Updates

In seven weeks we will be leaving the UK for Uganda – that sounds remarkably close all of a sudden! We’ve been locked in a whirlwind of activity for a few weeks, and so I thought now would be a good time to give a general update on where we’re up to and how our preparations are going. So without much further ado…

Sunday is fast approaching, and with it an opportunity to throw open the doors to our house, lay out our possessions and offer them for sale to the viewing public. We’ve advertised, sorted, dusted and cleaned, and now we’re hoping to raise enough money to buy a few of the essential bits and pieces we’ll need to start life in a new country. Sounds simple. Or so we thought.

It was a Thursday morning. I woke to the unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells of another hotel room in another part of the country; Peterborough to be precise. A few weeks ago, my wonderful sister-in-law Sarah had startled us with the fantastic news that a group of 11 to 13 year olds at a big Christian conference, Faith Camp, would be raising money to help send us on our way to Uganda through the sales of t-shirts. Would we like to come and speak about what we would be doing?

Yesterday I got an amazing email! After a week of intensive technical training concluding with a big exam, I found out that I had passed. This is great news as it is one step closer to getting my full B1 aircraft license. It’s the start of a two-year process that will allow me to not only sign out all the Ugandan based MAF aircraft from an avionics point of view, but also to sign out the airframe and engine side as well. This is a great advantage not only for me, but for MAF as well.

Once upon a time there was a monkey. This monkey noticed that in the river there was a fish splashing around and clearly struggling against the flow of the water. Being a kindhearted monkey, he decided to do something about it, and made his way out onto a perilous limb overhanging the swiftly flowing water.

How do you deal with conflict in a team? How do you get access to money in Africa? What do you do if someone throws a live grenade in your general vicinity?

Well that’s it! Dave’s had his last day at Garmin and Becky’s had her last day volunteering in the Testwood Baptist Church office. It was a happy-sad kind of day for us both saying farewell to the old, but eagerly looking forward to the new. On Monday we officially start with MAF, kicking off with a week long induction with MAF International in Ashford, Kent.