and awareness as he flies, and for clear vision about what we are doing.

• Pray for Cristiana, Katie, and I as we are home without him. It has been hard that even when he is in the city, he is unable to get home for dinner with us. Thankfully, most nights when he is here, he does get home before Cristiana goes to bed. She exhibits some very interesting behavior when he is gone so much like this.

• Please pray for me, as I single parent, now with two; and, as Katie is still waking up at least once, and sometimes twice in the night. By nine weeks, Cristiana was sleeping completely through the night, not waking up once at all. Katie is now four months old and still waking up. I know that they are very different and individual people, and Katie is growing so much faster than Cristiana did, and that has a lot to do with it. As I write this, it is 3.00am, I was unable to go back to sleep after feeding Katie.

• Please pray for peace for our home also as I single parent; and, for patience for me. Like I said, Cristiana exhibits some interesting behavior when Rod is gone, and sometimes it is “over-the-top” for me. I so dearly love my girls, but Cristiana can be a challenge when she is feeling a bit insecure — as we all do, so I cannot blame her.

• Please pray for compounded sleep for both Rod and I as we are both running on less amounts of it these days.

• Pray for Rod’s office duties, that they get done, and not pile up. Thankfully, he does totally enjoying flying and getting out to see places around East Africa is a blessing for him. But then piles in the office get taller and taller, and he gets further and further behind.

• Please pray for AIM Air as everyone seems to be overloaded and overworked — from the pilots to the mechanics to the administration. Pray for wisdom in how many flights to accept and how many hours for the guys to be gone and away overnight and over weekends. I wonder if Rod will make a record this month and next.

• Pray for clear vision and direction for the leadership as AA is continuing through some interesting times. All over the world we see “interesting” things happen, and wonder what the Lord is doing. It is no different here.

Know that I am not seeking sympathy in all of this, just prayer to get us through it. We have done this before, just have never been very vocal about it. But, now that I have this kind of avenue (the blog), I find that I like to write and tell you all out there in cyberspace all about it. We hope for a decent respite later in the year when we can go away — far away — for a bit of a family vacation. Pray for those details to fall into place as well.

And, a HUGE thank you to those of you who has been writing and telling me that you are praying. It truly helps to actually know, as opposed to only assuming that you all are. Keep it comin’!

So, thank you for praying us through this time . . . from all four of us.

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the future, as i pray for it

What does the future hold for us? Well, in the end of June Brian and Sandi arrive. Brian, who is a Captain, will be ready to fly within days. At the end of June or beginning of July another family comes back and he is a First Officer in the DC3 so that will give some relief as well since we will then have two full crews. Then, sometime this fall, the DC3 is scheduled to be down for heavy maintenance. It could be a month and a half or longer, it all depends. That means that the airplane will not fly for that period of time.

You say to yourself, “But I thought that Rod likes to fly.” And, yes he does. However, with a bit of a break in his flight schedule he will have time to get through things in the office, and be home a bit more. We hope to take some sort of vacation, as I mentioned before, during that time. And, to get far away, far enough that no one can ask him to come back early. Far enough away that someone else needs to deal with any issues that arise. Far enough away that he feels comfortable turning the cell phone off. Far enough away that he actually gets a break.