Joel and Daniel

So this is the first blog that has not been edited by another party, so forgive all the lovely mistakes. Also, the shuttle Endeavor did not end up taking off on Friday, there were some problems during the pre flight and it was postponed. Anyway, here goes...

So Daniel and Joel arrived late Friday night, or more accurately, early Saturday morningJ It was so awesome having them here, words just don’t quite do the emotions justice.  Their visit flew by, almost literally.  I had a great time letting them meet the friends that I made down here, going to church with me, having Easter with the Saints, working with the guys at I-TEC and taking taking them to Rainbow springs and to play Volley Ball at the YMCA.

Saturday we slept in then headed to Steve Saint’s house to help him work on the playhouse for his grandkids.  We pretty much spent the morning there and then the afternoon we just kind of hung out.  It was great to just spend time with them.

Sunday after church I brought them to Rainbow Springs then headed over to Jesse’s house.  All the Saints where there as well as several other relatives,  there was also a missionary from Kenya there.  Joel Daniel and I hung out for a while then played on the tire swings, well we actually spent the whole time trying to make whoever was in the swing regurgitate their lunch buy spinning them as fast as we could, and also trying to slam the tire swing and it’s unfortunate passenger into the tree.  Fortunately for the passenger, Jesse must have strategically placed the chain, because try as we might, we could not hit the tree. 

Upon arriving back at the house the grandkids deduced where we had been and I was elected to push everyone. This would have been simple enough had there not been two tire swings.  I was constantly running from one to the other.  Luckily it started to rain and we all had to go inside, and when the rain passed, Joel and Steve’s Nephew Jonathan were elected to go out and pushJ

            Monday and Tuesday they helped me work on Life University, and that was SSSOOO awesome.   There were windows that were installed several days before they got here and needed to be caulked, a couple of doors that needed to be painted, a big brush pile that had to be cut up and brought to Jesse’s burn pile and the paneling on the back wall had to be replaced.  I was dreading having to do all that on my own, it would have taken 4 or 5 times longer If I had to do it on my own.  Not to mention that I am a terrible painter and even worse at caulking windows.           

            It was almost like old times, all of us teasing and insulting each other,  and telling inside jokes that only as life long friends could have.  It was so awesome, I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. But as I said, it was “almost” like old times,  We made a catastrophic mistake, after all morning on the first day of no caffeine we knew that there was a problem.  During our lunch break we went into town to rectify the problem, and the following morning I made my Lowe’s run early and stopped at a Starbucks to buy us all drinks and prevent us from repeating our failure of the previous morning.

There were a few weeks before I moved here that Daniel and I worked together at a job that was pretty close to home.  So us being so brilliant minded decided to get some over time.  We would arrive on the job at 5am and not leave till 5 or 6pm, no breaks, not even lunch.  We would stop at a gas station or some wonderful place where there was an abundance of caffeine and buy a lovely stash of it to get us through the day.  It was during this time that we formed the motto, “Late to bed, early to rise, work like heck with blood-shot eyes”.  And believe me, that was us.   All of us kind of made caffeine a necessity, if we were going to work, we may as well get a lot done quickly.  We were at a restaurant one day and saw a small bard on the wall that read “Drink Coffee, do stupid things faster and with more energy” I think we embodied that one tooJ  and since I am on the quoting track, I saw a coffee cup at a coffee shop that said, “With Enough Coffee I can do anything!” 

They lift I-TEC on Tuesday night and to spend a few days with Daniel’s brother David.  Troy gave me today off so I could meet them at Daytona Beach.  I took the opportunity to get here early enough for the sunrise, but my luck is plain out bad, this is the second time I have shown up for the sunrise and it was overcast.  I left home at 4am to make it here, and I didn’t get to see it!

I am typing this at a Starbucks that I came to with my family while they were here during New Year.  If you step outside you can see the beach.  Just before coming in here, I had a pretty neat encounter.

I passed a guy near this Starbucks at about 6 this morning and saw him again sitting on a bench not far from were I was sitting on a brick wall drinking my coffee.  I went running up the beach about ¾ of a mile and then turned around and headed back, by this time it was pretty light outside and as I looked left, I saw him again this time standing with his head down almost like he was praying.  One of my pet peeves is that I have to stop my runs on a mile, I hate stopping it at half or quarter miles, it has to be at a mile.  Well, I had to get over that, I felt like God wanted me to meet this guy, and I was only at 1.41 miles.  I kept trying to talk myself out of it, I wasn’t afraid to meet him, I love talking to people, but I didn’t want to stop at 1.41 miles.   I knew he had been there for about 2 hours already and was sure that he would leave before I could finish half a mile and then I would have a terrible day knowing that I missed God.

