The fall of 2021 has been a busy one in the Dunn household. It included a missions conference, a safety audit, family updates, and lots of missionary candidate training!
At times you arrive at a missions conference without knowing who the other missionaries in attendance will be. Imagine our surprise when we arrived in St. Louis in October and realized the missionary son that we knew in Honduras was all grown up, had a family of his own and is at the mission conference too! He and his family are going to France as missionaries--here we are with Josh Allinger who we had not seen since he was eight years old! What a joy to reconnect with him and reminisce about our days in Honduras.
Saturday evening at the conference, we had "round table" discussions where we missionaries had 5 minutes at each table to introduce ourselves, explain our ministry, and answer questions. What a fun evening it was! In the Sunday morning service, all were able to share about the ministry God called us to. Below you can see a picture of all the missionaries that shared in the weekend; Kevin was taking his turn telling about our ministry when the photo was taken. It is exciting to share that our goal at SOAR is to send more missionary pilots and mechanics to the mission field. We love sharing about the unique role we have equipping mission candidates to use aviation to reach the lost. If you notice in the picture, seated four people to the right of Pam is our own Josh Hamilton (in plaid) who is training at SOAR to be a maintenance specialist. What a joy it is to share with churches about missions!
Though Josh Hamilton is a newer missionary candidate, he is not our most recent addition to the SOAR community. Madeline began at SOAR at the end of August; she has already completed her flight training as a CFII (Certified Flight Instructor Instrument) and is seeking training to obtain her mechanics license. Kevin was able to fly with her to get her High-Performance endorsement; he really enjoys using his CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) to train advanced flight students. Kevin is also currently flying with another missionary candidate to get checked out in the Cessna 206. Though he loves instructing flight students from the right seat, Kevin spends most of his time in the shop overseeing the maintenance program.
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We praise the Lord for all the blessings we have had this season and humbly approach His throne with our prayers; would you join us in praying for us in some specific ways:
- We have shared that Pam has had issues with hyperthyroidism. She has been diagnosed with Grave's Disease. It is an auto-immune disorder but is being controlled by medication. She has a sonogram of her thyroid and a possible biopsy on November 11th We are praying that this goes well.
- Jeremy and Blinda, who began serving in Papua New Guinea in February, have submitted their letter of intent to adopt a baby from Papua New Guinea. Pray this process goes smoothly; we can't wait to find out about a new grandbaby!
- We daily pray for safety in the shop and in the air. Recently SOAR had a safety audit -- a requirement to be part of the missionary aviation insurance program that covers our airplanes. The audit team looked over EVERYTHING - interviewed all staff, missionary candidates, and the board members and assessed the airplanes, facilities, shop, our Employee Manuals, Emergency Response Manuals, etc. They gave us pointers on how to improve but were pleased with the quality of work and safety that is achieved at SOAR. Pray we never get lax and ALWAYS make safety a priority.
- One thing that was pointed out in the safety audit is that more help is needed in the maintenance side of training. Kevin is very busy. SOAR has a revolving door as those that finish their training leave to join a mission board and we begin training the next missionary candidate. Would you please pray for more help! Kevin loves what he does but could really use a Director of Maintenance. This would free up some of Kevin's time so he could be more involved in teaching maintenance theory and focus on more complex duties that are expected of the Director of Operations. We are looking for someone with mission experience, has their A&P, and is an IA--if this sounds like someone you know, have them send us an email!
Thank you for staying in touch and supporting our ministry at SOAR. We thank the Lord for you!
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