*YOU ARE HERE.

where to from here…

2010-04-16T18:46:00.001+10:00

So its about time for a very irregular update.

Steve is (still) quite close to getting his Private Pilot License. Thanks to bad weather, bad back and various weddings, Steve hasn’t had many lessons up in the air this year. Thankfully he can study regardless of the weather and thats why I’m writing the blog this time - he is busy working his brain.

When Steve gets his PPL, we will need to decide if we should continue down the same path ie. Steve gets his Commercial Pilots License, does some other practical training and we both end up supporting and working with missionaries that are in remote locations.

God made it quite clear to us that we were not to study at New Tribes Mission this year (He cancelled the course). We are seeking his wisdom as to whether that means:

a) we keep going and do the training with NTM in a couple of years after Steve has done his flight/mechanical training
b) we keep going and serve in a similar way with another organisation
c) something completely different that we haven’t even thought of yet, but is obvious to God as He already knows.

Last week our church was visited by some folk from Mission Aviation Fellowship. These are the folk people assume we are wanting to serve with when we say Steve is hoping to support missionaries through flight. So when Steve started to seriously consider training with MAF I felt like he was an englishman that just turned french, or a vegan that was asking for a steak.

We looked further into what they did and how they trained and we thought it was a real option - even financially. ....until we checked the finances. Turns out that its going to be even harder than we thought for Steve to finish his flying training, especially if we are blessed with kids (which we’d love to sooner rather than later).

Allow me to paint the picture with some more multiple choices. We can pick from the following:

a) Continue to live and work and save as we are currently. Steve flys/trains on the weekend, and potentially finishes his CPL mid/late 2012. (if we have a child before the completion date, training will be put on hold indefinitely due to losing my income)
b) Save up for a year and move to MAF to begin training in 2011. I work to keep us eating which again means we can’t have a child before 2012. (this would be training only; we don’t have plans to join MAF)
c) Steve will complete his PPL and stop there. We will serve our Lord some other way.
d) none of the above because God knows better.

We are blogging this because we would love for our brother and sisters in Christ to pray with us as we try to decide with God wisdom which path to take.

“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” Proverbs 16:1

If you feel like you have some insight or wisdom to share, please feel free.

“Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” Proverbs 15:22

Us on holidays having fun with friends in Brisbane:

(actually poetically written by skye)

marked as a servant of God…

2010-02-05T20:44:00.001+11:00

ever since i became a christian i’ve felt a call to serve God. i never thought i’d be working a career job until i retired, there seemed to be something else that i was called to. even now i’m not 100% sure what that is, as God often re-directs us from paths that we *thought* we were travelling… but i know that i am called to be a servant of God.

that idea is really important to me, something that i shall treasure and strive for all my life. i’ve always wanted a tattoo, but i’ve only wanted to get something that is meaningful to me, and something that won’t lose its meaning with time… so when i finally got myself inked it was with the words doulos and yahweh

the word “doulos” in greek means bondservant or slave; in the new testament it refers to someone who has chosen to remain a slave of his master, it describes the absolute surrender of someone who is totally devoted to their master.

the word “Yahweh” or “YHWH” in hebrew means Jehovah, I AM. it speaks of God being eternal, existing before all and continuing to exist after all is destroyed.

there’s more symbology in my tattoo design too… the old testament was written in (mostly) hebrew and the new testament was written in greek and there’s also a huge difference in the old covenant and the new covenant! behind the words i have two symbols as well, one being the cross and the other being a triquetra – the cross representing Jesus’ sacrifice for my sin and the triquetra representing the unity and eternity of the trinity.

so here are my tatts! i got them done on wednesday night and they still need a little bit of touching up, but i love them! i hope you do too…

2010: the year to come…

2010-01-15T16:39:00.003+11:00

christmas and the new year have been and gone, now life begins to settle back into a routine.

a lot of ppl have been asking us what this year holds for the callans, so i figured (with some gentle prodding from skye) that it was time to update the blog again…

we get asked how we are going with the whole change of plans thing from time to time, and while we’d love to be up at port mac training with NTM this year it’s clear that God wants us here for now. a whole bunch of ppl have left or are leaving st marks, so there’s a lot of holes in ministry and in the church community, and we’re hoping to help fill some of these. we’re content to be here and to be more formally involved with ministry at st marks, but it will be hard sometimes as there aren’t many ppl around our age/stage of life to build close friendships with. so we’ll be making more effort with those that we have, and generally trying to help build the family of st marks here.

in terms of work we’re both planning to continue working fulltime, and i plan on continuing with my flight training. i’m not far off completing my PPL, but am struggling a little with the theory side of things. once that’s done, we’ll make a decision whether to continue towards the goal of CPL and missionary flying. it’s something that i still want to do, and we’d both love to be doing it with NTM, but everything’s up to God – if i don’t have the flying skills or the theory-retaining ability then we’ll have to see where He leads.

that’s the two main things that ppl ask ‘bout… other than that we’ll be hitting the beach as often as we can, watching lots of movies, and hanging out with friends!

happy new year!