So I ran back to those steps and luckily I got to 1.5 miles before I got there, at least it is an even stopping point J I ended up walking over there and talking to him for about 15minutes.  Turns out that his health is not doing so well, he doesn’t have much time left to be alive, he has had several heart attacks and he heart is causing some other problems as well.  I am no stranger to heart issues so I told him my story of all the heart issues that I had and what I am doing today, he seemed really encouraged, and he even  brightened a little, I don’t think he really has any friends.  He said that he usually comes out to the beach at 5am every morning and sits out there till the sun comes up.  He was in West VA for a while but he couldn’t take not seeing the beach so he moved back here, this morning was his first since being back.      I don’t really know why all that happened, we never even exchanged names, we just talked for a while, but I do know that God wanted me to talk to that man and I am glad that I did. 

I love you and am very grateful for your financial support and more importantly, your prayer support.  Really looking forward to spending time with Joel, Daniel and David.  It has been a while since we last hung out together, I am sure we are going to have a blastJ  We are going to see the shuttle “Endeavor” take off today as well. Pretty excited, I haven’t seen it take off since I was a little kid.

Your brother in Christ,

Austin

             

               

Blown!!

    Monday, I was finally able to get the A/C working in the Maverick building, and Tuesday was spent doing odd jobs that need to be done around the building.  If all goes well tomorrow and Friday, I should be able to start working on Life University.  
    I had my flying lesson cut short today; the right tire blew on us a few seconds after landing.  No, it wasn’t a hard landing that blew it, though I have done my share of them.  This landing in particular was a pretty good one, actually, but while I was raising the flaps, the plane started to veer to the left, I pressed the right pedal to correct my course but it hardly helped at all.  After Charlie tried, he said it was a flat tire, and of course, he was right.  We pushed the plane off the runway and walked back to I-TEC’s hangar to get some tools and help.
    We got a few people and some equipment and headed back out there.  Ray is a flight instructor and aircraft mechanic for YWAM and since Jesse wasn’t able to help at the moment, he came.  Also, Joel and Jeremy came. They are both with YWAM and are learning to fly as well.  They are part of the team that is going to be driving/flying the first two Mavericks from here all the way to the Amazon jungle in Brazil. (The Beyond Road’s Office has maps of all the countries they are going through taped to the wall.) They are a blast to be with.  

It took about 20 min to get the plane back to the hangar where Jesse and I replaced both rear tires.  We figured that while we are at it, we might as well do the other one.  The nose wheel seemed fine so we left it.  I was razzed about blowing the tire on the plane by everyone. They have seen some of my “not so good” landings before the tire blew, quite humbling.  I was delighted to find that the tire was completely worn down and I just happened to be the unfortunate pilot that was flying when it decided to kick the bucket.  

I’m suppose to have another lesson Thursday morning.  Monday, provided everything works out, I am suppose to spend the whole afternoon learning how to make a flight plan and then do my first cross country flight.  That basically means that I am going to fly more than a hundred miles and land at 2 other airports, Cross City and Gainesville.

I was also reminded last night at church that Saturday I am suppose to make a trip with most of my friends at church to Jacksonville.  We are going to see a play called ‘The Passion” performed at the home church of one of my friends.  I was also told that this Sunday we are doing a huge luncheon at the church and we are not having Community time (Sunday school) so we get to sleep in.  Well honestly, I like our Community time better than our meeting during the week so that is kind of a bummer, but I do get an extra hour and a half of sleep though, hard to beat that.

It was great to be home for the wedding, and I really enjoyed spending time with my friends and family, especially my niece and nephew, Vesper and Dominic  Also, it was really awesome to spend time with Joel and Daniel.  I really miss living with you guys and having all our fun adventures, cant wait for your visit!  I love and miss all of you, have a wonderful week.

Your brother in Christ,

Austin

Sun-N-Fun

Most all of ITEC was down in Lakeland at the Sun-N-Fun air show so ITEC was pretty quiet.  Ryan and I were suppose to fly down in the Cessna 150 but due to weather we were unable to fly down.  In fact, the weather was so bad, it produced several tornados, one of them actually going through the air show.  As far as I know, 40 planes have severe damage to them and there are a few others that have minor damage.  Unfortunately, one of those planes was I-TEC’s Zenith 801 that we had up for sale.  There are some things that we can save from it like the engine and possibly the fuselage, but other than that, it is a complete loss.

