July 2021 Update

Dear Supporters,   It was almost a month ago that I received my visa for the UK and we have more news about our upcoming move! Over the past year or so, we have been considering what the next chapter of our live and ministry in the UK would look like. We felt certain that this is the time for us to make the transition and continue in ministry in the UK. During the past month we have been in contact with a church in Oxford and I have been offered an opportunity in their residency program. This will allow me to gain ministry experience and mentoring while serving in a church context. We were reluctant at first as this will be an unpaid position for at least one year,. However, the residency will be part-time, allowing me to find a part-time job to offset some living expenses. After prayerful consideration, we decided that this would be the best way forward to prepare me for church ministry. Once we made that decision, other doors started opening! I will continue to oversee the MAF Tanzania operations remotely, from the UK until March 2022. We also were put in touch with a family from the UK who will be moving to Arusha early next year to serve at the maternity hospital where our church meets. They will be moving into our house and have decided to buy almost all of our household items! We put the car up for sale last week and a Young Life family arriving next month is likely going to buy it. So, that's all the big sale boxes ticked and we are very thankful for that. Prayer Points: The next few weeks will be hectic as I'm the only pilot in program until the end of August and we have to prepare for and complete a 5-Phase recertification process for our Air Operator's License. Thankfully, Amelia is continuing her amazing organizing, selling and packing. Please also pray that we can finish well and have time to say goodbyes even though many friends are away at the moment and there are also rising Covid numbers here. Exactly how and when we go, is still dependent on UK travel restrictions. We will make a decision after the 25 August update; if Kenya moves to the amber list, then we will spend 10 days there, if the Kenya stays on the red list and the Ukraine on the amber list, we will go and spend 10 days in Ukraine before heading to the UK. We can trust that God is in control and will continue to provide during this transition and settling into this new season in the UK. A lot of things happening, so please keep us in your prayers during this time. The Combrinks Johann turned 6 last Thursday! We had a great day with friends at a playground and restaurant. Also last week, our hard-working mama pig had 15 piglets! Kirstein and Colimba did a great job of helping with the delivery, and the boys are enjoying these cuties.  SUPPORT AND COMMUNICATION Thank you to everyone who has supported us over all these years and continue to do so despite all the economic uncertainty going around at the moment. We really appreciate each and everyone one of you. We would like to as that you prayerfully consider to continue supporting us during this time of transition and settling in the UK   Please continue to pray for us as we seek God's will for the MAF Tanzania programme, and our next steps this year as a family.

Copyright © 2015 Wings4Christ, All rights reserved. To keep our supporters updated on news and prayer points for our ministry with MAF Tanzania

May 2021 News Update

 

MAY 2021 NEWSLETTER Dear Supporters, We have been back in Tanzania for 3 months now and; in some ways it feels that time has flown by, in others it feels that it should have been a lot longer by now. We flew the MAF plane, that was upgraded in Kenya, back to Tanzania in February. Although I enjoyed the nice new equipment and Louis was pretty excited about the first time in daddy's plane; unfortunately Amelia and Johann did not enjoy the journey that much, ESPECIALLY in 'daddy's plane.' Our departure from Nairobi was delayed, so the mid-afternoon heat made the flight back even more bumpy. I had to explain to the health officials at Kilimanjaro that Johann was pale, hot and nauseous because of the flight and not for another reason! I have been the only pilot in the programme since we arrived back and it looks like things will continue like this until we leave in August. The 'new' pilot who arrived in February last year had his work permit rejected as well as the appeal. Things seem to have changed recently and we have heard of more success stories with permits. Unfortunately, it is too late for this pilot and his family as they had to make a decision to move on after more than a year of waiting.  Despite some challenges with airstrip conditions and weather, I have been able to do flights into most of the areas where we serve. I've been able to distribute some Maasai Bibles and songbooks as well as other free literature. I also dropped Maasai Evangelists off in various villages from where they reached out to many communities during Easter. One of them even traveled around with a generator and projector and showed the Jesus Film wherever he went. The weather during May caused some challenging flying conditions, I am thankful that it now seems to be improving and that we were kept safe during this time. At the moment, I am only getting about 10 days a month in the office to try and prepare a bit of a handover as well as working on a rota and preparations for some relief pilots until the end of the year. We are praying that one of these relief pilots will consider staying in Tanzania full-time. Support and our plans ahead Thank you to everyone who has supported us over all these years and continue to do so despite all the economic uncertainty going around at the moment. Our contract with MAF allows us to continue to draw an allowance from our support account for three months after moving to the UK. We therefore ask that you would continue your financial support until the end of the year. This will also help us cover other unforeseen expenses during the move. Any funds remaining in our support account will go towards helping new MAFSA missionaries.   At home, Amelia is continuing her amazing work of homeschooling Johann with Louis starting to join in whenever he's not off running around outside and playing with his best friend Topha. Johann loves reading and telling stories to whoever will listen, and always has something being made out of cardboard. Louis knows most of his colours and can count to ten, and sometimes sits still long enough for Johann to read him a story. Amelia is also using her amazing sorting and organizing skills to start getting things ready to sell before we go. Please continue to pray for us as we seek God's will for the MAF Tanzania programme, and our next steps this year as a family.

