RUAMA Baby House

The RUAMA baby house is situated in the town of Marromeu along the Zambezi River, about 40 miles from where the river meets the Indian Ocean. The town is only a dot on a map because of a sugar plantation that has based there and used the river to transport their goods.

RUAMA is currently caring for 35 infants of mothers who can not produce their own milk, are too sick to care for the child or have died. Children who are cared for by RUAMA are fed until they are four years old and then resettled into their orginal family with a surviving family member or foster family.

I was notified last Monday during a staff meeting at Mercy Air that RUAMA could not find the hight nutrient milk powder they use to feed the infants. Thanks to an organization named Fortune for Misfortune and several others, we were able to fund 500lbs of the baby formula and the flight expenses to take it to them. Below is the Director of RUAMA (Janny) and Stephanie after stocking the storage room.

Although the process was full of hurdles that threatened to stop our efforts at every stage, we were successful in fundraising, purchasing, flight logistics and final delivery within two days of our awarness of the situation....certainly a remarkible response time in any country.

Flying Flash Back

Last week went by like many others: out of bed at 6am to wake up the boys; fill the coffee maker while trying to stay out of the way of Stephanie packing lunches; make a couple phone calls to figure who will be running the MK "school bus" at 7am; then see the kids off , check some e-mails and walk up to the hangar by 8am for another action-packed day as an overseas missionary (I say this tongue-in-cheek because quarterly newsletters with the highlights of three months of experiences may not always communicate that mission work has a monotonous side, just like everybody elses' job). I don't mean to imply that spending nights chasing off would-be burglars, pulling poisonous snakes out of the car or flying into a country that often runs out of fuel for the aircraft are mundane things, just that everyday is not a "death defying" adventure in itself. Below is a photo of what I normally look like "spending a day on the beech"...Beech 18 that is.

Flights into Mozambique have become the events that brake up my day-to-day projects of restoring our Cessna 310 and maintaining the guest apartments on the Mercy Air farm. This past Saturday was a flight to a coastal town called Tupuito, in the northern portion of Mozambique. The trip was to take 13 hours of flight time requiring another pilot and I to alternate the flying duties so the other could rest. My first leg of the trip was from Biera to Tupuito and followed the coastline. Immediately after takeoff I turned north over the beach and my memories took me back to days of flying banners along the Jersey Shore. The flash back was quickly interrupted by the reality of a baboon running in the serf instead of sunbathers and the only inhabitants to be found during two hours in the air, at 160mph, were several small fishing villages built on the sandbars.

After a 2:30 am start, four stops for fuel, immigration, passenger pick up and delivery, 13 hours of flying over areas of primitive grass huts to the modern city of Johannesburg, we arrived back to Kruger International Airport in the dark just after 7pm, and called it a day.

Mercy Air life

Although we are based in a very upscale and touristy province of South Africa, most of our flight efforts are focused on Mozambique. There have been very few Fixed wing (airplane) flights over the last several months but our helicopter program continues to be very active with agricultural, medical and dental outreaches along the lower Zambezi River.

We also are very involved with guest flats for mission workers who use our facility on a regular bases. We offer six flats (guest apartments) that are situated on an old plantation type farm with swimming pool and recreation room.

Working in the rural areas of Mozambique is always full of surprises. Runway conditions, fuel supply and weather are constant variables that take a lot of careful consideration. This particular photo I was stuck in an ant colony just beneath the surface of the runway.

Our trips into Mozambique are always exciting but most of my days are spent performing buildings and grounds maintenance on the Mercy Air base property. Here I am in the "captain" seat of our John Deer we use to mow the runway and keep other parts of the base mowed for snake control.

Mercy Air is also a licensed repair facility. We maintain our own aircraft as well as provide inspections and repairs to other mission aircraft operating in southern Africa.