Friday morning, Ryan and I were able to fly down; the weather was really nice, and we had a pretty good tailwind so we made the flight relatively quickly.  I got to do about half the flying while Ryan was reading the procedures and stuff for landing there.  I must say, I do feel pretty bad for the guys in the tower that have to tell us what to do and where to land and all that loveliness.  There were hundreds, if not thousands, of aircrafts there, it was a big fly in, pilots from all around were flying in to this event. it is called, “The Spring Break for Pilots”.

The airport was closed so that the Blue Angels could practice so we had to stay in a holding pattern for about 20 minutes, which pretty much means we were flying in a huge circle around a lake with about 15 other planes.  We finally landed, set up camp and headed to I-TEC’s booth. They were just getting things set up and setting things out in the sun.  Turns out, everything was soaked in the rainstorm the day before and everything was laying out to dry.  All our fliers, TV where the videos of the Maverick were playing, books, DVDs, etc, were wet but not entirely destroyed so we put them all in the sun to dry.  I put on a Maverick shirt and started passing out fliers and talking to people about the Maverick.  

No sooner had I started, then Troy came up and asked me if I wanted to go with Steve and Jamie on their trip.  After finding out that we would be back in time for my trip to the Village, I said yes. The trouble was, I had flown down, not driven, and we were suppose to leave the next morning.  This wouldn’t normally have been too big of a deal (esp. if I had a Maverick.) Ryan likes to fly as much as I do if not more, and I am sure that he would have flown me back, the problem was that the airport was closed for the day.  But God planned ahead for me, Jesse had both his car and suburban at the campground so I was able to drive his car back that night.  

So, since I was not going to be at the air show for the next 3 days, I decided not to work the booth and to have a look around.  Jesse had told me to bring all my medical stuff cause a guy at the FAA booth that might be able to help me get my medical.  I suppose it was worth a try, but it was a no go, he was able to tell me that all my medical stuff was in the FAA system and ready to review, and he sent a few emails to let them know I was asking about it and to try to get it pushed through.  

I was told of an organization called Stallion 51 by one of my mentors who used to work for them about 20 years ago.  I was looking for them to talk to them and see if they remembered Nathanael and to get to know them.  They are based in Orlando which is about 2 hours or so away and it would be great to get down there and see what they are doing.  I was watching the new airforce jet called the Raptor fly around and do its demonstration and then another plane started flying in formation with it.  It was an older WWII P-51 bomber, and when they announced it, they said that it was with Stallion 51.  So, now I knew that they were there, but when I went to go meet the pilot, there were hundreds of people that were wanting an autograph or picture so I stood there waiting for a while. I was getting close when a guy came up and grabbed my shoulder and asked what my name was.  I noticed that he had a Stallion 51 shirt on and his name tag said he was a medical guy for them. When I told him my name, he asked if I had met Lee, the pilot, yet.  When I said no, he pulled me up to the front and introduced me to him

“Hey Lee, this is Austin, he is training to become a pilot”

It took me a moment to come up with something to say, not only cause I had just been drug through the remaining crowd of fans, but my mind was reeling.  How did he know that I was training to become a pilot?  He was right of course, I only have 8 lessons left and half of them are solo, if I had my medical, I could have easily had my license by the end of the month of March.  

Turns out that Lee did remember Nathanael, and we talked for a little while about aviation before I took my leave.  However, I didn’t get the chance to walk more than a step.  The guy who introduced me dragged me over to a spot between the planes where a few boxes were. He asked if I had any brothers, I said I had a younger brother named Elijah.  He then handed me not one, but 4 books that are about these planes. There are pictures of the planes and their pilots from WWII and a bunch of information about them.  Ryan’s grandfather races these planes and we found a picture of his dad flying one and his grandfather flying one.  I thanked him then started to ask him about medical stuff, I explained that I was having problems getting my medical and explained my past heart issues briefly and told him that I had talked to the FAA and what they have told me.  He handed me a card and said,

“Don’t go to them, come to me, they do it for a job, I do it for a hobby.”

This guy has credentials a mile long, he has done physicals for astronauts, military jet pilots… the list goes on.  We were about to walk away, when stopped him and asked,

“How did you know that I was training to be a pilot?”

