You Know You Are Iin Texas When....

We have been in Texas since Tuesday. After our time in Longview we made our way to Amarillo via some rural areas. We even found a rest area with some unique features.

It wasn't the brake.

I removed the left front wheel to give better access to the brake caliper. Even though the symptom of jerking as the car moved didn't seem to indicate a dragging brake, I couldn't attribute it to anything else at the time. (Please be aware I didn't get under the car at any time.) Well, it wasn't the brake. It was a broken spring. The surfaces indicated by the arrows in the picture below used to be a seamless part of the coil spring. Rena went online and found two accounts of the same left front spring breakage on this model of car.
If you're curious, the jerking as the car moved was caused by the (lower) broken end of the spring in contact with the inside corner of the tire tread. Surprisingly, the tire had no significant damage. By the time Rena took these pictures, I'd rotated the spring out of the way so the car can be moved without damaging the tire. No mechanical correction happens until Monday, so we'll enjoy the rest of today, worship our Lord with others tomorrow, and Monday will have enough troubles of its own.

Need your prayers

We are on our way to LeTourneau University in Longview,TX for their missions week. The first leg of our trip went well and we are now in Bowling Green, KY at Dwight's parents home. This morning, however, we were not able to drive the car - something wrong with the front left brake on the car. Dwight needs wisdom to know if he should try to fix it himself or wait for a shop to open on Monday. We will be able to borrow a car to visit a church in the next county tomorrow, but need a way to get to TX by Tuesday afternoon! We would appreciate your prayers.

Rena

MFI and Haiti Relief

MMS has partnered with Missionary Flights International for many years, helping with maintenance on their DC-3s. Their webpage is www.missionaryflights.org This video clip gives a good picture of what is going on right now. MMS will be sending help soon. Please pray for stamina for the MFI pilots, mechanics and all the volunteers who are helping.

Science Fair

One of the joys of living close to our grandchildren is being able to go to their activities. They both decided that they wanted to participate in their school's science fair. It is only mandatory for the 5th and 6th grades, but other students are allowed to participate if they want. Chanelle (4th grade) and Javin (Kindergarten) were very excited about their projects and had worked hard for a number of days. Chanelle experimented with different methods of making rock candy. We didn't sample it, but Chanelle's friends were able to get a few samples from her after the judging! It must have been good because I saw several girls go back for more!

Javin experimented with static electricity using statically charged balloons to lift objects. He discovered that some lifted easily and others did not.

Let's play Uno

We enjoyed have our friend Scott visit us this weekend. Jen and Jason and kids joined us for supper, after which we played a rousing game of Javin's UNO Attack!®.

Let it Snow .....

We woke up at 6:30 AM to hear someone removing the snow in our driveway with his tractor. Thank you to our wonderful neighbor!

Just over five inches has accumulated outside our door so far this week. We expect some more today

The swing under the apple tree looks quite lonely. However, it makes a pretty picture

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go . . .

The first week of a new year is always busy. The fellows do a physical inventory of our aircraft parts, material and hardware. In the office, contributions sent in December are processed first. Because MMS Aviation takes a break between Christmas and New Year's Day, quite a few donations accumulate. Rena shares receipting duty with Karen Dodson, each working different days of the week. They teamed up on Monday, however, to take care of the accumulation. Rena then worked her regular schedule Tuesday and I took this picture of her.
My agenda this week was altered by a one-hour fifteen-minute phone conversation with the FAA Inspector in Columbus, Ohio that oversees our certified repair station. Just before Christmas, we sent drafts of a major revision of our repair station manuals. Our Principal Inspector saw several points that could be clearer, so Tim Obarow, MMS' Production Manager, and I have spent some quality time this week polishing the manuals. We should send a copy of the finished manuals to the FAA tomorrow.

The fuselage of a Cessna model 206 we're restoring for mission service in Brazil was just moved from the paint booth back to hangar B. Apprentice mechanic Mark Beckwith (left) and staff member Ian Hengst plan a more stable tail stand. The plane will leave MMS on amphibious floats which aren't here yet, and the airframe was shipped to us without regular landing gear. Ian and his crew has to devise something that will support the plane and make it portable until it is placed on the floats.

6 years old on a Saturday Afternoon

We enjoyed having Javin with us Saturday afternoon. So how does a 6 yr old occupy himself at Grandma and Grandpa's house?

Doing designs with a compass


Watching football with Grandpa is great with a bowl of popcorn

Making paper pyramids with Grandpa

Stomping on bubble wrap!