It has been another year of change on Elcho, with a completely new team established in the closing weeks of the year. We welcomed two families: Jason and Kim Job with Sam (3), who were previously at MAF’s Numbulwar base and also Ian, Adele, Jimmy (3) and Ned (1) who have just arrived having joined the MAF staff team after a year at Milingimbi as a relief pilot in 2011-12. David passes on his Operations role in January to concentrate on the Elcho Base Manager/Pilot role again.
 Jenny and Ken Stockton with Harry Garrawurra In November 1973, a young couple woke up on a Monday morning to become the first MAF staff in Arnhem Land as the Methodist Overseas Mission transferred its Elcho-based operation, aircraft and commercial pilot to MAF. We welcomed Ken and Jenny Stockton back to Elcho Island 40 years later to join in a service of celebration and thanksgiving at Galiwin’ku church. The Yolngu shared their stories of the early days of MAF and what MAF has meant to them over the years. In remembering the past, it has reignited interest in visiting the isolated homelands to share fellowship and encourage faith in these tiny bush settlements.
 Following the June staff conference a volunteer team from New Zealand came out to Elcho to replace the aging steel roofs on MAF’s two houses. We were all involved in the project either providing food and accommodation or helping with the work itself. Both houses had heat-reducing insulation installed, and seem to be much quieter when the heavy rain pounds the steel sheeting. We are truly grateful for the work team who gave of their time and funded their own travel, so that we could be dry!
 Emergency procedures training It's been a hectic time recently with two major events within a week of each other and staff conference just a fortnight away.
We had our annual management conference and workshop with Phillipa Forsyth from the MAF Africa region. This year's training theme was 'introduction to leadership' which took us through the various aspects of effective leadership and gave us a practical tool for leading a team or project. As mission pilots, we often become the default leader by being the 'last one standing' in a particular place, but we don't necessarily have the experience or knowledge to make a good transition from doing to planning, delegating and following-up. A week later the pilot group met for its annual training and education days. We practiced evacuation procedures from our aircraft, tried to put out fuel fires using a variety of extinguishers (including the wrong types), let off some flares and did our best to demonstrate the life jackets!  Flying Wild
The US Air Force have a song that starts "Off we go in to the wild blue yonder.” However, in Arnhem Land there are times when it is not blue but it is definitely wild! Like many tropical regions, Arnhem Land has a defined rainy season and when it comes, it comes. The weather can go from dry to instant deluge and then back again all within the space of a few hours. Then at other times you get up with the rain, sleep with the rain on your roof, and then it is there waiting for you when you get up again! And don’t think light rain either- this is the instant flood variety where the gutters are swamped! Times like these are a real challenge to flying both from a logistical point of view and also of course for those who are actually braving the elements. For the MAF ground staff things can get hectic quite quickly. First of all there is the call from the base to tell you that though it may be fine & sunny where you are, where they are they can’t see the end of the runway! That’s always frustrating as the passenger waiting to fly is looking at a sunny sky and can’t understand why you don’t want to take off!  It is exciting to see the Sunday School activities restart this year. Ngandama, a very faithful lady, who has run Sunday School for years and years asked some of the younger ladies from the weekly Bible Study to take up the leadership. With support from Graham and Jen they are leading a group of 20-50 children each week. Jonathan provides valuable technical support from home for the Sunday School.
 The community at Mapuru homeland, 30 km south of Galiwin’ku, has been operating a co-operative food shop for the last 14 years. It aims to make essential supplies available in the homeland by buying and transporting in bulk, so that expensive ad-hoc shopping flights to Elcho are reduced. Over the years, MAF has transported bulk food consignments at reduced or zero cost by using “back-charters” – the empty sectors we fly between charters. Recently we got the call that the road to Mapuru had become impassable due to the rising river levels so could we fly the latest bulk order of four pallets arriving on the barge. Each carton, bag or drum has to be weighed, moved to the aircraft and loaded thoughtfully to keep the aircraft in balance and within its take-off weight limits. Over three days we used ten flights at full capacity to transfer the food the 15 minute hop to the homeland. In all, we moved 3,944 kg. The pilots were grateful for the line of willing helpers at Mapuru to help offload. 
 The image shows the rain radar on Sunday 24 March. We've been waiting three months for it to arrive and now it has finally started raining with no sign of stopping. The wet season starts predictably around Christmas, and continues on and off for the next 3-4 months. This year we've had occasional showers but hot and humid days from September last year. We've had the hottest and least rainfall months for many years. Apart from the discomfort, the low rainfall has an impact on our water supplies during the dry season when we rely on underground bores. The rain came last weekend just in time to prevent all our staff returning to their remote bases after a weekend meeting in Gove. However, good humour prevailed, and everyone got back on Monday morning after rearranging the early flights. We are looking forward to our new roof due in May which will stop the leaks which have returned!
 The projector in pieces Jonathan is a regular visitor to the Bible Translation Centre. He is always on call for technical difficulties beyond the staffs' own capabilities. It could be re-installing the printer drivers, trouble-shooting their network, or just giving advice when a new error message appears. Recently, he was asked to look into a recurring fault in the LCD projector donated from the market proceeds. He carefully dismantled the unit until he discovered the fault in a loose connector buried deep within. It has now been working successfully for several weeks.
He has also performed some research and testing of audio file players for use in web pages. The BTC has put the Djambarrpuyngu New Testament on a web site and wanted the audio to be an option on each page. He converted files and wrote some code so that they would play on all popular web browsers. |
Journal AuthorsDavid and Jen Pett, MAF staff in since 2006, now in Cairns. Archives
March 2016
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