He shrugged his shoulders and said,

“Buddy, I do this for a living, I could just tell.” And he walked off

I walked away completely in awe of how God works.  I was honestly getting tired of waiting to talk to this guy.  This was my only day that I was going to be at the air show and I wanted to go have a look at some other booths.  In fact I did leave and then for some reason came back to it.  I would have missed God if I would have not gone over there. And then, I had the strangest thought that shot through my subconscious, when that guy grabbed my shoulder.  When I turned and saw him, my first thought, was "This guy is an angel."  I was once again reminded that God is all around us, if we only keep our eyes open to see it.  I was reminded of so many things that day, and as I drove up to Dunnellon late that night, I was astonished, and in awe of who God was and how He works, and most importantly, how much He loves His children.

Steve, Jamie and I are about to land in Dunnellon, I am in the back seat of the RV 10 behind Jamie.  It has been a wonderful trip, I will try to write about it before I leave here.  I am flying commercially out of Orlando on Thursday to the village for my friends, Johnny and Maranatha’s wedding.  I love and miss you all, cant wait to see you!!

Your brother in Christ,

Austin

In the Dark

          So once again it has taken me longer to get to writing my blog posts, however this time, I do have a good excuse.  Until today, I was not able to look at the glow of my computer screen for more than a few minutes since last Wednesday.  I was walking out of the hangar Wednesday afternoon to have a flight lesson.  The wind had been blowing all day pretty hard, so when I walked out of the hangar it was almost like walking into a mini hurricane.  I had hardly taken a dozen steps when a something flew right into my right eyeball--not exactly a wound a man can be proud of.  I walked blindly over to Whisky Bravo’s hangar and tried to flush it out and then sat in the office where I normally do my debriefing before flight with my eyes closed hoping that the pain would go away and I could go fly.  

          Needless to say, I wasn’t able to have my flying lesson, I walked back to my room and laid on my bed waiting for my eye to work properly. Of course, with my kind of luck, it wouldn’t cooperate.  That night was definitely the roughest I have had since I last was recovering from surgery.  It wasn’t lack of sleep or the waking up in the middle of the night, it was that pluswaking up with pain that was too deep to do anything about.  Well, I think that sounds a little wrong.  I believe that I have some pain meds that the hospital gave me after my last surgery, and I knew that I had some Tylenol in the glove box of my car.  However, when you can't see and you are not exactly sure where the meds are, not to mention that it was only a possibility, trying to find that stuff was pretty much pointless.  Okay, if I really stretched myself, I could have gone out to my car to get the Tylenol but as it turns out, it was parked behind the gate and it was raining.  

          When I got up in the morning, it felt like that whatever had flown into my eye was still in there.  Jonathan ended up taking me to the ER, and to my surprise, no one was in there so we got right in.  The hospital is like my home away from home, as awful as that sounds, I know all the procedures and the questions that they are going to ask.  Everyone there could tell; they were all surprised at my prompt responses, especially cause there were plenty of complexities from all the heart issues.  However, this was not like my normal visits.  Normally I was going in because my heart was not behaving, or something life-threatening.  So while I was lying on the bed rattling off my answers, I almost started to laugh. I have survived the Operating Room so many times I can’t even remember, yet this speck of whatever it was, defeated me. Very heroic.

          So then it got even more hilarious, I do not like my eye being messed with, I don’t even like to give myself eye drops. I don’t like anything going near my eye.  I don’t think that the ER doctor knew or cared what I thought.  He walked in, asked me what happened, opened my eye and before I could protest, he had dropped some liquid that stung like fire in my eye.  He did this 3 times each time, leaving the room for a few minutes then returning with the scary liquid.  However this had several remarkable affects. 1. the pain had vanished from my right eye.  2. so had feeling that I even had a right eye.  3 my tongue went numb.

          The doctor explained that the stuff he put in my eye was some sort of numbing liquid that only numbs the spot that it is in.  Don’t ask me how it got to my tongue, I promise I didn’t lick my eye ball.  Anyway, after shining a bunch of goofy lights into my eyes, I was told that I had gotten out whatever had gone in, but I had scratched, quite literally, the daylights out of my eye, and that it would recover soon, just keep it shut and stay away from light. He prescribed some drops to put in my eye to keep out infection and sent me home.  

