May 2017

Greetings from Lubango

Happy springtime, for most.... we are now in the dry season, heading towards African winter!  The skies are clear and blue, offering great conditions for flying to remote and isolated communities, bringing Good News, medical staff and vital supplies to a nation dealing with poverty, malnutrition, disease and the after effects of civil war.

Jez recently flew to neighbouring Namibia, and amongst other key matters reviewed arrangements for a regular flight enabling resources and logistics to be flown rather than the long arduous trek across some 2,000 kilometres taking at least 4 days of travel by car...!

Carina continues teaching English at the Bible Institute a few times each week, also up at CEML mission hospital.... here a patient is showing how to make a basket from the long grass, wrapped in threads of plastic taken from an empty rice sack, the colour of the which determines the colour of the bowl/basket being woven.   Now at the 6 month mark in country and only on a CEML visit was any thought given to "wildlife" grateful neither 8 legged BEASTies nor slithering nasties have been spotted, though some black mambas have caused recent problems for workmen!

A few days ago we stood amazed, realising how several years ago, whilst working with the lovely physiotherapy team at Ashburton hospital, in Devon, Carina was keen to work with amputee folk.   Little did we anticipate the weekly visits to CEML would entail helping surgical patients, not with mobility (yet?) but to learn English during recuperation following (leg) amputation. Photo shows some antiquated prosthesis, thankfully, though sadly our patients have none at all....yet.

MAF planes fly medical staff out to isolated communities, some are regular flights to Kalukembe hospital and Cavango clinic and we hope to reach new destinations when permissions are granted.

This picture shows our amazingly devoted (octogenarian!!) Dr Steve Collins preparing to return from a fortnight of bush work "restoring sight to the blind", literally, having performed hundreds of surgical procedures in the most basic of clinics.

Perhaps you too might ask Father God for an additional someone to continue this phenomenal work, as the Psalms says "Open my eyes to see the miracle-wonders hidden in Your Word"

Also grateful to see something of this magnificent country: "the Leba," below

May is a birthday month for many... we celebrated Jez's with the team, eating gazelle and crocodile - a whole lot more tender than the beef!

Fellow ladies having a birthday brunch!

Devotions: currently each week one staff member shares their significant verses from the Bible "I memorise them and write them on my heart to keep me from committing sins treason against you" Passion Translation Psalm 119

Some operational planning at our home here with Brent, Marcel and others on skype...

Finally, some prayer needs to share if we may...

Firstly we praise the Lord for a miracle! Marijn should be back with us by the time you read this! Please pray Noortje and children soon receive their visas, in order to join us.

Grandbaby number 3, due end of July

Facilitating strategic decisions is always a difficult process in any setting or country but overcoming local challenges in Angola is proving to be...  well, challenging...

For our continued health and well-being (and grateful that Carina's back is fabulously improved)

In Angola there are 4 million cases of malaria resulting in 15,000 deaths annually and is the cause of 50% of all deaths of children under the age of 5.

Several folk we know have struggled with it.  One of our mission partners, Dr Tim who serves with SIM is currently battling it, who sums up the thoughts of many here in his recent blog, which says:

"It is healthy to again come face-to-face with my mortality and remember that my days are numbered, that this life is truly but a vapour in the setting of eternity, and that my Father is good, whether I live or die, whether I am sick or well, whether I choose to surrender to Him or walk independently of Him ... He is good.  In just a few years, each of us will see (more clearly) just how good He is ...

An illness like this, like separation from our family and other challenges of serving cross-culturally, prompts again certain questions: "What are you willing to do for My sake and for the sake of those I Love?"  "Are you willing to endure this again to serve the rural people in Angola?" and "Are you willing to die from malaria?"  I really, really never want to go there again... but am I willing?  My true beliefs will be expressed in what I do, much more so than in anything I say or write ...  See www.kubackisinangola.com

Finally, May 27 is G.O.D. day: Global Outreach Day - it's also the beginning of Ramadan; we are thankful not to hear any minaret calls here.

Thank you for journeying with us here in Angola.   God bless you.
Sending fondest of love,

Jez and Carina xx

No bunnies here!

Bom dia!!.... hello.... happy Easter 2017.... happy Passover.... greetings from Lubango!