2010: plans change…

2009-11-26T19:13:00.001+11:00

tonight we got some sad news. a call from NTM to inform us that the training that we had committed to for 2010 will not be running.

we don’t have heaps of information about what’s going on, but the main reason for the decision from NTM is that there aren’t enough trainers to enable the course to run.

while we are very disappointed about this, it’s good to know that God will direct us where he wants to be – and this is a very clear “NO” for training with NTM next year. we are blessed in a lot of ways… we have a house to live in, we both have jobs, and there are heaps of ways that we can get involved in ministry here next year.

the cancellation of the training course has affected a lot of ppl; our friends in port mac particularly are unsure of what they will do next year now, and the whole team at NTM are finding the situation difficult and disappointing. for those of you who pray, please keep the team at NTM in your prayers, and particularly our friends scott and sarah!

thanks so much for all the support that you guys have been, we really appreciate it! the news hasn’t completely sunk in yet, and we now have to think and pray about what we do in the next couple of years… we’ll keep you informed about that and any other info we get as it comes.

God be praised, his Will will be done. it’s good that we can trust him to have a plan for our lives and we don’t have to worry too much when our plans fail.

2010: port mac or bust…

2009-11-16T19:22:00.001+11:00

so, we’ve made a decision! after much thinking and praying we’ve decided to trust God for next year and commit to training with NTM in port macquarie in 2010!!

very exciting times, very interesting times! we don’t know how God’s going to provide for us, whether we end up at port mac for two years or end up in my parents spare room looking for work, but either way we’re wanting to step out in faith and trust that God will put us where he wants us to be!

training starts on jan 27, God willing we’ll be moving up the weekend before and setting up house at NTM… can’t wait! there’s a three-bedroom house waiting for us on the NTM campus… so plenty of room for visitors!

i’ll give a bit more detail ‘bout what we’ll be doing in another blog; for now i just wanted to share the news cos we’re EXCITED!!!! w00t!

for some basic info on the course have a look here…

the site is in lakewood:

googlemaps link here…

did i say it’s EXCITING???!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?! hehe

2010: the plot thickens…

2009-11-11T18:43:00.001+11:00

oops, a month slipped by! exciting times for us!

two big bits of news: the 2010 NTM training course is definitely running! praise God for providing trainers!; and we have been formally accepted by NTM to study with them in 2010!!!!! w00t!

God seems to be opening all the doors for us to head up to port mac next year. we’ve had heaps of encouragement from ppl around us, and have visited a couple of home groups to let ppl know what’s going on. we’ve got a few more groups lined up and are hoping that others will express interest soon!

so… what now?

raising awareness and support. like i mentioned, more visits to home groups and anyone who wants to hear ‘bout what we are doing. we’re also doing a presentation to all 3 services at St Marks on November 22.
make a decision about 2010. we can’t financially support ourselves (mostly because of the cost of flying) so we are relying on God and his ppl to get us there. it’s unlikely that we’ll be given all the money we need for the year, so at some stage we’ll have to decide to step out in faith that this is what God wants us to do and to trust him to provide. feel free to pray for wisdom and discernment!
finishing my PPL. there’s a LOT of studying to be done before i can go for my licence, and not a lot of time for it to be done in. i’ve also had to cancel a lot of flights due to the weather… at the moment it’s ok, but if i miss many more i’ll be cutting things a bit too fine.

that’s ‘bout it for now, feel free to shoot me an email or ask questions on facebook if u wanna know something! and if you’re a praying person, please remember us in ur prayers!!!

oh, almost forgot, here’s a link to our flyer if ur interested! the outside first, and the inside of the flyer…

2010…?

2009-10-11T17:15:00.001+11:00

so it’s been ages since i last posted… a lot has been happening in the background but i haven’t blogged for a while because we’ve only just got something concrete to talk about!

in my last post i mentioned that we’ve been thinking and praying about training with NTM in 2010. since then we’ve talked to a bunch of christian friends, talked to our senior minister, and talked to NTM about it. we’ve got our ministers blessing to go and our applications are in with NTM!!!!!

there are a few things that have to happen before we are able to go: our application has to be approved; NTM needs to finalise trainers for the 2010 course; and we need to raise support for the year or two that we’ll be away.