          I must confess that it has taken far longer to heal that I could have imagined, I was supposed to go to Disney World on Saturday with a friend of mine who flies helicopters, he has a friend that was getting us in for free. Obviously, that was postponed. I have been a cave man since that awful Wednesday; the slightest light was like looking into the sun, well I thought it was until I actually did look at the sun, I don’t recommend trying that, by the way. My poor roommates must have been going crazy at me constantly asking them to turn out the little tiny lamps or turn the computer screens in a different direction.  One good thing that came of this is my new, very high, respect for blind people. So needless to say, I laid on my bed listening to books or music on my iPod.  I covered a lot of ground, I listened to the second half of Shadow of the Almighty, which I was already in the process of listening to, nearly the whole the New Testament, several Sherlock Holmes adventures, and 2 other novels.

          However, looking back, I wonder if that time was well used.  One thing that Jim Elliot talked about in one of his letters or in his journal was how Satan never lets us get quiet.  He is always keeping noise in our ears, always keeping us occupied or thinking about something earthly, he never allows us to get quiet.  Should I have not used more of that time praying, or getting quiet and pondered all the questions I have?

And again, I think about way I use my time.  I usually listen to books on my iPod while I work. I have three reasons for doing this. First, I am a slow reader and have horrible comprehension, and it is hard to find time to read.  Second, listening to a book while I work or run is more efficient way of using my time and I understand it better when someone is telling it to me than when  reading it myself. And thirdly, I spend most of my time working on my own.  I think those are good reasons, but I think that it can be taken too far as well.  

          So much time is spent in listening to music or books, that I turn into a robot, everyone around me becomes unimportant, I have entered into my own world.  It is noise keeping me busy, and makes me self-consumed, and when someone asks me a question I find it irritating cause it interrupts my book.  Even though I am listening to the Bible, I find that I am not paying attention to it,  I never listen to something, pause it, and think about how it pertains to my life or what I should do with the heaps of gold that I am getting out of the this incredible book.  All the questions that come up while I am listening drift away and I never ponder them.  

          I know that most young people in today’s world have the same problem, even at home in the village.  Everyone has an iPod or mp3 player, and I know that many hours have been spent with ear buds in our ears.  As I said earlier, it is making us self-consumed, and it divides us.  What if we spent at least some of that time, just getting quiet and talking to God, or praying for your friends, or thinking about what we learned at the last teaching or at devotions that morning?  I think that we would have more experiences with God, we would probably realize that God has been trying to talk to us for quite some time and hasn’t been able to get our attention.  

          I love and miss everyone at home, and can't wait to see you again.  And now I mention it, I will be in the village for Johnny and Maranatha’s wedding! Cant wait to see you all!

Your brother in Christ,

Austin

Le Tourneau

Saturday night 8 interns from LeTourneau college in Texas arrived.  They have designed a jig to help us assemble the Maverick in production, and are here to put it together for us.  I do not remember all their names, I meet about a dozen or more people everyday and the fact that I am terrible with remembering names already doesn’t help any.  I suppose that if I worked with them it might help, but I mostly work on my own.  When we do hang out together, we have a blast.  

I arrived home after taking down wedding decorations and setting up the auditorium at church.  It was about 1:30 am by which time everyone else was asleep, so I didn’t meet them properly till well after church Sunday.  As I walked though the offices and my bedroom, I realized that no one was sleeping in the RV or down in the Life University building, which is where I thought they were sleeping.  One of them was in a hammock outside, 3 were down stairs in the offices, and 4 were in my bedroom.  That was the easy night.  The next day EVERYONE decided to sleep upstairs except for the guy in the Hammock.  This made being the last one in bed a little difficult.

I normally workout with Jesse on Monday nights but he was not able to, so I went to the YMCA in Ocala to workout up there.  To my delight, Monday night is Volleyball night. I changed plans.  I haven’t played Volleyball since October, and I didn’t know how well these people played. It wasn’t a league, we just subbed in and out and played.  I had a blast, I love Volleyball, and wish that I could play a lot more.

Since most of you who read this are my family, you know that I am pretty tall, for those of you who don’t know me, I am 6 ft 3 in.  I myself use to think that I was tall, that is, of course, until I met Kevin.  Kevin is one of the interns here for the week and stands a neck creaking 6ft 10in high.  He stands head and shoulders above all of us, and has to duck to get through most doorways.  I must say, I was shocked to see him climb into the front seat of the Maverick and not have his chin on his knees.

