" I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well." Psalms 139:4 Wilson Family News         What an interesting 9 months it has been! Our house has been a busy one, not only with Timothy learning and growing, but also with many guests who have been part of our family for a time. Added to that, airplane maintenance that never seems to end, and you get an idea of what we have been up to!          It has very interesting having guests in the family. So far this last year to present, we have had somebody from Romania, Australia, Austria, the US, Bolivia, Denmark, Canada, and Belize, stay with us. It is fun to learn a bit about other cultures and try to not overwhelm them with ours :)          Having guests has been a challenge because I have had to learn to say I can't keep up to cooking and cleaning up after extra adults, as well as Timothy, while being pregnant. I tried my best until I couldn't go anymore, and Steven came to my rescue and made new house rules... those who live with us, become like family with us and carry an equal part of the cooking and chores. What a difference that has made for everyone! I have had time to do constructive things with Timothy, study the midwife text books that I have been able to purchase, as well as sew more diapers for the new baby, and get to the many other things that just were not getting done.            Some of the cloth diaper covers I made and sold, and my little sewing helper.       As interesting as sewing and other things have been, what has really been intriguing to me has been the midwife course. I have not been able to complete any of the course work because I do not have enough of the text books, but I have studied the text books I have, and learned so much. It has been even more interesting and real to me since I was pregnant and could observe in myself the things I read about.The more I learn about how life begins, the more I realize just how great a miracle conception and reproduction is. We are truly "...fearfully and wonderfully made..."       As I studied, my desire to have my baby at home grew. I wanted to experience what it was like to give birth in the comforts of my home, as close to God's design as  we could manage. I understand that we live in a sinful world, and problems can arise, so we visited all the hospitals and clinics nearby, learned what services they offer, located emergency room doors,etc. We were 10 min away from help should a problem arise. Babi, a neonatal nurse, agreed to be my birth attendant. What a brave lady she was through the whole process, taking on such a challenge and putting up with me! I don't think I would have been comfortable enough to try a home birth without her. Thanks Babi!     And so we waited for the baby. so many times we were sure the time had come, only to realize it was another false alarm. My sister Sara came from Guayara, and my Mom came from Canada to help me with everything... cooking, cleaning, Timothy, etc. These two were such a help. I don't know what I would have done without them.        Then May 10 I began to have some cramping, and we thought that it was the big day! Nope. Evening came, and Timothy went to bed. Around 10 pm I began to have some contractions and then by midnight the contractions came in earnest. At 5:40am, May 11, James Lloyd Wilson joined our family! Timothy woke up to the baby's cries, and met his new brother moments after he was born. Now we have three boys in our family who share a birthday... my brother Michael, Steven, and James. I guess Steven's birthday present this year was a son:)        Birthing at home was an incredible experience because I was in an environment that was familiar and caring. I wasn't in the public eye with strangers watching me walk the halls, fighting to keep my hospital gown closed behind me. There was no pressure about things not going fast enough, or being treated like I was sick. Steven wasn't treated like an outsider, or in the way. I could move how I wanted and follow my instincts.  The whole experience was peaceful, and James came out beautiful and full of life. He had no medicines in him and it gave him a whole different appearance from the other babies I have seen born, including Timothy. God has made birth so intricate and incredible!           Babi and baby James                                  All the members of our family.                                                                                        Welcome James! Timothy likes his new brother.  We want to thank all who have kept us in your prayers, and for those who have been supporting us and encouraging us in the mission field here in Bolivia.                                              God Bless you all! The Wilson Family, Steven, Helen, Timothy, and James   We are volunteer missionaries entirely funded by donations. 100% of your donations go directly to us and our project in Bolivia. If you'd like to be a part, we accept tax-deductible donations through Gospel Ministries International, Inc. Donate via: 1.  PayPal  (timt@gospelministry.org) 2.  Check:  P.O. Box 506, Collegedale, TN 37315 With either method, please include a note stating:  "Bolivia Aviation Services - Wilson" Thanks for your support! Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