NTM is a little under-staffed in the training area at the moment; they’re looking for another full time couple to be involved in the training. Unfortunately we may not know whether the course is definitely happening until Oct 31 :-(

because we’ve been paying for my flying training we haven’t been able to put money aside for the training course. because of the continued cost of flying and potentially having kids in the next couple of years we’re very unlikely to be able to support ourselves through training regardless of whether we go in 2010 or sometime in the future. if we don’t go next year i’ll most likely continue working towards my commercial pilots licence and then start flying commercially or do an aviation mechanics apprenticeship – neither of which are likely to provide us with extra funds for training later.

so please be praying for us!! and praying for NTM! if God wants us there, he’ll provide the means…

[for a bit more info on what we’re doing and who we are, check out our newsletter!! i couldn’t find anywhere to upload the pdf on short notice so it’s currently two jpg pics… page one here and page two here]

YSCN –> YORG and more (MUCH more)…

2009-09-01T15:49:00.002+10:00

nav 2 is complete! two weeks back i flew out of camden to orange via katoomba and bathurst, returning past oberon. it was an awesome flight; it’s cool to fly over the mountains (such as they are) and some ground features more interesting than the flat area around camden! finding some of the runways can be interesting, it’s hard to pick one paddock from another! flight time was around 2.5hrs… slightly quicker than driving ;-)

one more nav and then a check flight before i do my first solo nav!! after that a few more navs and i’m ready for my PPL flight test!! crazy times… the main thing that’s holding me back is my theory. i want to sit my PPL tests before the end of the year, so i need to cover more than a module a week, which means i’ll have to be giving up some more time for the books

katoomba and three sisters from the air:

orange airport:

so why the deadline? well one reason is cos i need deadlines otherwise i’ll never get anything done. the other reason is that skye and i are thinking about the “MUCH more” that is mentioned above…

we are thinking about going to study with NTM for a year starting in january!!

as part of the long term plan to fly mission support for NTM somewhere overseas we need to do 2yrs of training with NTM. originally we were thinking that i would finish my flight training to a commercial level and then look into training, but now we’re thinking about doing a year in 2010, coming back to sydney(ish?) for up to 4yrs while i do more flight training and then finishing our NTM training. huge changes, massive possibilities, and totally relying on God for guidance and provision. we can’t afford to do it ourselves so we’d be relying on God through family and friends etc to pay for everything. we’d also be leaving jobs to live up at NTM in lakewood for a year then looking for work and a place to live afterwards.

at this stage it’s not set in stone, but it’s something that we are seriously thinking and praying about. it would be awesome to go and spend a year training… please keep us in your prayers and think about whether you can support us in any way! if you’re interested in finding out more about the course check out the prospectus or for general info on NTM click the pic below

driving me around the bend…

2009-08-05T12:58:00.001+10:00

as anyone who knows me knows, i love cars. one particular car that i love is the subaru forester, particularly the GT and XT – the turbo’d versions… a good compromise between sensible and wicked fun

i hang out a lot at ozfoz.com and we had the forum’s 1yr rally over the weekend… we had a show n shine, a cruise and then dinner on the saturday, and for anyone who stayed the night there was another mini-cruise to hornsby AMF for some ten-pin bowling. i only did the saturday cos i was flying on sunday, but it was awesome!!!

got to see a bunch of guys that i know and meet some new ppl from the forum… they’re a really good mob, very eclectic mix of personalities and types who all love driving. and i got to catch up with my best man (mark) who i haven’t seen in ages!

the best part of the day was the cruise… absolutely awesome to go blasting along some nice winding roads on a sunny afternoon!!

a few pics to make the post more interesting ;)

the crew – around 45-50 foresters all up!! a group drove up from melbourne, two flew up from tassie and one from qld!

my foz – MY00 GT

chris’s genuine STi foz

dane’s teamMOOsecret foz, custom k-mart book-contact camo just for the rally… looks unreal

loch’s amazing GT, such a gorgeous machine

the lineup for the ferry on the cruise

new wings…

2009-07-17T15:13:00.001+10:00

i went up in a new plane last weekend!!! up til now i’ve been flying the bellanca citabria which is an awesome fun plane… citabria is airbatic spelt backwards – as the name suggests it’s an aerobatic, so fun stuff like loops and rolls are possible! i wasn’t really worried ‘bout air sickness, but after a few aero manoeuvres i know that my stomach is good!

post-citabria i’ve started my move up to “normal” aircraft – tricycle undercarriage (instead of tail-dragger) and yoke (instead of joystick). i had my first flight in a piper warrior/cherokee on saturday, and it’s a very different animal to fly! the citabria wasn’t very stable but damn she could move – flying the warrior is like driving a truck! but the stability is a beautiful thing for navigation, which is what i’m now working on.

the warrior will almost fly itself in comparison, leaving me with more brain power left to think about maps and track and heading and 6-minute markers and airspace and radio frequencies and fuel and all the other fun stuff =D

it’s a little sad to move on, tho i’ll still fly the citabria from time to time to keep my hand in, but bigger and more complicated is where it goes from here! one big advantage is that the warrior has four seats… joyflights here we come!!!!