I am suppose to start night flying for my next lesson, but we have to get some things for the plane before we can do that, I think that I am supposed to help Jesse to that this week, hopefully.  I flew yesterday and today, but my instructor is supposed to be gone tomorrow so I will have to wait till Thursday to fly again.  It sounds funny how much I love to fly, I can hardly wait to get back in the air.  I was only able to fly once last week, and having to wait for another week before going up again was far too long.  I even texted Jesse after church on Sunday trying to get him to go up with me in the RV-10, but he couldn’t. (I must say, dad, I don’t know how you were ever able to quit flying. :) ) I cant wait to finally be able to go up on my own.  I am still waiting on the FAA for my medical certificate before I can fly solo, I have been ready for quite some time now.  Please pray that God would expedite my medical certificate through the FAA.

I love you all so much and really appreciate your financial support and your prayers.  Thanks so much, have a wonderful day,

Your brother in Christ,

Austin


   

Gratefulness

    Friday night, I went to The Great American Coffee Rosters in Ocala with Jonathan and a friend of mine named Jesse.  Jesse is my age, he flies planes and helicopters and has been volunteering here at ITEC for several years.  He and I spent a Saturday working together in January and we both helped Jesse do some work on a few different planes so we got to know each other pretty well.  We have a lot of similar views and interests, practically and spiritually.  Aviation is obviously a topic we speak a lot about. :)
    Anyway, we had a great time at the coffee shop, playing games and introducing Jesse to some of my other friends from church.  Also, on Friday nights, some of my friends play music there so it was great to see them too.
    Saturday we kayaked the Rainbow river.  It was a pretty good run, only about 5 or 6 miles I think, but it was really pretty.  The water is 72 degrees year round (I went swimming in it on Christmas day) and crystal clear all the way to the bottom.  There wasn’t a ton of wildlife, but I am guessing that there would be more if it was summer.  We saw some turtles, birds, otters, and obviously fish.  I am definitely going to fish next time, I didn’t have my Florida fishing license so I had to do without this time.  The otters were really cool to watch. We got pretty close to them, but they were not really interested in hopping aboard so once we got to about 5-10 feet from them, they decided to make themselves scarce.  We also saw a bird catch a fish, that was pretty interesting to see.  One moment he was on top of the water, the next he was underneath, then the next moment he was on top with a fish in his long throat.  I could tell that the fish was almost to big for him, it didn’t want to go down, you could see the birds throat bulging a little more than half way down. The bird was about going crazy after a minute or so of the fish remaining in his throat.  Finally he got it down, but I think that the fish was still alive and flopping around inside.  The bird at least was still acting weird for a while after the fish had gone down.
    We ended going to a restaurant on the river afterwards, it was pretty nice, though we kind of stuck out a little. Jesse and I were soaked, and our hair was everywhere, though at least we were outside on the deck rather than inside.
    Church was pretty good the next day.  When I went in to the main auditorium I saw Steve’s wife Ginny with Jamie’s wife Jessica, Steve and Jamie were in Birmingham.  I had only seen Ginny very briefly since I got back and I hadn’t seen Jessica for about 3 weeks.  I ended up sitting with them.  Ginny is like my mother down here, we haven’t even spent a lot of time together, but whenever I am around her I just feel taken care of, and loved just like I do when I am around my mom.  I told her so right before I left, I thought it was kind of funny that I felt like I was suppose to check in with her before I left on my trip home.
    When church ended, I went with Ginny to get all of Jamie’s kids from their classes, I was anxious to see them too.  Before we got to the first room to pick up the twins, Lilly and Chloe, a man came up to me and said, “Who are you?  Who are you related to” I was so taken aback and his blunt introduction that it took me a minute to answer, but Ginny beat me to it.  “He’s related to us” she said (Steve and Ginny used to go to this church, and still come occasionally.  Pretty much everyone knows about itec as well.)  I was shocked, but glad of course too.  While I was helping put Jamie’s kids in the car and saying bye to them, Ginny hugged me and said, “I’m glad one of my sons sat next to me at church today”.  I told her that I was glad that I got to sit with my mom.  It is amazing what a small act of kindness does for you.
    Because of the lifestyle I have been raised in I am used to being part of peoples families, but, when I moved away from the village, I just expected to make it on my own.  But I have found family down here, the friends that I have here are becoming like family, I am getting closer to them, and the people that I highly respect here at ITEC are becoming family to me as well.  I am able to do crazy things with my friends here like I did at home, and I can talk to men and women here like I did at home.  It obviously is not the same as it was in the village, I have only known these people for a few months, but the fact that it is happening is surprising to me.
    Those of you at home that are reading this, don’t take this personal.  But I was just as anxious to get back to itec as I was to get to the village.  I have family here, I spend time with Jamie and Jesse Saint and their families.  Jamie and I meet every Friday morning, and Jesse and I workout twice a week.  But the time we spend working out has been time of fellowship not just lifting weights, we talk about aviation, and our habits and goals.  He gets up at 6 every morning and walks 3 miles on the treadmill and reads his bible or a spiritual book while doing so.  That got me to do my runs in the morning and since I am running on taxiways and runways, not a treadmill, I listen to my bible on my iPod.
    I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to work in full time ministry, and learn to fly, and work alongside Steve Saint.  But I am even more grateful that God made them more than just co workers, he has made them family.
    God has been so good to me.  The trip to TN pretty much wiped out my supply of funds.  I had been praying that God show me what to do next, if there was an avenue that I needed to take to raise support or something. I got a letter in the mail today from my mom, Frank, and my sister Hadassah.  They had given me $60.  Never before have I been so grateful for $60, I immediately thanked God, I was so grateful.  I had an emergency fund of cash in my strong box of about $300 I had been putting odds and ends of cash there for when my car needed repair, or my computer died, or something along those lines. And I decided to deposit that in my account so I could keep flying.  I figured that if God ended up having someone donate and I didn’t have to use that money from my account, then it was no problem.  My computer is going down and I have been looking with Jesse at a few computers anyway so it needed to go into my account.
    While I was driving to the bank, my phone dinged, I had an email.  When I pulled it up, there was a donation from one of my supporters for $250.  I laughed out loud in awe of God’s working hand, He will always be there for me, He knows when we are in need, and He wants to take care of me.  God is good all the time, I was able to have a flying lesson this after noon and I had a really good time.  I have a stage 1 exam on Thursday, it is a written test that takes about an hour or so, I saw the test today, it is 3 and a half pages, front and back, please pray for me as I study.  I love you all very much, and am so grateful for your prayer support as well as your financial support.

