HALO

Greetings from Lubango, here we are, outside our home and the MAF Angola office, with often beautiful, crystal clear, bright blue sunny skies, temperatures remain a constant mid 20's, cool evening breeze, plague of flies and often putrid smells.😶  Unlike Tanzania mosquitoes are rare and thankfully we have no bites (we sleep under a net, pop a daily pill, use repellent and dress sensibly).

It's the rainy season so the landscape is lush and green, plants and trees bloom and give ample fruit, if one is quick enough to pluck it before one of the hungry locals rightfully claim it.

Here's a wider photo of the front of the MAF properties, with one of our national staff "guarding." Our apartment is to the left, office below on the right.

This is our view out from the front bedroom/living room (as shown above), looking through the barred, netted windows, up towards the escarpment which runs down through Namibia to S. Africa, with Cristo Rei statue on top of our small section, some 300m above the city.   The potholed road is often full of  noisy children, happily playing in the brightly coloured mud, p'haps with an inner tyre, a make-do football or set of plastic bottles, often barefoot, amidst rubbish dumped from neighbouring houses. sometimes awash with overflowing sewage...

Pity we can't capture our spectacular view from the kitchen and front bedroom, overlooking the sprawling city... absolutely beautiful sunsets, brilliant for watching in-coming weather fronts, lightening, etc.  Many weekends we have the sounds of 48hr marathon "discos" interspersed by dogs and cockerels and more dogs, ending with full days of Church music, replaced by heavy traffic during weekdays.  But the views, o wow  😍

HALO. This month we were able to facilitate flights for the HALO Trust, a key MAF ministry partner, along with CEML mentioned in our last blog,😇

MAFs flights enabled commemorative celebrations of the 20 years since Princess Diana visited Angola, as the patron of  HALO; now Prince Harry continues on the good work.





She came to the Huambo Province, to highlight the plight of the ongoing ravages of  civil war and the dreadful, needless destruction that land mines continue to inflict upon the innocent population.  Hers was a significant milestone which influenced the creation of the International Mine Ban Treaty 1997.💣

HALO Trust is an international, humanitarian work, established to remove landmines and other debris left behind by war, to create safe and secure environments.

Chris Pym, HALO Regional Director SAfrica

HALO is a non religious, non polital registered British charity and American non profit organisation.    Serving Angola since 1994 this severly impacted nation is believed to be one of the most mined countries in the world 😢   Estimated casualities range from 23,000 to 80,000!!    In the period 2006-2016 1,371 metric tones of explosive devices have been destroyed, 370,000 landmines and 117,000 arms; the USA contributed 70% of the funds to carry this out, UK's £2.8million equating to 23% and Angola 2.5%, plus funds from other governments, which amounts to $10million during that period.  HALO estimates approx 10 yrs worth of work remains to rid her of all her landmines, equating to several $million more required.   Here, with age, they are sadly leaking their toxicity into the once lush and nutritionally rich, fertile soil, rendering much of the land unusable, increasing poverty and malnutrition.   We have discovered a number exist in our area here!😦

Jez with Gerhard Zank,  HALO executive staff

MAF is the only operator that consular staff members are permitted to use for domestic travel within Angola.  During the celebrations Jez was able to meet with senior HALO personnel and 3 consular staff from 3 nations, as well as  Andrew Ford, Deputy Head of Mission representing the British Govt.   Sadly the BBC were unable to attend due to lateness in applying for visas, something we are all too familiar with!💥




We have had the pleasure of our first house guest, Lowell Deering (centre),
MAF Canada VP Ops, who was able to connect with several contacts whilst at the HALO weekend and during his 3weeks here, meeting all national and international staff and families, with Jez they furthered contacts with Wycliffe, American Bible Society, Seed Company, the Lubango Theological School ISTEL, along with aviation regulator and airport authority.✈👮




"Brave" pilot Marijn flew the chaps on one of our two 182 four seater planes, with poor ol' Jez plus upset tummy, minus bathroom facilities.....  he shared the bug with Carina who was already enduring her own ~explosive~ issues: herniated disk/s/sciatica. 😐She has spent this entire month recouperating, thankfully progressing to walking and sitting, each about half an hour at a time, laying flat inbetween times..... enabling lots of thoughtful prayer, a most worthy task at the beginning of our time here!  🙌 You'll see from the photo she's upright, but not quite whole yet!

So may we please share some praise points and prayer requests:

Last blog we mentioned a few requests, for which we say hurray or boooh...
Hurrah and Halelu-Jah Carina's visa arrived, hers and Jez's will both need to be reapplied for renewal in September.


Marijn's visa hasn't been granted, just YET!!!..booh
Photo here shows him, Noortje, Judah and Salome at the airport today, as they travel back to Holland to have their case reviewed and, we trust, visas issued.
Even tho it isn't holiday time do pray with us for them to have a great, useful inspirational and even fun family time back home as they trust and wait.   We so want/need them back! Please pray for favour with the consular officials and of course for a positive and timely outcome.    We believe the Lord has much FABULOUS work for them all, here.
We sent them out as boomerangs!!!!

Hurray, thank you Lord for answered prayer for safe arrival of long awaited NEW ENGINE for our larger plane, the caravan, currently being installed down in neighbouring Namibia, by visiting engineer Tim, to be joined shortly by our own Marcel!

We thank the Lord that Oli and Asher are both managing their responsibilites well, Louise coping with the dreadful hyperemesis but it was a joy to "meet" baby no.3 on a recent scan photo 😍   We continue to pray for Great Grandma Margaret. 

Finally, please once again bring to our Father the need for land title documents for the Cavango runway and progression to permissions for the Kalukembe runway.  There are currently high numbers of fatalities from malaria in Cavango and malnutrition is sadly on the increase, following drought. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this... heartfelt appreciation if you're able to pray with us too.

Gods' blessings and our love
Sending "beijinhos de Angola" ... little kisses,
Jez and Carina xx