March/April Newsletter - First Solo

Near the beginning of April, I flew my first solo! Mr. Brooks and I took off that afternoon and went to Chandler, OK. We practiced landings there for a while, and then flew to Stroud, OK. There, we practiced a few more landings. After a few landings, he told me to pull off to the cement parking area to the side of the runway. He told me that I would fly the airplane by myself. He took out my logbook and put in the necessary endorsements, and then he got out of the airplane and took a radio with him to keep in contact with me. I taxied to the runway and said a prayer. At the end of the runway, I double-checked all my instruments and gauges and then turned into the takeoff roll. I took off the runway and climbed into the pattern. My first approach and landing were not very good, but the second and third were better. After I was done, I pulled off to the parking area and he came and congratulated me. That evening, the guys in the dorm threw me in the pond because we started a tradition that whenever anyone solos, they get dunked in the pond.

Not long after my solo, we went on our senior trip to India. We had been planning and fundraising for it for a long time after Mr. Lazar, one of our staff members from India, presented the idea of going to help out at a school in India. We left on Monday morning to the OKC airport. Originally, we planned on flying directly to the school, but our airplane from Atlanta to Paris was late, so we arrived at our gate just as the plane pulled away. When we planned the trip, we had wanted to do some sightseeing along the way, but we decided it was too expensive and would take too much time and we didn't want to waste our fundraised money on tourism. However, God gave us an unexpected blessing because we missed our flight. We had a day in Paris and almost a day in Delhi, and we had extra money, so we could use that time and money to go sightseeing and do things we weren't planning on being able to do. We went and visited the Eiffel Tower, and then when we got to India, we went to Agra and visited the Taj Mahal. After we flew to Guwhati, we took a van to the school and got there Friday evening. At school, we helped out a lot. We went and visited local churches every Sabbath and helped by giving worship talks in the evenings. In the mornings, we helped with school and taught the kids songs and activities. We also made ID cards for the 300 students. It took a long time and a lot of work, but we finished everything except for laminating a couple dozen because the power went out on Saturday night when we had to leave. We flew down to Chennai, South India, and then took an overnight train to Madurai, Mr. Lazar’s home city. After staying there for about a day we flew back to school. The juniors surprised us at the airport with a welcome-back party. We were not expecting them to come because it was late and they were on a Messiah’s Mansion exhibit. It was an amazing experience!

A short while after our senior trip, we went on a music tour to Belize. Originally, we were going to leave on Friday, but we didn’t have the required documents. Fortunately, we were able to reschedule our tickets for Monday but it was a blessing in disguise because my sister and I attended National Family Retreat for the whole weekend which was really nice. On Monday, we flew to Belize and then took a bus to MOVE (Missionary Outreach and Volunteer Evangelism), run by the Suttons. That week, we helped a lot at the school. Some of the staff taught classes, we gave the meetings for the week of prayer, we gave concerts, we helped with construction, and a bunch of other things. One morning, Mr. Sutton took a crew of us to an old man’s house and we helped to pour a concrete slab for a new home for him and his almost blind wife. We had a large team, so we finished in about 3 hours. On Wednesday evening, we gave a concert in a park and then we gave three concerts over the weekend to local churches. On Sunday, we had one last meeting for the week of prayer, and then we left for the airport and flew back to school. That trip was also an amazing experience.

God has been blessing a lot in the aviation program. The plane was down for a while because of a fuel leak from the tank. We were afraid we would have to buy a new tank. It sounds like we still need to replace it eventually, but by God’s grace, we were able to repair it and put it back in the airplane, restoring it to working order. In fact, as I write this article, one of the students is out flying!

Thank you all so much for your support and prayers!

In service together:

Ethan Currier