Your brother in Christ,

Austin

Back in the Air

     So I made it home Monday afternoon after driving through the night, and stopping to see a friend in Tallahassee.  It is good to be home and back in the air.  I had a lesson this morning, Charlie and I flew up to Ocala airport then headed toward the coast on the Gulf side.  I was mostly flying with just instruments, he had me put the hood on so I couldn’t see of the windows and I had to maintain a certain heading, at a certain altitude, etc.  It was pretty fun.  At one point he had me shut my eyes and try to fly straight and level, this was to teach me to trust my instruments, when I looked up thinking that I was still flying straight and level I found that he had put me into a turn with a pretty hard bank on it, I was pretty surprised I must say.

    Then on our way back he pulled the throttle back to idle and said, “your engine is dead, what you going to do?”. It wasn’t too rough seeing that he did it at a high enough altitude and close enough to the airport that we could just use a runway, but as we got closer, we realized that we were not going to make it to the runway we had planned on cause the headwind was too strong.  We ended up using a runway that was slightly closer.  Overall, it was great to be back in the air;12 days is far too long to go without flying.
    Last night, I went to the singles meeting at my church in Ocala, and, as always, we went to a restaurant afterward.  Last night was the first time that we all agreed on where to go: Ihop.  It was National Pancake Day, and we all got free pancakes.  Free food was extremely appetizing to me since I didn’t have time to eat dinner before we left for the meeting and I forgot to stop somewhere on the way up.
    It was great to see everyone. I sat near Travis and Molly who are getting married May, 1.  They are a lot of fun, he and I had just about everyone in our singles group come over to my place about a month ago.  We ordered pizza, watched a movie, and some of the guys stayed afterward and hung out with me, Johnathan, and Ryan.

    Finances have been pretty tight lately due to rising gas prices, air fuel prices have also gone up. Our Airport has the cheapest fuel in Florida and we just jumped to $3.95 a gallon the other day. Flying  lessons are possibly going to be more expensive as well, my instructor said that it was a possibility during my last lesson.  Your prayers and financial support would be really awesome, thanks so much.

    Thanks so much everyone for your prayers, and your support, I am very grateful. I had an incredible time in the Village, I was very drained when I first got there but I felt very much recharged after I left. Thanks.  I love you all and already can’t wait to see you again,

Your brother in Christ ,

Austin