It has been a long time since our last blog, it was the end of January in fact....  we shall try to catch you up, short and sweet 😊

We thank the Lord for answered prayer: our long awaited "caravan" plane has its new engine and is being put to good use!  

We also praise Him for answered prayer regarding Kalukembi air-strip being re-opened.  Another one Jez is working hard to get operational requires government permissions and partnering with local church leaders.  Cavango is key to developing medical ministry toward the east of the country which will bring benefit to many thousands of people.  

Dr Annalise (shown under the H of Wings of Hope) with some of her team/medical students have now been able to fly to remote communities, offering help, healing and HOPE to isolated folk needing medical care and loving attention. In rainy seasons "roads" are often impassable... flying also saves valuable time and energy, perhaps making the impossible possible!

Dr Tim and wife Betsy have returned from furlough to continue with their amazing work amongst the rural communities in and around Cavango.  It is truly an inspiration and their blog gives tremendous insights: https://kubackisinangola.com

In addition to CEML hospital Jez has been able to meet some of our other Angolan mission partners, seeing the marvellous work they are doing, assessing and offering  MAF's assistance where it would increase efficiencies.  His other duties have included so far preparing to upgrade the accounting system to a cloud based version bringing many benefits to internal reporting and accountability , liaising with airport officials and Church leaders, leading staff prayer meetings...    

Also in February...   and ongoing...Carina has been visiting the "fistula ladies" at CEML hospital, assisting the dedicated medical staff, serving to improve these dear womens' lives, who have faced harrowing journeys, often repeated surgeries following multiple excruciating long and painful still births, offering them some skills to improve their quality of life, many having sadly been disowned by husbands, cast out from families, villages, stigma following them, minus the very sad loss of their little ones.

She also enjoys teaching English to trainee church pastors at ISTEL: the Bible Institute here in Lubango.

The symptoms of sciatica continue to lessen with care, daily exercise and avoidance of unnecessary journeys and dreadful potholed roads.  Air travel seemed not to have exacerbate the discomfort.  😌 Thank you for those prayers.


Onto the month of March ...

Following just a short stay in hospital Great Grandma Margaret Rose passed away.  The photo shows her first and last aeroplane flight, up to visit Jez's sister and husband in bonnie Scotland, just this past year - an amazing feat at 83 years of age!   

     

We returned to the UK, to Shropshire, to celebrate her life with family and friends.  We remained in England for a couple more weeks to sort domestic affairs.

Celebrating Oli's and Lizzy's birthdays

Beautiful Creation/s...Asher, Jez and Lily

Jez's brother Jon with Lily Rose

The unexpected trip gave us the opportunity to spend time with precious family and dear friends, thankful for glorious Spring weather .... daffodils and lambs..... our first Spring in the UK for a few years.

Rooftop view of Luanda's harbour

Also in March we were able to celebrate our wedding anniversary, Jez combining meetings with MAF staff and Church leaders, with our flight out from Angola's capital to England.  In addition we were able to sort and transport the final consignment of our personal goods from Tanzania, just two years since we packed them all up!

Dust comes earlier as we move towards the dry season. but no long light evenings

Finally, we continue to bring before our Father the needs of this beautiful country: poverty, malnutrition, sickness and disease, landmines, uncertainty with the upcoming elections.

We pray for the timely return of our pilot Marijn and family with VISA's to enable us to maximise the planes' potential in reaching isolated communities, venturing further into the interior.

The country continues on with economic uncertainty, falling rates of exchange (some 50% since we arrived!!!) and ongoing fuel crisis'.  We are grateful for the generator, fitting our work and lives around when we have power.

In closing we would like to send you thanks for thoughtful messages of condolence and assurance of ongoing prayer for us and the work here in Angola.

We send our love and greetings, grateful for your input into our lives and service with MAF to see Mark 13 fulfilled: "this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come".

May the Lord bless your health and energy levels with Resurrection life:  Christ is Risen.

Jez and Carina xx

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

London - Luanda - Lubango

Christmas greetings from Angola!

