The Bupps move on

Shawn and Donna Bupp, with (l-r) Rachel, Sarah and Katie

It is always a joy when new apprentices arrive at MMS. We feel their enthusiasm as they dive into the training in the hangar. They and their families become part of the MMS family and we love to see how God uses them in our group as well as the community. The hard part is when the training is done and it is time for them leave and join the ministry God has called them into. Please pray for the Bupp family as they plug into the ministry of Harvest Aviation. We will miss them. We had a time of fellowship to send them off on Saturday evening, hosted at the home of one of our MMS Aviation staff families.

What We Do

The other day I walked through the MMS Aviation hangars with my camera. (I'm always looking for things to show you.) I took several snapshots of the work being done on the planes and downloaded them to the computer. Tonight as I looked through them again, it hit me that this one illustrates quite well the work we do.

Ian, an MMS Team Leader, heads up the crew performing a scheduled inspection of Gospel Carrier International's Beechcraft King Air. Ian is in the blue shirt and is listening to David explain what the maintenance manual requires about measuring the brake disk slots in a wheel. David, an apprentice mechanic, clearly understood the procedure so Ian cleared him to measure the wheels and note any discrepancies on the appropriate form.

Gospel Carrier's plane will, barring something unforeseen, be put back into service this next week. David and our other mechanics will gain experience, learn more theory, and increase their maintenance skill. For me, this is pretty close to having your cake and eating it too. I find it exciting.

A number of churches and individuals make it possible for Rena and I to be at MMS Aviation through prayer and financial giving. We are so grateful they partner with us.

KZX continued

Here are pictures from the KZX Reunion. About 30 men and most of the wives attended. It was great fun exchanging stories and catching up on the past 40 years. LeTourneau University still has mandatory chapel services, so our final event together was a Sunday morning chapel service. Dr. David Lunsford, current LeTourneau president was our speaker.

Tim and I were roommates our first year at LeTourneau

A lot of laughter, fellowship and a special time of worship were the highlights. It was agreed that we will have to do this again in five years. Hopefully some of us will be able to get together sooner than that! One thing is for sure; we can't wait another 40 years before we get together again.

Jim and I shared a room my final year at school.

KZX

Thursday afternoon found us on the road, traveling toward St Louis, MO to the LeTourneau KZX reunion. KZX was the fraternity-like society that Dwight was a member of while attending LeTourneau College in Longview, TX. This reunion is limited to a span from 1963-73 and it has been 40 years since most of these men have seen each other.

We stopped Thursday evening in North Vernon, IN and overnighted with Dwight's brother and sister-in-law, Eric and Sue before arriving in St Louis Friday afternoon. Our first sight of St. Louis included the big arch looming up in the sky - the "Gateway to the West". Wow, we couldn't resist the urge to stop and take a look before continuing on to our hotel in St Charles. We were very impressed and were totally surprised to discover the underground museum, theatre, gift shop etc. underground beneath the arch.

Hurricane Ike

About 6:00PM Sunday evening Hurricane Ike made it's appearance in Coshocton County. We had several hours of high winds without rain - so strange. Many Ohio counties were affected and the Governor declared a state of emergency. We were one of the million and a half Ohio customers who were left without power. The town and county were a mess! Our kids were without power in their homes too. After 46 hours our electric returned - just when we had made arrangements to transfer our meat to a freezer in Jen's in-laws house and I (Rena) had decided that we could no longer tolerate cold sponge baths! We did not have any damage to the house - just some branches off of trees to clean up, PTL. Many more are still without power. For more images click on Coshocton Tribune Link at the bottom of this blog page.

Jen's Birthday

Chanelle and Javin help Mom read her card

Today is Jen's (our daughter) Birthday. She may not want you to know how old she is, so we won't tell! We celebrated this past weekend while Scott and Stephanie could be here.

As per special request by his sister, Scott made deep fried cheesecake. Delicious!

Visitors and Prayer

Dwight enjoys showing visitors around our MMS Aviation facilities and sharing what God is doing through this ministry. Visitors come individually, family groups, church groups or special interest groups. We expect a bus load of 55 next week!

One of the highlights is stopping to look at the map mural which shows the pictures of many who have received training here and where they went to serve. The map also indicates the locations where aircraft that we have worked on, are now serving. A third feature of the map are locations indicated where MMS has sent Rapid Response Teams to do work on aircraft in mission field locations. This particular guest is Jim Lewis who is the Executive Director of Harvest Aviation a ministry where some of our MMS "graduates" are now serving.

Tuesday evening our MMS ladies met for our monthly "Prayer Fellowship". I enjoy these times of getting together and being able to share in a time of worship and prayer for MMS and the MMS families with these wonderful ladies. Some that attended Tuesday are pictured below. Various staff wives have taken leadership of the Ladies Prayer Fellowship and our current leader is Lisa Schwartz.

Me, Dana Abernethy, Glenda Kamphorst, Donna Bupp, Amy Mozombite, Staci Hengst, Lisa Schwartz and Karen Dodson (Deborah Coates was there but taking the picture for me!) Others were there but left before I thought to have the picture taken!

Kodiak takeoff

Can you stand one more posting about the Kodiak, this impressive airplane built with missions in mind? One more detail is its amazing short take off and landing capabilities. This is ideal for many third world country airstrips which are either cut out of the jungle or on mountain tops. Here is a video of it taking off at MMS last week. It only needs 700 ft for takeoff.

Javin's Birthday

Javin celebrated his 5th Birthday on Sunday afternoon. It was fun to able to celebrate with him.

A Day in the 18th Century

Saturday, August 30th, Rena, Jen, Javin, Scott, Stephanie and I attended the Fair at New Boston. People who reenact various late 18th Century and early 19th Century events gathered near Springfield, Ohio for a country fair and recreated battle. The fair was typical of an early 1800s gathering with various vendors selling wares and a number of entertainments including fire-eaters, clowns, contortionists, etc. No doubt you've heard of tightrope walkers; this fair had a slackrope walker.

The primary reason we went was to see my brother, Frank, and his wife, Carol, who participate in quite a few events such as this one throughout the year. Frank is known as Parson John and, at many events, presents a church service of the appropriate period. (The Parson's wearing the three cornered hat.)

Carol portrays the Parson's indentured servant, Maggie; a reminder of the harsh reality of being widowed by the death of a husband with debt. (A widow could be sold into servitude for up to 39 years or until the debt was paid. If she married a man who paid the debt, she would be freed.) Maggie wears a leather collar that signifies she had run away.

I didn't ask what Nation the Native American man standing by Maggie is. I know the Parson and Maggie have friends who are Delaware. The battle that was reenacted was in August, 1780.

Javin, my five year old grandson didn't mind the explosions of the musket fire, but the cannons were just too loud.

After a lunch of 18th Century "fair food" we attended another show in which a young lady did sword walking--the first time I'd even heard of it.

We stopped by a few vendors' tents, including one of a French lace merchant. Because he didn't have any of his lace makers with him, he had to show us how lace was made. (Normally, he would only sell lace, not make it, and thereby maintain the natural order of the cosmos.)

There were many more sights, sounds and smells to remember. It was really convenient to carry our 21st Century gadget called a digital camera to an event such as this. "Bytes" has meaning to us of which folks in the 18th and 19th Centuries had no idea.

One parting shot: What a fun way to learn history!