Travel Update 05-12-2020

Dear Supporters, So, how far did we get? I'll tell you a bit later... When I arrived at the hospital in Arusha to collect our results at 3pm, I could not get any more information than to come back from 5pm onwards...So, I went home to help pack and sort things out around the house until 5pm. When I arrived back at the hospital the office was shut, but at least there were other waiting on a promise that it would open in 30 minutes. So, I waited... The office did open again, but it was clear that many of Wednesday's test results had not come through yet. Some were told that they paid too late. We received a call after 8am on Thursday and were told to pay before 9am, our last payment went through at 8:58:22!!! So, I waited... Those who did not have flight tickets in hand for Friday evening or Saturday morning were asked to come back on Saturday morning or call after 9pm. I had bus tickets for Saturday morning. So, I waited I finally managed to get our names on a shortlist that was being followed-up with the National Lab in Dar es Salaam, and told to wait. So, I waited... Until 19:30 when I walked away with four certificates that cleared us to travel!!!

This morning (Saturday), we boarded a very empty shuttle bus to Nairobi and it was great to have a row for each of us, all went well until we reached the border...   There it was a 'process' of back and forth, checking and filling and stamping and signing and queueing. After two hours we crossed into Kenya. The rest of the journey was uneventful and we safely arrived at our accommodation very close to the airport, ready for 4.30am departure tomorrow! The boys have been great and very patient (better than dad and mum at times). Thank you and please continue to pray

 

Travel Update 04-12-2020 Dear Supporters, As you know, we are planning/hoping/praying to travel to South Africa this months and as you also know, things change a lot this year. We were supposed to take the shuttle bus to Nairobi this morning and leave from there this afternoon. KQ cancelled todays flight and moved us to Sunday morning, at least with enough time to re-plan... So, we planned to take a taxi late Saturday evening to arrive it the airport in time for checking, but thankfully a friend reminded us that Kenya has curfew between 10pm and 4am. So, we would need to get there much earlier and spend about 7 hours at the airport before we could board. Then we changed the plan again and should be taking the shuttle bus tomorrow morning, spend the night at a hotel close to the airport to be there by 4.30am. That meant we had to take our Covid tests a day earlier (the boys were very brave) and now I'm waiting for the results! Please pray that it comes through in the next couple of hours, otherwise we will need another new plan...

SUPPORT AND COMMUNICATION Thank you to everyone who has continued to support us during this 2-year contract extension. Please consider prayerfully to partner with our work here and contact us for more information or download this form.

MAF communication for family and ministry partnership team

Dear All

What we are globally experiencing in relation to the Corona virus is unprecedented, and we’re all affected by it in some way. The same goes for our dedicated staff working in various countries worldwide.

I want to reassure you that we have teams working around the clock to review, assess and make decisions about how best to respond as this situation continues to develop. It is a complex task with so many different countries involved, but I have every confidence in the ability and commitment of the teams overseeing our response. One of our greatest priorities is the welfare of all our staff around the world, whilst simultaneously taking steps to mitigate possible transmission of the corona virus to beneficiaries and partners as well.

You have no doubt been in contact with your family and friends serving in MAF, concerned about their welfare. I wanted to update you on measures taken by MAF to date:

• We have established a Crisis Management Team (CMT) to lead our response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Each country programme has an Immediate Response Team (IRT) to evaluate the situation in their location and feed that information to the CMT.
• Acting on the advice of various authorities, travel restrictions now exist to keep people safe. Until further notice (to be reviewed fortnightly), international travel is prohibited unless approved by our CMT.  This includes visits to home countries or visitors to our programmes.
• We have assessed which staff and families may be in higher risk categories, due to underlying health conditions and/or age, and considered the most appropriate action to keep them as safe as possible.
• Staff are being advised to keep local travel to a minimum where possible.
• Risk assessments are being constantly reviewed and updated to help us make wise and responsible decisions about staff welfare.

