Dear friends and family,
Thank you so much for your prayers for my trip to Sudan. The short notes were many but very appreciated. Some of you may be wondering why it has taken this long to send the update. That is because I just got back to Nairobi on Sunday, June 15. So let me sum up how the 2 day trip that turned into 8. 
We left our hangar Friday morning on one of AIM Air’s Caravans with a bunch of cargo for some missionaries in Sudan and 4 crew. Upon arriving in Loki, The pilot found out his flight with the cargo was delayed till Saturday, so we unloaded everything and he took a flight for another pilot who lives in Loki and had been flying everyday for 4 or 5 days. We confirmed that all the Bibles had been loaded and they did not need our help so we did a little last minute shopping and changes some money into Sudanese Pounds. Friday evening we had a nice potluck supper with both AIM Air families that live in Loki.
Saturday morning, we went out to the airport at 7:15 since they said we would be leaving at 8am. We took off a couple minutes after 8 and proceeded to Tanj, a two hour flight. There we unloaded the seven tons (sorry for the misinformation in the last email) of Bibles in a little less that 30 minutes and we took off for Rumbek where we were refueling. Refueling took longer than it should because of a miscommunication in the payment and another plane showing up that we had to wait for. Anyway about an hour later we were refueled and off to Doro.
The flight to Doro was about 2 hours as well and we landed a little after 2:30 pm. Upon touch down, I knew it would be interesting because all the windows were blasted with mud. The Buffalo got stuck a few times turning around and we spent about an hour watching him taxi/slide at near full power while trying to maneuver into a good location to take off from. This set us back some in loading and so we worked at a feverish pace for the next hour trying to load as much of the Caravan wreck as possible. At 4:30, the pilot informed us that we had to finish now in order for them to have enough time to make it back to Loki, which closes at 6:30pm. That was when my boss asked/ told me to stay because there was not enough seats or space and they wanted someone to dismantle some of the parts that were not going to fit. I agreed, the only problem being I had not brought any cloths or stuff to spend a night or two.
Dr. Rob, the team leader in Doro is pretty close to the same size as me and I was able to borrow a T-shirt and pair of cargo pants to wear to church the next day and to wear when my other clothes were drying. The folks at SIM were very hospitable and had a tent and mattress and sheets as well as soap for me to use so I was set, they also had plenty of food that we had brought up.
Sunday, we road bikes into the nearby village about 3 km from the mission compound and had a nice service with the local believers there. In the afternoon, we took the four-wheelers down to the river and did some exploring and swimming. That evening, we watched part of a sermon on DVD and had a discussion and prayer time before going to bed. Monday, I scrounged as many tools as I could find (they have plenty of building stuff but not much mechanic stuff) and loaded them in the trailer and with the generator and a circular saw (they had metal cutting wheels for it which was a huge praise). I started by drilling out some rivets to give me access and open up the wing some. I then proceeded to do something they don’t teach in school, I cut the wing in two just outboard of the fuel tank. After cutting both wings in half, I tried to remove the flaps but was unable with the limited tools to get all the bolts. I decided not to try cutting until I checked for any more tools and consulted Nairobi. Monday I also helped a little on a small roofing project on the compound. Inn the afternoon, I went through almost everything in the shop/store room and organized all the tools and found a needle nose vice-grip, which I thought may work to get the remaining bolts.
So Tuesday, after consulting Nairobi, I had a list of more things they wanted disassembled and tried with the new vice-grip. Dr. Rob’s oldest son, Robert, also came along to help. We were able to barely get the bolts and after a lot of sweating and effort we had the flaps off and the cargo pod disassembled. I was also able to disassembled the other parts so everything was done there. In the afternoon, I also helped weld up some re bar for anchors for the new wind tower. We also poured the concrete for the four guy wires and the main one for the tower.
Wednesday, was the the day the plane was coming to get me so I went out to the airstrip to make sure it was in good shape since the dump trucks had been hauling in murrum to improve the runway. The piles were still all over the center of airstrip. So Robert and I rode our bikes into town to find the road grader to level things. Unfortunately the grader was stuck and they had sent for another grader. As we were leaving town a huge storm blew in and we got soaked completely. It continued to rain all afternoon so there were two reasons for the plane not to come.
Thursday and Friday I spent helping on other projects. By Friday evening the airstrip was dry enough and and the grader had come out and leveled all the piles. They also brought out a roller so they had packed it as well. Saturday, the plane was behind schedule and did not arrive till about 2:30. They had 4 patients in desperate need of hospital help so they decided to fly them to the hospital in Kurmuk and we spent that night in Doro as well. Sunday morning, we took off at 8 and flew to Pieri to refuel and them on to Juba so Dr. Rob could go to a conference . From there we flew back to Loki and then I caught a commercial flight back to Nairobi arriving at about 6:45 thus ending my long trip to Sudan and back.
Thanks again for your prayers, as you have read the trip was longer and more eventful than I had planed or expected.
Caleb
