Ebel's Blogmail

Hello Friends

I must admit I am feeling a bit guilty as I haven’t been able to get a response back to all the emails we have gotten over the last little while. I promise I will get to them, sometime.

This last week was my first week flying solo. So far I can go to about a dozen strips out of the almost 300 that MAF serves here. My first flight was a medivac and by the end of the week I had done three. Two of them had to do with complications after child birth. In the attached photo you can see us getting ready to put the patient in the airplane for the 15 minute flight back to Mt Hagen. She was not in very good shape a sore had gone unnoticed and got real bad and I suspect by this time she was suffering from blood poison. At least the new baby was alive and well the second women’s baby did not fair as well.

For the last couple weeks we have been helping out a Bible Translation family who is out in a village by doing their shopping for them usually veggies and other odds and ends. Then usually I drop in and deliver the veggies and a newspaper. WE sure appreciate being able to help out in this way knowing we would never be able to do a bible translation. This last week we also added buying veggies for one of the single MAF pilots who lives down on the coast and doesn’t have access to a good source of veggies.

Life is fairly quiet here on the compound as two families have gone back to Australia to have babies before returning later this year. So for the next 6 weeks it is us and the Fasnachts, who will fly out on the 26^th of June back to Switzerland. Esther is doing well and for the most part life has settled down. Please remember this family in your prayers especially the children.

As for us we are all doing very well Sue and the kids continue to spend most of the day working on Homeschool and Morgan has finished most of her gr 1 stuff so has started to work on gr 2. Josh continues to play hard outside and hates to wear shoes so his feet look terrible I think it has something to do with being unable to climb trees with them on. Here is a picture of him up a tree working on another project and one of Morgan and Gioia working on another craft.

Love you all and thanks for your prayers!

Hi Friends
Just thought you might be interested in our new addition to our family. He is a young male Wreathed Hornbill. Aparently they make good pets and are easily domesticated. "Kokomo" already is very tame and likes to eat out of your hand. He is very vocal when you have his lunch and is quite inquisitive. The cage we have for him is very large and has many roosts which he hops around on. Once he is a bit older he will be quite happy to stick around the compound flying from tree to tree.


Talk to you soon.
Have a great Easter. We are alone on the compound this weekend as the rest have gone away for the holiday. We are looking ofrward to the quiet.

Love from us all.
Rich Sue Josh & Morgan & Kokomo

Hello Friends

Just a little note to catch you up on what is going on here in PNG.

Thank you so much for the emails of support and encouragement. We are loved! We will be answering email for the next few weeks.

It “seems” Pierre’s accident was caused by some sort of engine/power failure. The engine has been sent out to be inspected for the exact cause. Engine failures in MAF Australia are very rare. There are still many unanswered questions so the investigation continues.

Esther and family are doing as well as can be expected. The rest of her family that came for the funeral leaves this week. After that Esther is hoping to have life return to some sort of new normal as the kids finish up their school term. The plan right now is to leave mid June for Switzerland. There are still hard times and evenings especially are tough. Please remember Sue as she helps Esther as she can.

I am back to flying and next week should be ready for a pre solo check. At that point I will be able to fly in to the areas I have completed a check in to.

I will attach a couple pictures from Wopisali. We were waiting for the missionary as he assesses the heath clinic for needed maintenance and upgrade, actually it was raining so we didn’t have much of a choice. At this airstrip you fly one leg of the landing circuit in an adjacent valley before turning through a notch in the limestone cliffs to turn on to final, for this one-way airstrip.

Dear Friends

Thank you again for your encouragement, prayers and emails (we will get around to answering all of them).

Today was the memorial for Pierre. It was a great Tribute to him and his service here in PNG. The church was standing room only and the building was surrounded by at least that many more. There were missionaries, pastors and church leaders from around the country. Pierre was one of the longest serving pilots here and had impacted many lives in the course of flying his airplane.

Tomorrow we start with a meeting to start looking at what a new MAF might look like here in PNG. We just do not have the pilots and engineers needed to do all we are asked to do. So where do you stop serving, who will be the ones to suffer? Hard questions hard answers and even harder effects. We hope that in the end MAF will be better arranged in order to continue giving the best service we can with the resources God has given and leave what we can not do to Him.

Please remember Sue and the other wives as we slowly start returning to flight operations. I, along with another pilot, will be on call in case of any medical emergencies. Later on in the day the wives will have a chance to meet together and debrief with the counselor.

Esther is holding on and is doing remarkably well, coming over last night she just wanted to sit and do something normal with Sue, knitting. Please continue to pray for her as life returns to a new “normal”.

Thanks again.

In His Grip

Richard & Susan Ebel