We arrived here in Florida on Sunday evening in order to spend the week visiting with MFI.
Monday I spent the whole day at the airport. From 8 to 930 they spend time in devotion and sharing. After that I really spent most of the day talking with different people and learning about the organization.
On Sunday, MFI got a call from some missionaries in Haiti for an emergency. A father, his 5-year-old son, and 12-year-old daughter got in a motorcycle accident that morning on their way to church. The 5-year-old died and the entire family, including the son, needed to be flown back to the states. This is not the normal work of MFI but they are available for these types of missions.
The demographic of MFI is quite perfect. They have 9 pilot/mechanics and 3 mechanics. Without thinking too hard, about half of them are in their 30's and the other half are in their 50's - a really good split. It's always fun talking to guys and hearing their stories about they came to be missionary pilots.
On Tuesday, they had a luncheon for us and some of the other families came with their kids. So the whole family got to come see the hangar and the planes. I post some pictures on Friday after my trip to Haiti.
We spend Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons looking at houses. Man is this market strange! Foreclosures, bank-owned homes, short sales - so very strange. We did see a house this evening that we really like. Faydra is going to go look at it tomorrow night and who knows what might happen on Friday.
Tomorrow, Thursday, I am flying on a trip to Haiti - as a flight attendant. I was hoping I would get to just hang out in the jump seat but no luck with that. I guess they want to evaluate how well I serve coffee and snacks before considering me as a pilot/mechanic. I have to show up at 6am and we plan on being wheels up at 7am. They fly to Exuma(sp?) in the Bahamas for a fuel stop. Port au Prince is next. Then to Pignon - a grass strip in the middle of island. Next stop is Cap Haitian on the northern part of the island.
I'm not sure of the exact details but we are taking 13 down and bringing 18 back. At some point we are picking up a returning missionary along with 1500 lbs of baggage. It is going to be a real long day. If anyone cares to follow the flight you can go to flightaware.com and put in the number of the plane - N200MF.
That's enough for today. I'll try to post again Friday or Saturday after the board meeting.
Man, this sounds great! I'm glad you are excited about it and we are excited with you.
Don't feel bad about being a flight attendant. At least you get to be on a flying airplane! My whole first week at JAARS was washing, waxing and buffing a non-flying airplane!
Looking forward to the verdict later this week!
Posted by: David Mead | October 22, 2009 at 10:49 AM