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Helping the aviation project in Guyana  Working in Guyana       "Help" was the email's subject title. It was from the chief pilot in Guyana, James Ash. "The annual inspection on my plane is due at the end of February and there are many projects hanging on its ability to fly."      Steven quickly made sure the turbo charged Cessna 182 maintenance was current so it would be able to fly here in Bolivia while he was gone. Then he made sure the guys painting the Mooney knew what to do for several weeks.       Feb 23 found Steven flying commercial to Guyana. Timothy and I were already missing him before he left! It was a very long two weeks for us here in Bolivia without our man, but we were glad that Steven was able to help keep another countries mission projects up and running with his abilities that God has given him.          Steve quickly completed the annual inspection and with the help of Natalia, a private pilot from California, James, the Chief Pilot of GAMAS, some Guyanese student aircraft mechanics, and a certified Guyanese aircraft mechanic, was able to sign the airplane off as airworthy before the two weeks were up.  The airplane all ready to go for another year! It just so happened that on the platform where the GMI plane was being worked on, was the AWA (Adventist World Aviation) plane that Steven had worked on during a summer job with them back when he was still a student at Andrews! The AWA plane is the yellow and blue plane in the picture, and the GMI plane is the the white, green, and yellow one.      The weekend was coming and they were all finished with the plane. James invited Steven out to his home at Paruima to spend Sabbath and Sunday, a two and half hour flight from Georgetown. Many of the GMI projects in Guyana are in the interior with no road access and river access only if you are willing to make the month or more long trip by water. Paruima is no different. The plane is their life line to the outside world. Paruima SDA Curch The Church parking lot. The river is the only highway out there. Even James travels by canoe from the airstrip to his home.  The Davis Indian Industrial College, Paruima Sunday, Steven, James, and the Pathfinder group, climbed the mountain beside the village and then flew paper airplanes off the edge of the cliff.  A view of Paruima and the airstrip from the top the mountain.        Steven enjoyed his weekend in the interior, being woken up by howler monkeys, canoeing on the river, and pending time in nature.  But then it was time to go home to his family in Bolivia!        We are very thankful that much was accomplished and that Steven made it back safe and sound. We will share what has been happening here in Bolivia next time!                  God Bless you all! The Wilson Family PS. To read more about the aviation project in Guyana, here is a link to James' blog:            http://guyanaaviationevangelism.blogspot.com/   We are volunteer missionaries entirely funded by donations. 100% of your donations go directly to us and our project in Bolivia. If you'd like to be a part, we accept tax-deductible donations through Gospel Ministries International, Inc. Donate via: 1.  PayPal  (timt@gospelministry.org) 2.  Check:  P.O. Box 506, Collegedale, TN 37315 With either method, please include a note stating:  "Bolivia Aviation Services - Wilson"

Turning Wrenches... Still

Turing Wrenches... Still         Life here in Bolivia is a lesson in patience. We make our plans and they never seem to go as we planed. Our characters are being polished, and we hope to come out more usable by God.         As part of the lesson in patience, we are still in Santa Cruz working hard to finish the work on the planes here so we can move to Guayaramerin. Even though we would rather be gone already, much good progress has been made on the planes. Much needed maintenance and repair. Here are pictures showing what has been happening in the hangar.            The Mooney is getting a face lift painting! It was looking really sad and faded from sitting in the sun for so long, and from flying through rain. A new coat of paint is making it look real sharp. Johannes and Gabriel have been faithful workers on the planes. Johannes is from Austria and Gabriel from Argentina. The Mooney is also getting her landing gear sanded down and painted. The landing gear has many hard to reach parts and in spite of the guys best efforts sanding by hand, there were little corners that still had paint and rust. Steven wanted to sand blast them, and asked about where that could be done. He was told no one in Santa Cruz did that anymore and so, even though he didn't really believe that no one sand blasted things here, he decided that he would build his own sandblaster. It was a learning experience, and in the end it worked! Top Left: Version 1.0                               Top Right: Version 2.0 Steven's  version 1.0 was a 0.5 L bottle and just too small. The sand emptied out real fast. Version 2.0 was a 2 L bottle. It was much better, but too much sand came out with the air and a lot of the sand ended up hitting its own sand instead of coming in contact with the metal. It worked, just slow. Top Left: Version 3.1                                    Top Right: Version 4.0 Version 3.1 was a bucket with straps to hold down the lid. (version 3.0 was without the straps and the lid of the bucket went flying. There were some guys who thought that was really funny) Version 4.0 worked great, although another air compressor had to be added  to have a fairly continual flow of air. Now they are finishing sandblasting the last of the Mooney's landing gear and will then have the gear painted with a paint that is baked on. This paint job will hopefully last a long time. The other plane that has been receiving a lot of attention is the normally aspirated 182. Here the guys had to loosen the wing strut to be able to get the fuel lines hooked up to the repaired fuel bladder in the wing tanks.  Left: My work in progress                            Right: The old interior pieces layed out       Even I have been pressed into service! The 182's interior was really not nice. The carpet on the floor was a nondescript color and even though it had been washed, it was questionable if the blood and vomit really came out. The wall panels also had carpet, and it was disintegrating. I think the carpet was original from the 1960's. There were parts of the interior that were still the original 60's green/blue. The rest had been repainted to a grey. So out came the paint, my sewing machine, and some new fabric, and we replaced all the interior that was not easily cleanable with something that was. Vomit and blood are no longer hard to clean up! The seats were left as they were. They are still in good, usable condition.  Bottom Left: The panel as it was                Bottom Right: The panel all painted up      The top picture is of the new flooring and interior. All the interior plastic pieces were painted one shade of grey, and the instrument panel was sanded down and painted black again (thanks Johannes!). I sewed up the new head liner, and all together it looks real sharp (and did I already say easily cleanable?) You can also see some of the many cargo tie down rings that were added to make cargo safer and more secure to transport.      The instrument panel was loosing its paint in big flakes, making the instruments hard to see easily. It still had some of the original colors, and didn't look so great anymore. Now it too looks sharp and its instruments easily read. More views of the new interior. Wilson Family News: Midwife Course: God answered my question about whether or not I should study the course on becoming a midwife. God provided the tuition and a part of the text book cost in time for me to meet the $800 discount promotion. The course is the long distance midwife course. It gives the book knowledge, which I can study at my own pace.  After this, with two years of clinical experience after this I can write the NARM exam in the US. The school is called Mercy in Action (mercyinaction.com)    (A special thanks to Clint and Mindy, the Weaver family, and the Flinkers!)      Baby: The bump is growing! Sara, Steven, and Timothy are having sympathy symptoms. Their watermelon or papaya bumps were eaten fairly quickly. Mine is still there!       To the right is a sneak peak at Timothy's little brother. Daddy's Helper        There have been a few empty flights going up to Guayara, and we sent what we could. Here Steven is flying some of our living room furniture.         Our dog Beulah enjoyed checking out the comforts of the stretcher with Timothy. Thank you to all of you back home for all your prayers and support. You are a big part of the reason anything can be done here. God Bless You! We are volunteer missionaries entirely funded by donations. 100% of your donations go directly to us and our project in Bolivia. If you'd like to be a part, we accept tax-deductible donations through Gospel Ministries International, Inc. Donate via: 1.  PayPal  (timt@gospelministry.org) 2.  Check:  P.O. Box 506, Collegedale, TN 37315 With either method, please include a note stating:  "Bolivia Aviation Services - Wilson" Thanks for your support!

