October update

Another month has passed and at MMS I continue to work on the Missionary Aviation Group (MAG) 206. This airplane has been serving in Honduras. It came in over a year ago for an inspection required after every 1000 hours of flight. It ended up staying for 1000+ hours of repairs. The main problems on the aircraft were wear and corrosion. I was given the right wing to inspect and repair. I have since replaced 5 leading edge ribs, the inboard leading edge skin, the lower fuel tank skin and hat channels, the inboard flap track, the inboard flap well skin and I still need to replace the outboard leading edge skin make a few repairs due to corrosion, strip and repaint. You might say that sounds like a lot of work and you would be right. To top it all off the wings have fuel tanks built right into them and were leaking. That was why the lower fuel tank skin needed replaced. When you break that seal it is quite an ordeal to get the tank cleaned up and ready to reseal it back down, a lot of scrapping and scrubbing of old sealer. Please pray for MAG as the look for the additional money needed to finish this airplane and the needed money to replace the engine on another airplane.

My next project should be in the hanger by mid-November. I will be leading a small team in the overhaul of a 4 cylinder Lycoming engine. The airplane will be flown in and it will be our job to remove the engine, tear it down, replace the mandatory replacement parts, measure and determine if all the remaining parts are with-in limits, then we will rebuild the engine, test run it then install it in the airplane and return the airplane to service. This will be my first time as a project team leader; my responsibilities will be to insure the quality of the product we produce, assure that the engine meets its type certificate and make sure the apprentice is learning the correct way to overhaul an engine.



At home we just enjoyed a “stay-cation” over the long weekend. We had a day at the Columbus Zoo followed by a day at COSI (Columbus’ science center) and a day at The Wilds (North America’s largest wildlife conservation facility). It was a beautiful weekend and was certainly one of the highlights of our year. This coming weekend, we are planning to slaughter 47 chickens for sale and for the freezer. After watching a tv show about large chicken farms, we could not bring ourselves to buy anymore store bought chicken. We built a chicken tractor and have been raising our own. We are starting to prepare for spring by getting the garden ready, we are going to try using a heavy mulch in the garden next year to cut down on the amount of weeding that we have to do and improve the nutrients in the soil.

We still are waiting on word from the Brazilian embassy or Assa de Socorro about our visa appeal. So as of now we will anticipate remaining at MMS until God opens another door for us. We will continue to serve world missions from right here in Ohio. Please continue to pray that God’s will be done.

Thank you for your continuing prayer and support. We could not do it without you!

Josh & Kristi