The rumble of the chattering crowd suddenly gave way to breathless silence as we heard it: the faint hum of the approaching airplane. All eyes were fixed on the sky as the plane came into view, and the crowd broke into cheers and applause when the wheels touched unpaved airstrip, raising a cloud of dust as it quickly came to a stop.
It was finally here! The Kodiak serial number 8, our shiny brand new airplane! Last Friday flocks of Ukarumpa residents made the bumpy 10 minute drive out to the airstrip to watch this new plane land in Papua New Guinea for the very first time, celebrating its arrival with music and donuts and thanking God for bringing it here. Why is an airplane so exciting, you might be asking? Yes, I had the same thought. To me, a plane is a plane, and as long as it gets me where I need to go I'm not too bothered about what kind it is. However, even I am aware that this plane is an awesome addition to our aviation department for several reasons: first, it's specially designed to be able to take-off and land on very short airstrips . . . and we have a lot of those in PNG! Also, our other airplanes that are able to function on short airstrips require a particular kind of fuel that is quite costly and becoming even more costly. The new Kodiak can run on a standard jet fuel that is much cheaper and easier to come by! Thank God for this gift that will allow us to bring His words to people in remote areas safely and so much more efficiently!
If you want to know more technical details about the Kodiak, check out this article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS237443+09-Jan-2009+BW20090109
If you just want to see pictures of the cool new plane, have a look at the slide show!
(All of the Kodiak pictures were kindly and skillfully taken by Michael Johnson.)
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