Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. It has been quite a while since our last blog entry, we want to update everyone more frequently with what is going on in our lives. There have many trials, but through our hope in Christ we have pressed on. I am almost done with the Spring semester. I found a aviation related job, Piedmont Aviation doing landing gear overhaul which I started at the beginning of February. It has now been three months since I started and I just got promoted into a inspection position. I start tomorrow and I am pretty excited. The weeks have been long and tiring. I work from 630am to 430pm and then I go to school from 5pm-10pm Mon-Fri. Katy and I do not get to see each other very much which is definitely tough. Katy is still working at Old Navy and she continues to look for something more full time and more enjoyable. She recently had a interview for a great nanny job and we are praying that she gets it if that is part of God's plan.
On probably the most exciting note we have visited JAARS in Waxhaw, NC twice this Spring. They are a mission organization that supports Wycliffe Bible Translators through transportation, information technology, construction, etc. The part we are most interested in is there aviation support. They fly aircraft for the bible translation projects and for the locals while they are there like medical and humanitarian needs. They are currently serving in Indonesia, Cameroon, Kenya, Brazil, and Papua New Guinea. We believe that JAARS is the mission organization th at we want to serve with. We have sent in an initial interest form saying that we will be ready to serve within the next four years. Ideally though we want to start as soon as possible. I need to complete my aircraft mechanics license; I will be done with the program next July 2011. I also need to complete a few flights to get my tailwheel aircraft license.
Our biggest hurdle as most of you know is our student loans that we need to pay off before we can become full time missionaries. We are always seeking prayer and financial support for this large burden. It is very tough to get a very lucrative job to pay them off ourselves, when we have not a lot of experience and no desire to get into that type of career path when all we want to do is live as supported missionaries overseas spreading the gospel. This is the hardest part for missionary aviators to overcome and the reason why there is such a great need for future pilots to serve in missions. Organization like JAARS generally do not recruit enough pilots for their need each year because of this reason. We need to develop a family of supporters that will help us monthly when we are out on the mission field, and we hope for a miracle to help us currently to help us financially so we can enter into service.
Our next need coming up is my summer tuition. It is around 500 dollars. We know God will provide for us through His timing. Please pray for this need as I start summer semester on May 19th. We thank you all who are following us along on our journey to the mission field.