As well as taking good care of our staff’s physical safety, we are committed to looking after mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. MAF has a good system of pastoral care for our field staff and this will continue to operate, albeit in slightly different ways for the time being as our pastoral carers are also currently unable to travel and visit programmes in person.

You’ll appreciate the situation is constantly changing. Please join us in offering whatever support you can to your family and friends serving with MAF through regular contact, encouragement and prayer.

MAF is an organisation committed to reaching and serving isolated people all over the world. We couldn’t do this without the faithful commitment of our staff supported by their families, friends and partners like you. Thank you for the part you play in making our work possible.

Psalm 46 reminds us to take refuge and find strength in our God. Though the whole world is shaken at this time, the Lord Almighty is with us. He is our fortress and our sure foundation.

Forward in Faith,

Dave

Dave Fyock

CEO

Mission Aviation Fellowship International 

Family

Once again it has been a while since I have posted an update, so just in case people are starting to forget what we look like. Here you go...

As you can see, the boys are growing up quickly. Johann really enjoys learning and Amelia does a great job and puts in a lot of effort with home schooling. Louis is active (as most boys, I guess), he's adventurous and loves being outdoors.

We were blessed with a Christmas and New Year visit by my sister and brother-in-law from Abu Dhabi and Grandma visited at the end of January for a couple of weeks (it was like having Christmas twice!).




This was a great time to rest and recharge with family after a busy end to 2019. 

2020 is in full swing and a new pilot family has transferred from MAF Arnhem Land to Tanzania to replace our pilot who is leaving in July. They are settling in and we are working on pilot's licenses, language learning, orientation and flight training to get him operational.

The short rains at the end of last year was not so short and we basically went straight into the long rainy season. This carries with it the blessing of potentially good crops and beautiful green landscapes, but too much rain can also be bad for the harvest and of course the danger of flooding is very real. As always the rainy season brings with it some challenges to our flying operations and the conditions of some airstrips can deteriorate quickly if not maintained properly. We continue to do our best to reach the village with medical care and to share the love of Christ, but sometimes it is just not possible. 

Please continue to pray for our family, our team and the other families who serve with us here in Tanzania.

The smallest and youngest passenger I ever flew...

Last week I flew teams for mobile clinics in the Haydom area. After dropping off the first team at Matala on Wednesday, I was just about to start the plane to go to Haydom for the second team, when a guy approached on motorbike and signaled that he wanted to talk. He explained something about a mother and baby who needed a lift to Haydom. I didn't understand exactly what the problem was, but I told him to bring them and we'll talk with the nurses...

While I was waiting for them to return, one of the nurses came to the plane saying there was a lady who started labor more than 4 days ago and needed to go to Haydom.

When the others arrived, the patient was a premature baby born during the night at 24 weeks pregnancy! The smallest little person I have ever seen and the youngest passenger I have ever flown.

In Haydom I held the bundle of material in which the baby was wrapped and could hardly feel any weight, but some movement inside confirmed that there was a life in my hands.

I completed the rest of the day's flying, taking two more teams out to villages for clinics and back to Haydom at the end of the day.

At the end of the day, I went with one of the nurses to find the patients we flew in. The lady with the prolonged labor had a c-section and the baby and mother were both doing well. Some family from the village made it up to Haydom by that time (more than 6 hours later), a journey that would not have been easy for her or survivable the premature baby.

We also found the premature baby in the neonatal unit., wrapped up in blankets with warm water bottles and connected to CPAP machine for breathing. Looking at her chart, she only weighed 700 grams and had extremely low O2 levels and pulse rate when she arrived. They were only able to record a measurable temperature on her by 3pm.

Over the next few days, we checked up on her and there were positive signs, but it would be a long recovery process for her.

I left Haydom on Friday, but one of the nurses would stay in touch with the family, monitor her progress and keep me updated. When my phone rang on Monday morning with a call from the nurse, the news was that the little one had passed away. It's hard to understand these things sometimes and evaluate what difference we actually made, but it's safe to say that the transfer by plane gave this baby the best possible chance of survival. We showed to the mother and family that we value them and the chance of life of the baby.