It's time to brag a little bit. My wife has a pretty amazing family. Her sister Kirsten and brother-in-law Mark are part of an organization called Samaritan Aviation. When Mark was in college he and his friend Gary began talking about what it would look like to go to Papua New Guinea where Gary was born and start a missions organization. Their vision never wavered although it did take quite a while for it to come into reality. In the meantime the last 13+ years Mark and Gary have been creating a support network, raising funds, doing quite a few mercy flights in the US, engaging in missions work in Mexico and learning all about how to fly and maintain float planes.
Mark and Gary have made multiple trips to Papua New Guinea and have built a pretty amazing infrastructure there. Mark and Kirsten left to be the "on the ground" missionaries last January. Gary and his wife LeAnn are spearheading support raising right now in Colorado and also continuing with Samaritans work in the United States. They spent a big chunk of time in PNG last summer and will be relocating soon.
Much of the work that Samaritan Aviation is doing in Papua New Guinea at this time is providing emergency medical evacuations from remote villages. Since they have the only float plane in that area of PNG they have a big opportunity to help. They plane is flown to locations where it would usually take 4+ days for people to canoe out to get medical care. They are able to land on remote rivers and airlift people to hospitals.
I think The Palm family and the Bustin family are pretty amazing for following the LORD, his dreams and utilizing their gifts and passions to serve.
So back to the title of this post. On Friday my wife Danielle, her mother and brother flew to Papua New Guinea to visit her sister and family for two weeks. It took about 33 hours for Danielle and 5 take-offs and landings for her to get from Dallas to PNG. She arrived last night at 3:45am tired but so excited. I'm so excited for her, proud of her and again amazed at her family for the commitment they have made to serve the LORD.
