Dear Friends,

On this end of the world it seems the days are just flying by! (no pun intended) Felt like I just wrote you, but it turns out that was back in the beginning of February and that strep thing is a dim memory now. Praise God with me for a healthy body and getting to do a job that is fun, challenging and in which I can see God working and touching people around me because the airplane can be used to serve them.

Flying and serving out here has it’s cycles up and down mentally, emotionally, etc. as I’m sure most of our work-lives do – seems our last 2 months or so were like that. :
UP – celebrating 1,000 accident-free flying days for our MAF Papua program – apparently the program has never made it that far before. Thanks LORD, for watching over me and all our pilots, mechanics, load crews, shedulers, strip agents, etc. as we work daily to live out Kingdom-lives in Papua with our airplanes and our flight schedule. (Btw, we’re at 1067 on the day I’m writing this note to you – thank You, LORD!)

DOWN – accidents – fatal Cessna 206 accident for MAF Australia in Papua New Guinea (across the border from me). Please pray for the family (Esther and 4 kids) and the program there as this comes hard on their accident almost a year ago when they lost 2 other pilots and a Twin Otter. There have been 3 different landing accidents by commercial operators at interior strips in the last 6 weeks alone – none fatal, but some tense moments and a few “coulda-beens” looking at those. An AMA Pilatus had to make an emergency landing at Wamena 4 weeks ago after damaging his right main on takeoff from a slippery strip interior – he walked away, but sustained some pretty heavy damage to the plane.

UP – Last week I celebrated 3,000 total hours as a pilot and almost 600 hours in Papua alone. All of it accident-free due to your prayers and God’s amazing coverage of my flying. I pray daily for the wisdom to apply what I know and to be “man enough” to turn around when I get to the end of “what I know”. It’s some of the most challenging flying, weather and terrain I’ve ever flown in and that makes it so rewarding as well.

DOWN – remember the Puldamat Seminary school student in my December letter? I flew his sick mother back into Puldamat a month or so ago and 2 days later she passed away. Please pray for Ariel and his wife as he’s starting his career as an evangelist in the midst of this.

UP- ran into a guy at a church in Nabire whose face lit up to hear Jim Lynne was my father. Turns out my dad flew him and the pastor of that church into Ilaga back in 1972 where they served for almost 7 years. Man, was he blessed to “meet the son who is back” as he put it; and I’ll confess I too was a little choked up to hear his testimony of how that work went and what he’s doing now! Those guys are really living it and doing it (that missionary thing) for real!

UP (even more) – just got checked out (and now approved to go in there solo) at Ilaga and 8 other strips in the Nabire vicinity (ok, ok, since they’re so much fun to say out loud: Bugalaga, Hitadipa, Pogapa, Waghete, Beoga, Bilogai, Dofu, Sefoidi). Was able to fly a week of fill-in while the regular MAF pilot was in Manokwari – that was fun! New routes, new weather, new people, wayyyy more ministry-related flying and after it was all over, I realized it was also the busiest/flyingest week of my MAF career so far… flew my tail off out there and loved every minute of it (of course I came home exhausted, but that’s what weekends are for)

I could go further with the UP-DOWN thing, but you get the idea. It’s all part of God’s plan for my service here and the most important thing is for me to remember HE is still in control of all of it! He’s noticed and allowed for all the ups and downs and that encourages me… I don’t have to hang onto the stress of the weather, or the discouragement from cancelled flights, or to worry about the patients I carry and whether the relief goods delivered are getting to the right people. There was a plane-load of bibles behind me the other day and I realized that HE was about to use each and every one individually to touch people’s hearts – man, was that a fun load to offload – and yes, the people whooped and hollered and danced around to be receiving boxes of bibles. Is this a great job or what?

Ok, I’ve rambled a bit here, but there’s lots to cover and I should probably write more frequently. Thanks for bearing with me…. I need to get this sent but feel like I should write more. Thanks, really I mean it, thanks for praying and for encouraging me – I couldn’t get up tomorrow and go flying if I wasn’t lifted up ahead of time by you and by HIM. Thank you for your part in my ministry here, I miss you and love you guys!

maranatha,kevin

PS: Getting my first week of vacation from 6-13 May and I’m looking forward to a slower pace on the beach and some time to get refreshed.

PPS: Whoops, can you put a PS after “maranatha”? Any scholars out there know if that’s “kosher” – I notice Paul didn’t do PS’s in the NT at all…