Bush fires devastate Victoria

With temperatures reaching 47C and the hot northerly winds blowing down off the desert, bush fires ran rampant over Victoria yesterday. It was quite difficult to tell exactly where all the fires where as a smoke covered the land but we knew it close. Today revealed that it was in fact just to the north and also east of us here at Coldstream. We had just left Marysville on the Friday, and by Saturday 90% of the town of Marysville had been destroyed. Unconfirmed reports are saying that the Christian centre that we stayed in has also perished. Thankfully everyone was evacuated in time, but many others across Victoria weren't so fortunate. Please join in prayer for the families of the 60+ people who have lost their lives and for the hundreds who have lost everything in the fire.

This is all that is left of Marysville where I was staying the last few weeks

Another picture of Marysville

MAF Orientation

Well the MAF general orientation at Marysville is almost up. This weekend it will be time to move on again as I head back to Coldstream to attend the MAF flight orientation which will last around 1 month.

In the meantime here are a few pics from Marysville.

The 2009 MAF orientation team



El Kanah Christian centre in Marysville, VIC


It got up to 43 C last week for a few days. And one of the issues that brings is bush fires. One started less than a mile away (i wasn't me!), but thankfully the fire helicopter worked till dusk dropping water and managed to get it out

Visa

Still no sign of the work visa as my commercial license paperwork was lost and the visa cannot be processed without it :-(

The application has been resubmitted so please pray that both the visa and the commercial license/security check go through smoothly this time and without delay. Thanks

Prayer points

Prayer makes a real difference and because it's so important, you will now find my latest prayer points permanently on the left hand side of the page.

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a very happy new year from Australia. This was a picture taken from the Yarra river in Melbourne where myself and 500,000 others came together to celebrate the changing of the year. A great display and a fun night.

Training Milestones

Nev's training milestones:

- Pilot’s license - USA - 2004
- Instrument license - USA - 2005
- Bible school - England - 2006
- Tailwheel endorsement - USA - 2006
- High-performance endorsement - USA - 2007
- Airframe mechanical license - USA - April 2007
- Complex endorsement - USA - July 2007
- Powerplant mechanical license - USA - Aug 2007
- US commercial pilots license - USA - Sept 2007
- Field experience – Philippines - 2007/2008
- MAF Technical Evaluation - Australia - Nov 2008
- Australian commercial pilots license - Australia - Dec 2008
- Secondment to MAF Australia - Arnhem Land, NT - Jan 2009
- Bacame a 1000+ hr pilot - Arnhem Land, NT - Feb 2010
- Wycliffe/JAARS Technical Evaluation (~Dec 2011)
- Wycliffe/JAARS Full-time field Assignment (~July 2012)


Green - Complete
Red - To do

It's been a long but rewarding journey to date, and one that’s taken me from N.Ireland, to California (twice), to England, Michigan, the Philippines ... and now Australia. Praise God for His strength, guidance and leading in all of the above. I am so grateful to everyone who has and is supporting me in every way imaginable. Without you I would not be able to serve others abroad with Wycliffe Bible Translators and Mission Aviation Fellowship. May you be richly blessed for your sacrafice.

Australian commercial License

Thank you all so much for your prayers. It was a really long and stressful day lasting around 11 hours. By the end of the day I was completely done, but extremely happy that I now had an Australian commercial under my belt to match the US one.

With my license in hand I can now finalise the work visa and then start serving up north in Arnhem Land. Praise the Lord!