And the man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” Genesis 37:17

So we have been in Dothan for almost four months now; we are adjusting well. The winter weather has been a little crazy. It has not been consistent at all, with really warm weather followed by sudden drops in temperature with passing fronts. Spring has not quite come full force yet. We are all struggling with some form of allergy over the last week as the pollen count is quite high in this area of the country. Please pray it's all related to outdoor allergies as our rental house does keep a lot of moisture in certain rooms because of old construction and subpar windows.

We just became members at Calvary Baptist Church and could not be more excited about it. We have connected with a lot of great families and feel very welcomed. Calvary has been under new leadership over the past two years with Paul Thompson and we feel the church body is being transformed to a more biblical model of how God designed the church. They are learning to live more radically for the Gospel and how to make disciples as part of their everyday lives. We would love to stay in Dothan up to leaving for a missionary assignment and have Calvary be our home church while away.

Katy and I have been prayerfully considering narrowing down our focus to one missionary organization in which to serve. We have come to the decision and are feeling led to join with Mission Aviation Fellowship upon qualifying for entry. We are very thrilled to announce this and feel motivated as ever to have one organization to focus and advance towards. This means I still need to complete some bible classes before application, and even bigger, we need to pay off our school debt. We have made it under 100k to around $96,800 of remaining student loan debt. We have been living as frugal as possible and have no other debt from credit cards, mortgage, or cars. We only have student loan debt which was pretty difficult to avoid. Please pray we can accomplish all this while in Dothan.

We have come up with an idea for an Etsy business; it may spread more by word of mouth than online. The plan is to make pendants and keychains that remind to pray for unreached people groups of the world that have not heard of Jesus at all. The pendants will feature a map of the location of the unreached people group and will come with a information card with items to pray for. Pray that the product will come together with quality and will be well received.

We just updated the look of our blog and our website www.discipleaviation.com has been updated. Please prayerfully consider partnering with us in our pursuit of the world's unreached through Mission Aviation Fellowship.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:14

Welcoming Maverick, our little blessing #2.

Our little guy started off with a little jaundice but is doing great now and is pink and happy now. 

The day we went home with our little aviator.

We rocked the jaundice baby look while chilling in the sunshine.

Bundling up for bedtime. One week old.

We are happy and so in love with this little guy. He eats like a champ, sleeps like it's his job and is a sweet little snuggler.

On top of everything, Mikayla absolutely adores Maverick. Here is the first time that she met him:

Dothan, Alabama

So if I've said it before, I'll say it again, We are not very good at keeping this blog up to date. We have moved to Dothan, Alabama. I am still working with Mountain Air Cargo, but as of mid November I have switched positions to Captain in the Cessna 208 Caravan. I fly a route to Memphis four times a week at night delivering cargo. We fly pretty much exclusively for an Oncology supply company which is kind of cool to think that I am getting out time critical shipments. Flying the Caravan is perfect experience for the future mission aviation pursuit because it is the same aircraft type that is flown overseas with Christian missions.  We moved to Dothan, Alabama in order for me to get this position. Since we have been down here we found a great church last month and lots of couple around our age with kids of their own.
Maverick Aiden was born this past Sunday!! 2-2-14. He has a little bit of Jaundice, not to serious, pray it will go away with just continued good feedings. Mikayla loves having him around when she remembers he is in the room. He is a very quiet baby unless he is hungry. Katy's mom is in town for a few weeks to help us transition to having two children.
I tried to audit some bible classes last fall, but things got pretty crazy with the new position and the move to Alabama. Pray that I can complete some this year; maybe just one at a time as I tried to do two at once.
Our biggest hurdle for missions is our student loan debt. We have brought it below $100,000, but now with living on our own again, we barely make enough money to pay for regular living expenses and the minimum payments on the loans. Katy stays at home to raise the kids, so I really need to find another part time job to help us pay expenses. The ideal position would be flight instructing locally on my days off, or just anything that uses my talents.

We are going to try to get into the habit of updating this blog regularly so everyone can stay connected.

-Michael-

Prayer Requests
-Pay off student loans
-Maverick gets over Jaundice symptoms
-Build relationships with new Church family
-Time management with increased time in prayer and bible study