Arrived in Mabaruma.

Wings for Humanity eventually opted for making a special flight out on Monday to get Laura, Dani and I from Georgetown. There wasn’t going to be room with the body (which, my mistake, was actually coming from Georgetown to Mabaruma) A special flight costs them in gas, versus when they are able to bring out a medivac patient the government hospital will pay their transport costs. Currently, there isn’t lots of extra money for flights like bringing me in or transporting other non paying customers (for example THE pastor for Region 1. He is responsible for 8 churches spread over the jungle) although a Sabbath School class in Southern California gives them $500 monthly which covers about one extra flight. 

I'm smiling so you can't see my teeth chattering.

Getting into the little Cessna 182 I realized that this is truly the craziest thing I’ve ever done. Everything I had brought with me, my two suitcases, violin, computer, bible, journal, pictures, and my new kitten were packed into the plane all around and on top of me. We took off with Laura in command. Mabaruma is about an hour’s flight over the jungle from Georgetown. Greg Van Fossen flew out to get us and he and Laura chatted on the radio the whole way back while I tensed and tried not to scream into my headset every time we hit a cloud with it’s bumps. They also found that particular flight a good time to talk about emergency procedures. Since the best thing to hear flying over a remote jungle is of course a discussion of “Glide, Gas, Gab, and Get out.” It really wasn’t that bad, by the end I was able to almost enjoy it. Greg is an experienced pilot and flight instructor and Laura has been flying here in Guyana for the last five years-and hey, at least now I know they think about what to do in an emergency. Guyana from the air is pretty; very green, lots of silver glinted rivers snaking through green jungle. After about an hour of flight time we flew over the Mabaruma airstrip to check out the runway and then landed smoothly. We were greeted by a crowd of children from Hobo Hill-adjacent to the airstrip. They were mostly happy to see Dani, curious about my kitten-in-a-box, but smiled and told me their names. I showed them my violin and played “Amazing Grace”. Jud and Karen Wickwire-the parents of the third family in the Wings for Humanity Guyana trio arrived and together we unloaded the plane and loaded the taxi-it was a tight squeeze but we eventually got everyone’s stuff to the right places. I arrived at my new house in Mabaruma and met my housemate Shundel. She is medical missionary who graduated from Bethany Medical Missionary College in Bethany Guyana. Shundel spends her days visiting people and giving hydrotherapy treatments and massages and taking classes. She hopes to get into a nursing program sometime next year. I moved my stuff in and fell into bed exhausted.