Stephen Newton, February 2020

When It Rains It Pours
For those of you who have spent time in the tropics, you are familiar with the sudden downpour of rain this part of the world gets. The weather changes quickly and can go from sunshine to a dark wall of rain very quickly. It is not only the weather which changes quickly, but life circumstances as well. As soon as the rain comes; however, it goes and the sun shines again. The past several weeks have been the busy season for PMA in Palau, and though we found ourselves few in number, the Lord gave us the strength, endurance, and wisdom to continue with operations.

I had mentioned the arrival of a new pilot in my previous newsletter. He and his family have arrived, and they have been a great blessing to the team here. I have been able to share with him what I know of the flying down here, and he has done well and has begun flying on his own.

One of our team went on a long awaited vacation to see her family in the Philippines, which led to me being stretched in new ways. While Brock has been able to take on the flights, I’ve been learning and applying the fine art of book keeping, and flight recording. She has since returned, and I am more able to fly when needed.

December saw us responding to both a sea search as well as a medevac from the island of Angaur. The call for a sea search came on December 3rd. The elderly Palauan fisherman had already been missing for around 24 hrs before we were notified. Brock did the flying while I looked and recorded our flight path. After two different flights, and a number of hours airborne we returned empty handed. The sun was setting and we needed to land. We had seen his boat which appeared to be broken in half. Not only was the fisherman not found, but also, a volunteer search and rescue person had died during the search. On our second flight, we noticed another capsized boat, and the marine law officer, on board then, informed us that a volunteer search and rescue boat had capsized and four people were overboard. One of them, we heard later, had died.

Later in the month, we received a call from one of our frequent flyers, Tiffany from Angaur. Her grandbaby had a fever and the family was very concerned for his health. This time Brock flew down and picked up the family and I stayed on the ground. The grandchild, we found out later, was doing good after receiving medical attention.

About the time of Christmas we flew many times to Angaur which was cut off from the rest of the country by rough seas. Students were in need of returning to school after the holidays, and the boats weren’t able to go. I am grateful to God that we were able to serve the people of Angaur, with the airplane, in this way.

I hope that everyone who reads this is doing well and that this new year will be one filled with joy and a firm knowledge of the hope that we have in the one who died and rose that we would have eternal relationship with our Creator. Thank you to everyone who has continued to pray for the PMA team here in Palau and for myself. Thank you for your support and encouragement.

God bless,

Stephen

Stephen Newton is with Pacific Mission Aviation in Palau

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