Photos courtesy of Ryan Prouty

Friday, September 5, 2008

A Day in the Life at Agape Flights

This is Tim. Tim is a grade school friend of Paul's who has been visiting from the Twin Cities for the past 9 days and volunteering his skills at Agape Flights. We are trying to get him to move down and take a permanent position...we'll see where God leads him! Among Tim's talents is photography and he took some pictures of the crew at the office so you could all meet them. Thanks Tim!

Paul and Tim arrive and open up the office:
Then open up the hangar doors:
From outside looking into the hangar where everyone works. The windows seen are from the offices. They look out over the hangar.
This plane left Wednesday for the island. It belongs to a (very generous) gentleman who has allowed Agape to use it for regular deliveries since the crash of their airplane just after Christmas.
This is a twin engine plane similar to the airplane being built for Agape right now!
Paul's job encompasses many duties...including making ice cubes...
and replacing the water bottle.
This is Paul's office. He is collaborating with Jennifer (she works in accounting) on a project.
This is Carol Ann. She provides secretarial support for EVERYONE!!
These are volunteers providing reception services at the front entrance. There are hundreds of volunteers who give time to help out around the hangar throughout the year. More help is always needed though!

Theresa (left) and Karen (also in accounting) work in the mail room.
Volunteers help spread the mulch that was the product of 3 trees that were recently removed from around the hangar.
We have started a Friday lunch pot luck tradition. This is the break room.
This is the May family. Dan is a pilot and the plane maintenance director, his wife Kate is a nurse. We have a lot in common and she has become an instant friend. Their 2 sons Jack (left) and Danny are with them. We hope to get some medical missions organized and serve together. They plan to relocate to Santiago, Dominican Republic, as field directors for Agape, as soon as a replacement for Dan is found.
And this is the Yannucceillo family: Jeff is a pilot also and in charge of the mail room, his wife Crystal (who is a fellow MOPS member, yeah!) and their daughters Macayla and Mariah.
This is the Mikarts family. Mark is also a pilot and the building maintenance director. His wife Kristen is a teacher and they have 2 boys Zachary and Ryan. This a picture of them from 2007 and in the background is the Agape plane that crashed last December. More on the new plane in the next post.
So, that is the end of the introductions! Sorry it has taken me so long to do that. Special thanks to Tim for making "someday" a day last week!! And also for the following fun pictures he took while he was here. Here is more of my family under the water. I love the look on Paul and Holden's faces!!

This is Alayna and Holden collecting geckos at Stacy and Yvonne's home (from our Sunday church and small group) where we spent Labor Day. They live just outside town on a couple acres and had a horse and invested the time to teach my kids to shoot a bow. The kids had a FABULOUS time...as do any kids that get to shoot things!!





So, Tim is leaving in the morning and we have not been to the beach for a sunset, so we headed out after waffle night (yes, the tradition is alive and well in Florida!) to see if we could catch a sunset. On the way we have to cross over a drawbridge and had to wait. There are 4 of these we regularly cross and rarely have to wait for it to go up, but I thought it would be fun to share the picture with you of the drawbridge up. I missed getting a picture of the huge boat that it went up for...it was so big that it had a ski boat on it for...recreation...speed...I don't know why it was needed!!!

The passing of Hurricane Gustav so close to us stirred up the waves and washed in tons of shells. They were several inches thick! We had a great time looking for pretty ones. If you look closely you can tell the difference between the pile of shells and the sand behind them.
Somehow, the clouds always figure out exactly where the sun and water are going to meet and crash their party. We have yet to see a sunset here without the clouds in front of the sun. The red on the clouds tonight was beautiful. This picture really doesn't do it justice.

We had some sunlight left to play in when we first got to the beach...
We had a great time with our guest and look forward to our next ones!! Who's it gonna be??

6 comments:

Emily said...

It is so neat for us to get a picture of what your daily life is like in Florida! So glad you had some company, too! We miss you guys!!!

John said...

Your post makes me miss Florida very much. Those were some great pictures.

Anonymous said...

Your pictures of Nokomis Beach make me want to get on a plane and come right down. Sunsets there are usually beautiful and always make an effort to go down to the beach after supper to watch it. You will get to see some I'm sure. Have you seen and dolphins and manatees yet? We saw a huge manatee in the jetty one day last year. Read your blogs and enjoy seeing how God is using you all. What church did you end up going to? Miss seeing you around church... Barb & Steve

Football and Fried Rice said...

Wow...daily life & introductions. So neat to see the operations & the wonderful families that you have gotten to meet & be blessed to work side by side with for a greater cause!!

By the way, the mailman struck at our house today!! TAHNK YOU!!! What adorable bows & outfits...I can't wait to take a picture of them and post them so I can share them with everyone! I love the whole box :)

Love the Florida sunset, even with the clouds!! Sunrise here is the best :=)

Lisa said...

Oh, what a great post!! Love to see all that you and your family are doing. Also, seeing pictures of the people you are surrounded by is great! I am like you and visitors are so fun and the time is full of so many memories!!! Love ya lisa

The Grady Five said...

Thanks for sharing all of that!!

Love all the pictures and updates so that we can keep up on how things are going!!

Love, athena