On to Peru

Chris: While on our honeymoon, we got a phone message from Don Starlin asking us to call him. I waited until we got home and he suggested we visit Blackwell, OK and consider working and training for foreign service there. After some prayer, we visited in October and again once more that winter before moving there March 20, 2006 to help that project and begin our training.

Amy: Not too long into our time in Blackwell we felt convicted that the best way of obtaining Chris’ training and being good stewards about it was for us to purchase our own airplane. Chris and our friend Jim found a little 2 seat airplane on the east coast that they thought was a good deal and, thanks to an airline captain friend, they flew to Connecticut for free to go get it.

Chris: With our Cessna 150 and free flight instruction from yet another friend of ours, my private license came roughly a year later and following that came some real practical training on the Philippine island of Luzon. I was able to log over 28 hours of instruction received in the mountains, over the jungle, and over open sea. Amy and I also learned a lot about day to day mission aviation operations.Upon returning to the states, AWA’s BT Aviation, the business I’d been working at in Oklahoma was closing it’s doors and Amy and I were planning our return to MN. I was able to finish a little more training there though, and got my tail wheel endorsement and spin training from a top notch flight instructor friend of mine. I liked it so much that I starting looking for a tail wheel airplane to continue my flight training and practicing in. Tail wheel flying involves more focused flying habits in the take off and landing portions of flight and is a great way of really learning to read and feel your airplane. Without going to long on that subject, God provided us the opportunity to trade our two seat Cessna even up for a true classic, a ’47 Stinson 108-1 four seat tail dragger. That was neat! Again with the help of my friend Jim, we got that thing ready to fly in three long days of hard work and I flew our “new” plane home.

Amy: The neat thing about that was that the Stinson was worth a bit more than the Cessna. We still had Chris’ student loans to pay off and now had hopes of doing that when the airplane sold. Chris and I were able to fly the Stinson a bit while we considered God’s next step for us. Our friends the Mosier’s had been in Tanzania for quite a while and, with their oldest son graduating from seminary and inspired to start a ministry in the Democratic Republic of Congo, they asked if we might consider joining them in this venture.

We’d both thought that God had been leading us toward south America, but did not want to go against Him if this was His will, so we started praying.

Chris: At the same time, I felt impressed to contact Peru Projects, having heard a bit about them during my training with AWA and then reading of their need for a pilot/mechanic in AWA's FlightLog magazine. They told me that they were in the process of interviewing a pilot, but had no mechanic and suggested we prayerfully consider what God would have. This was a difficult decision, we felt a tug in both directions, really desiring to work along side our friends and spiritual mentors and yet sensing a call toward South America. Of course, God new the struggle we were experiencing, He heard from me quite frequently, far more than just daily, but He knew what He wanted and He wanted to help us to know also. One evening as we were at home going through some things, we received a phone call from our dear friend Barry Mosier who said that they had just met with people from Peru Projects at a convention they were attending and discussed Amy and I. They determined that Peru Projects had more ready need of us and he encouraged us to pray more about it as we felt necessary, but that he thought this was good.

Amy: Praise God! We didn’t have to make this difficult decision; it was pretty much made for us in answer to our prayers.

Chris: So here we are serving our Lord, our Father, our King, in the Amazon jungle of eastern Peru. I am the head of maintenance which means I fix anything and everything and am waiting to co-validate my pilot license to a Peruvian license. Amy is helping with a lot of the stuff in the office and we are enjoying getting to know the people, learning more Spanish, and watching God work.