Local "unreached people group": the Himba tribe

We made it, "just" a 28 year journey to get us both here :0) so, not a moment too soon to join the dedicated team and the work which began about 28 yrs ago, to provide essential support for NGOs, missions and churches! Over 1.5 million lives were lost, 4 million displaced in the 27 yrs of civil war where an estimated 10 million landmines were laid in strategic locations, many remain today, encircling communities and endangering roads... flying is essential.  MAF can reduce a doctor's all-day trek by foot to a mere 20-min flight.



Meet Pastor Cesar and Anastacio, our MAF Luanda staff: they showed us a little of the capital with its population of over 2.8 million people.

According to the World Economic Forum Luanda is one of the most expensive places in the world for ex-pats to live.  High oil prices raised expectations, only to be dashed on its decline.  Half of Angola's population live on less than a meagre $2 per day.

We took British weather with us apparently, arriving to one of many, daily heavy downpours that causes havoc and chaos on the roads. We enjoy! phenomenally lively thunderstorms during this rainy season.  Roads are often awash... with mud, etc..., sometimes open sewers flooding streets.  Our road here regularly floods and becomes a river which runs through our compound.

The Chinese influence is greater than we imagined...

We took an hour and a half commercial flight south-east'ish from the capital, to our new home: Lubango (not quite Hollywood!) where, once out of the sprawling city, there are some absolutely stunning views.  There will be more pictures following, in another blog.

Cristo Rei, arms outstretched, visible from our apartment, particularly when lit-up at night, when city power is on!

Jez discussing work with ex-MAF pilot Mark, currently seconded as CEO to the fantastic, life-saving work of the CEML hospital, headed up by Dr Stephen Foster in a country of 21 million and almost no modern healthcare.  MAF assist the doctors/surgeons in serving over 2.5 million people in this area, where statistics state life expectancy of Angolans is the shortest of any nation on earth: 38 yrs!  It also has one of the highest child and maternal mortality rates in the world.  Angola has less than 2 doctors per 10,000 people, (UK 28/10,000)  http://www.ceml.org/

Mark and wife Jana kindly took us to visit the hospital, meeting his assistant plus several dedicated staff, including our multi-talented neighbour (down stairs) Annalise, probably one of Angola's top surgeons.
You may have seen Dr Sarah Hudgins marvelously insightful post "clinic in the bush" if you follow us on Facebook, from Tchincombe, an out-post where Dr Tim Kubacki also serves relentlessly, splitting his time and energies between there and the main CEML hospital, where Dr Steve Collins has done a fantastic job performing critical eye surgery, to over 22,000 Angolan cataract patients thus far!


But before getting onto "greater things" we quickly sourced supplies for our apartment: bucket 'n' bowl, scrubbing brushes, detergents and bleach (and non surgical gloves!)   We were richly rewarded by the warm welcome party the team gave us over at "Mitcha," a 15 min treacherous drive to the other compound where the 4 international MAF families live, alongside SIM and Wycliffe staff.  In addition we have approx 18 wonderfully loyal Angolan staff, all of whom speak (several of the local, tribal languages as well as) Portuguese and who enjoy our attempts to converse! As Programme Manager Jez survived his first big meeting, all in Portuguese, up in Luanda with approx 200 other NGO/delegates and government officials.

So, thanks ever so much for journeying with us these several long months, even years!  We shall endeavor to keep you posted monthly with news and pictures.  Meanwhile thank you for praying with us; we are looking to our Heavenly Father with these current needs:

~ Carina's 30 day visitor visa to be changed into a "temporary permanent" variety
~ for our second pilot Marijn, an absolutely vital need for him to have his visa renewed, immediately, to enable he and the family to remain for the ongoing work here in Angola.  
~ Of less importance, but value to us is the arrival, intact, of our "stuff" from Tanzania to Lubango





~ Family back in the UK:

Oli returning to the UK from RAF deployment overseas;
Asher, Louise and the childrens' well-being;
Great Grandma Margaret's declining health.
A challenging time to be away from family at Christmas.

(Here we are for a last evening with some of our lovely little family before we left London.)


~ Finally, Jez/MAF NEED continued favour with officials for permissions to open "life-line" runways to take doctors and Good News into  "isolated areas, both spiritually and physically, transforming them in Jesus' Name"

Sending you fondest of love and happiest of Christmas and Chanukah greetings :0)

Jez and Carina xx