Mission Aviation History to Hitch a Ride on the Space Shuttle

Mission Aviation History to Hitch a Ride on the Space Shuttle

Weekend Work

Saturday morning in Eastern Pennsylvania was wet with limited visibility and a low ceiling. I arrived at the Smoketown Airport, near Lancaster, before nine to work at our display and talk about mission aviation in general and MMS in particular.

The little yellow plane is Steve Saint's Piper PA-14 in which, later in the day, he demonstrated the "bucket drop" his father developed. This is the plane MMS prepared for its role in the movie, "End of the Spear".

Mission organization displays were in one of the hangars. This old guy had a good time talking to many people, young and old, about MMS Aviation's part in the mission aviation community. Fellow MMSers Dale Coates, Ian Hengst and Dave Shelly also manned the display, which gave me the chance to get around and chat with other mission representatives.

Dale, Ian and Dave were at the mission aviation event again on Sunday afternoon. Rena, Jen, the kids and I traveled back to Coshocton yesterday.

Chocolate World

We have been taking a mini vacation/work weekend. Jen and the grandkids are with us. On the way to Wyomissing we couldn't resist stopping at Chocolate World in Hershey, PA. Today Dwight is participating at a missions aviation fair in Lancaster, PA.

Chocolate World

Rachel

We enjoy getting to know our volunteers and Rachel Mohr is no exception. Rachel is a student at Ohio State and has been volunteering in our hangar this month. She is no stranger to missions, having grown up in Madagascar. She also has a passion for flying and just earned her flight instructor's rating.

Young Swimmer

I (Dwight) got home from work yesterday and Rena asked me if I wanted to go observe Javin's final swimming lesson of the summer. I'd planned to get an early start fulfilling my duties as treasurer of our church, but knew I couldn't pass up an opportunity to watch my grandson learn to swim.

Javin is learning rhythmic breathing and the crawl stroke. He is very comfortable in the water and made a fine effort to coordinate breathing and swimming into a seamless operation. Later, he and the other kids in his class had a great time jumping off the diving board at the deep end of the pool.

The swimmer just two weeks before his sixth birthday

I did get the church's bills paid last night, finishing a bit after my normal bedtime. All in all, it was a good evening.

Missionaries needing prayer

The mission aviation community suffered a severe blow on August 1 st when the airplane piloted by missionary Frank Toews went down. Please remember Africa Inland Mission (AIR Air) and the loss and grief they are experiencing right now. Especially remember two wives who are now without husbands and eight children who are without their fathers. Check this link for details.

It Really Works!

We had talked about how we really missed garden ripened tomatoes. Since our tiller went out of commission a few years ago, we gave up putting in a garden. Frequent summer trips also made it difficult to keep ahead of the weeds. When I (Rena) saw this item at our local discount store I couldn't resist the idea of fresh tomatoes again. As it started to grow however, the poor plant kept trying to grow upright instead of upside down. We wondered if the stalks would break off as the tomatoes started to grow. But you can see from the picture that the weight of the tomatoes has pulled the tomato vine downward gradually. So now we can have our fresh tomatoes - yum! Now we just need to keep ahead of the raccoons!

Back Home and more updates

We are happy to be back home from Wisconsin and are settling back into our routine. The MMS blog has more updates on the trip to Airventure in Oshkosh. Be sure to check it out.