Overhauling the Aviation Project in Bolivia.

A medevac to the city of Trinidad Bolivia.

The aviation project is flying in Bolivia, and is helping people in some towns and cities that are difficult to travel to during the rainy season due to bad roads. Medivacs are being made, missionaries being transported, and supplies are being hauled.
 However, the aviation project is still limited. The airplanes that the aviation project has in Bolivia are still U.S. registered. This means that they are currently limited to airports with control towers. Bolivia actually has quite a few control towered airports in remote towns. The control tower may just be a wooden shed with a solar panel, battery, and radio next to a grass strip at the town. But, this still limits the aviation project because there are vast areas of jungle that do not have control towered airports. The planes are not able to help the people who live in extremely remote areas who would benefit the most from the airplanes. It is the very remote, and hard to get to by land places, that we want to go and serve. 

This is the Rio Beni in northern Bolivia. People live in communities along rivers like this, often with no road access.

In the past, the airplanes were allowed to fly freely anywhere in Bolivia with their U.S. registrations. They helped many people in the very remote parts of Bolivia. Once, when the planes still had permission to fly anywhere in Bolivia, I returned to a community that I had previously flown to which was five days by boat up river from the closest medical care.  There are no roads to that community. The planes had been not flying due to maintenance and customs temporary importation paperwork. When I landed in that community I found fresh graves there, some large, and some small. Without the help of an airplane some of the sick people had died in the village before they could be transported to medical help. Things that are easily treatable become life threatening when treatment is five or more days travel on the river. It took me only half an hour to fly there.

An example of the type of graves along the runway in a community.

When someone is going to die from something that is easily treatable and you spend one hour taking them to the hospital where they receive the help needed, they are very grateful and open to you. Opened hearts mean beautiful opportunities to share about the God who rescues us in more than just a physical sense.
 We also took doctors out to the communities, saving the doctors many weeks in travel time. . Another example of how the planes have helped was once we were camping out in a warehouse at an ADRA building in northern Bolivia. They received a call that a woman had been bit by a venomous snake and she had six hours before she would die. They said it would take seven hours for an ambulance to take her to the closest hospital where there was anti venom. She would die in the ambulance. We rushed to the airport in an ambulance and after a 20 minute flight we were picking up the snake bitten woman. She was at the hospital within an hour being treated. If we had not been ready to jump in the plane, she would have been dead. It only took an hour of our time, and she was a life saved.

The airplane that is designated for the jungles of northern Bolivia.

In order to return to this kind of operation there are some things that need to happen. This is what we are praying about.

1.       I need to become a Bolivian pilot.

a.       People have been very generous and we currently have enough to cover the cost of obtaining a Bolivian pilot certificate. I will have to go back to flight school here to learn how airplanes fly in Bolivia.

2.       The plane needs to become a Bolivian registered and certified plane.

a.       $1,500 Paper work for registering and certifying the plane.

b.      $6,500 to $7,000 Engine overhaul will be required.

c.       $2,000 Propeller overhaul will be required.

d.      $600 Emergency Locator Transmitter

e.      Inspection for Bolivian airworthiness certificate. Cost undetermined at this time.

f.        Undetermined costs.

g.       If you are impressed to help fund this process include a note that says “N3538F Bolivian registration and certification”

3.       Helen and I are planning on moving to the jungles of northern Bolivia.

a.       We currently have enough to cover the cost of moving.

We plan to push the plane through this process, get a Bolivian pilot certificate, and then move up to northern Bolivia. At the Richard Gates Technical School in northern Bolivia where we will be based, they recently built a new church, and we are planning on moving into the old church.

God Bless,

Steven Wilson