Mike Whiskey Yankee – the citabria i did my GFPT in

Lima Juliet Lima – my first “normal” aircraft =P

head in the clouds…?

2009-07-14T15:56:00.001+10:00

as i mentioned earlier i’m training as a pilot. i’m currently working my way through my PPL, having passed the GFPT and just recently started working on navigation. it’s been a lot of hard work so far, and it’s going to keep getting harder as i go, but it’s also a lot of fun!

flying is an expensive hobby however, and unless you make it into one of the larger airlines and fly the big jets it’s not a particularly lucrative career path that, when it does pay well, involves a lot of time away from family and friends. but i’m not doing it as a hobby or as a career change…

the reason that i’m learning to fly is because i want to be a missionary support pilot with new tribes mission, and specifically NTMAviation. both my skye (my wife) and myself are christians and we want to help share the faith we have with ppl around the world. There’s a need for pilots who can transport supplies, medical support and people in and out of remote tribes in places like PNG and I have the opportunity to try and help fill this need. skye supports me heaps, and also wants to work with NTM! she’s awesome ;-)

i’m currently training with curtis aviation in camden, funding my flying by working in IT and skye working with education for early school leavers, and we’ve just started the process of becoming official with NTM! it’s going to be a long (10yrs) process and it’ll be hard, but with God’s help and support from friends, family and church we’ll make it if that’s what we should be doing…

one of the NTMA planes in PNG

mountains (volcanic!) that are a lot higher than the runway we took off from, which was already 5,250ft (1,600m) above the sea!

that little patch of green is the runway, 350m long and on a 14deg incline! fun times

desire...

2009-07-10T09:54:00.006+10:00

being human i struggle with desire, whether it results in over-eating, getting addicted to facebook games, inappropriate lust, or any other failing you care to list. i'm sure it's the same with you. in my attempts to overcome these problems i try to exercise self-denial or self-discipline to restrict my access to whatever it is that i'm wanting to stay away from. sometimes i do really well and am able to stop, but most of the time i fall back into the same problems and i start to think that my desires are too strong to overcome!

in my surfing today i came across a quote from c.s. lewis that i found really helpful:

“The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.”

denying myself is only the first step, and without the second step of replacing the wrong desire with a a right desire i leave myself wide open to fail again!!

lewis goes on to say:

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

so maybe my desires aren't too strong to overcome; maybe they're actually weak desires and i'm too easily pleased!! isn't it funny how i find my wrong desires so much easier to overcome when i'm focussed on God rather than on what i'm trying to fix...

my brain hurts...

2009-07-09T13:19:00.003+10:00

so one of the things that is a big part of my life at the moment is learning to fly!! (more on that later) for those in the know i've passed my GFPT and have just started to learn to nav... which is why my brain is hurting. last night i spent an hour or so playing with my newest toy, the E6-B flight computer. it's an incredible piece of computational ability (think old slide rule on steroids) and i can only imagine how much maths must have gone into creating something like this!

unfortunately ASA haven't put quite as much effort into their instruction manual as phillip dalton put into creating the original (wiki link). there are sooooo many different calculations that you can do, and i'm sure that once i've done them a few times it'll be all good, but starting out with the basic manual that comes with the flight computer is rather painful!!

have a look at the pic below... on this one device you can calculate fuel burn, wind correction, time en route, ground speed as well as convert all kinds of measurements and a bunch of other stuff that i don't even know yet! crazy...

pic stolen from wikipedia

hello, world

2009-07-08T15:48:00.005+10:00

i thought it would be a momentous err... moment... the first time i published my thoughts for the whole world to see. well, right now part of me still thinks it will be momentous because it hasn't happened, tho i'm writing in the past tense as if it already happened. but by the time you read this is HAS happened, so should i write for now, or write for the future?

i don't even have any followers as my blog hasn't launched yet, so i'm effectively writing for myself as the future viewer, even tho i already know what i'm writing / have written /will write. confusing much?

anyways, after all that rambling the moment has arrived (or has it passed?) and my blog has officially started... welcome to my world!