Newsletter Subscription

By Jacob

Subscribe to our Newsletters

* indicates required

Recent Posts

Meet Our Girls

By Jacob
Image
Welcome to the world Esther Tianna Joy and Tivoli Moriah Rain! May God give us the strength and wisdom to raise you to love the Creator, God, who has brought you into this world.  Yes! I got my two little princesses! I am so proud of her. Five hours of incredible pain and eight months of carrying the girls through a move across the States and two weeks in Tanzania. I am so blessed by her. Right now I am so grateful for two healthy daughters and wife. God is so good! Born at 36 weeks Esther: Wt - 5 lbs 2 oz, born 8:02am Tivoli: Wt - 5 lbs 6 oz, born 8:20am  We were so grateful that my mom could be there to help out.  The boys were super excited to meet their new sisters...though before long they were more interested in the grapes brought to Carmen for lunch and all the light switches. Going through the pictures, Carmen and I are having lengthy debates as to who is who. I am convinced that Esther is on the left an...
Read more

Haydom

By Jacob
Image
Tuesday last week I flew out with another MAF pilot, Kirstein, to Haydom. Our schedule was full with flights out to even more remote villages, and we would not return back to Arusha until Friday. On one of the afternoons we needed to haul to the maximum capacity of the aircraft, and so I was left on the ground.  As I waited to catch a few pictures of Kirstein taking off to the villages, these two girls kept begging me to take a picture of them so they could see themselves. They were quite pleased, and a little shy, when I showed them my camera screen. After he was off, I began my hike to the large hill beside the town of Haydom. Having grown up in the mountains of Idaho, I miss the tranquility and peace of being in the wild. Being away from busy city life gives me time to think and process. I began to contemplate how different Tanzania is from the world I grew up in. For instance, it took me multiple visits to the Haydom airstrip before noticing the ridicu...
Read more

Saturday Medical Evacuation

By Jacob
Image
As you all know, I have been working towards transferring my USA commercial pilot license to Tanzania. The last thing I have left before submittal is to log six hours in a US registered aircraft. As it so happens, there is an organization which operates with US registered aircraft named FMS (Flying Medical Services). The plan is to log the hours during their medical evacuation flights. This Saturday morning, I received a call. There had been an accident near Loliondo and two men had been severely injured. The first sustained broken ribs, a bad fracture just below the knee and a broken foot while the second had broken his arm along with other injuries. They needed a transfer to Arusha as the injuries were beyond the hospital's capabilities. Upon arriving in Loliondo, we de-fueled the left wing in order to leave some fuel reserves at the airport. We had plenty of help. The man was in a lot of pain and received a synthetic morphine shot to ease the pain. Besides t...
Read more

Of Boys and Rockets

By Jacob
Image
They got new gloves and were super excited to test them in the snow. Notice the absence of shoes. I guess when you are having fun... So, I decided to make some matchbox rockets for the boys. All you need is patience, and the above tools. ...and a few hours later you have a matchbox with the essentials. I did modify the rockets from the original design by adding aluminum tape to the top after wrapping the aluminum. It creates a better seal and a satisfying POP and noticeably more velocity. I got the idea from youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFyKgmnCF-8 We will see if the kids enjoy them as much as I did.
Read more