Category: Elcho

Whatever became of Gillian?

29/3/2014

TC Gillian off WA

We waited and waited. The thunder intimidated us and the light rain teased us, but nothing came. Tropical cyclone Gillian kept moving northwards and lost its energy before it passed by Nhulunbuy. It was Monday before we experienced some real wet season weather at Elcho.

The main thanksgiving event took place in calm conditions with the briefest of showers, and we all remained outside under a largely blue sky. It was probably the most settled thanksgiving weekend we have seen in eight years. The Yolngu seemed unperturbed by the cyclone predictions and enjoyed fellowship into the evenings. With no planes to fly, we were able to take part and enjoy the exuberance and joy of the celebrations. There were many testimonies of how Yolngu felt called to follow Jesus at a deeper level.

Tropical cyclone Gillian made a third appearance to batter Christmas Island before rising to a category 2 system off the coast of Western Australia. The search for the Malaysian Airlines aircraft was suspended for 24 hours as result and high winds continued to hamper the search for debris.

A waiting game

15/3/2014

After two days of planning the weather has changed from blue skies and light winds to a more ominous dark grey, with light rain and constant thunder in the background. The spiral arms, reminiscent of those of a distant galaxy, are now starting to sweep over NE Arnhem Land bringing instability and rain. The red and amber returns in the image above are associated with storm cells.

MAF brought all of its aircraft into Gove yesterday afternoon and left the families in the communities in accordance with our wishes. We are now waiting for the strong winds and finalising our preparations. We have gas stoves, water stored in readiness , torches and candles, and inverter backup from car batteries to try to keep fridges and freezers running if we lose power for an extended period. The garden has been cleared of loose objects and we are restraining items at risk of turning over or becoming airborne.

All change

23/12/2013

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.

40 years young

5/11/2013

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.

A new (and bigger) roof over our heads

29/7/2013

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!

Galiwin'ku Sunday School

15/4/2013

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.

Food airlift to Mapuru Homeland

3/4/2013

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.

Better late than never

30/3/2013

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!

Technical support for the Translation Centre

20/2/2013

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.

A new family

21/1/2013

We have a new family in the MAF Elcho team – the Vautiers.
Des, Emily, Jack, Dominic and Nevaeh are from Auckland, NZ. They joined MAF in September and then spent 3 months in Yirrkala. Most of their gear came over by plane beforehand, leaving their 4WD to arrive by barge the following week. (A GA8 can lift 500kg and takes up to six 200L drums.) Their actual arrival was delayed by 24 hours when rain set in at Gove airport late in the day.