Mike's Blog

Letters, stories, and other stuff

The start of something good

>Monday morning... Renee and the kids joined me and two other missionary families for a very informal dedication of the new Media Ministry Office. We sat in a circle on the floor of an unfurnished apartment and prayed together and sang. It was the beginning of a long...

Outside of Eden

Flew a hurried medivac today. Just 40 minutes from the city, to a rural place north of Mt Kenya. The flight was for a stranger. I didn't even know his name - the man who died there beside the plane. My craft and the doctors just a little too late to start his heart...

Appreciated

The cheers and smiles could be attributed to something more subtle. As my passenger so gently put it on the flight back home, “You can only eat so much goat.”

Mothers day

This one nearly slipped by. We don't get little reminders like television commercials and greeting cards in the supermarket out here. I've managed to miss quite a few holidays - and been assigned to flights on every one except Christmas over the years. But not this...

Grip for a day

Just off the eastern shore of Lake Victoria is a beautiful mountain island called Mfangano. Its been years since I had been there, and the little dirt airstrip hidden in the trees was just as bad as it always was - maybe even worse. I flew the Caravan low southward...

Elephants

Occasionally I get on a flight that can be described as, well... easy. Most are fraught with sweat, but some are just plain fun. On Saturday I flew a group out for a short mission trip with New Directions International. At the tail end of their trip, we flew into the...

The good baroness

Some weeks ago I picked up passengers from Yei, Sudan. They were a lively group from the UK, heading home, but I didn't know much else about them. We had an uneventful hour-and-a-half flight and after landing I bid them farewell as they connected onto another flight....

Newsletter – March 2007

RENEE WRITES... Dear Friends, After four months of being back in Nairobi, we can call ourselves settled in again. The first month we were repainting the inside of our home and finishing the attic space, so we now have room for guests if anyone is interested. We love...

Twice saved

Korr, Northern Kenya. I flew in a group from a California church visiting the literacy and church planting work going on here. I went with them into a village in the morning to watch the camels being milked - the whole place was so beautiful in that golden light,...

New years day

I'm thirty-one again. Its my birthday, and I have decided to stop at thirty-one (four years ago.) The kids think its hilarious that I'm getting old, jumping on any opportunity to remind me of my delusional state of being in the "early" thirties. I think they like the...

Newsletter – November 2006

Dear friends, It has never been so hard to say goodbye. This furlough has been filled with many drawn out farewells, visits that have gone way too late into the night, plans to get together “one more time” that never materialized, and dinners that edged on...

Newsletter – March 2006

Dear friends, I woke up some weeks ago to a bowl of corn flakes and a spot on the couch next to Amelia. We turned on CNN and were greeted with a report of a blizzard in New York City - twenty something inches of snow - an amazing spectacle. Amelia followed the report...

Remember the Fall

I walked quickly to catch up with the group and, coming alongside Joshua, I matched my pace to his. The low, late afternoon sun brought a reprieve from the awful heat of the day, and we made our way down a sandy road toward a village. Joshua busily pointed out some of...

Newsletter – November 2005

Dear friends, Greetings from Africa. Our family is doing well. Zach just had his 4th birthday and Amelia is counting the days to her seventh. Goodness, our kids are growing fast. I remember the day we took Zach to the post office in New Jersey to get his passport. He...

What’s in a Word?

What’s in a Word?

We sat hunched over on goatskins, in a dark, steamy, somewhat smelly hut of sticks and grass and cardboard. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light, after coming in from the blazing sun of a Kenyan afternoon. Renee and I sat on either side of the hut,...

From the Front Lines to the Refrigerator Door

Home again – in the familiar pew of a hometown church, I touch the wood and upholstery and then look down to see the scuffed leather of my familiar shoes set against the deep, clean carpet. My mind wanders for a moment and I imagine these same shoes against the red...

Common Grace in an Uncommon Place

Common Grace in an Uncommon Place

Tired, cold, and eyes full of wonder, I thought about ol’ Ludwick and me. What we had in common was more than coming to Africa or preaching the good news. What we had was perhaps a moment in time when we had both looked upon this same mountain, 159 years apart, and saw the handiwork of a mighty God.

The Great American Road Trip

So much road. So many white lines ticking away aside our little Honda at 65 miles per hour. Two thoughts constantly cross my mind. Where do we get all this asphalt? And why can’t we send some to Africa? For seven weeks this Spring, the country opened up before us over...