Frequent traveller takes to air again

Landmarks in recovery

It is a landmark day for me, as this is my first journey out of the Netherlands by air since before I was hospitalised and diagnosed with cancer last year.

In many ways, I see the ability to do some of the things I once was unable to do for sickness and the lack of means as part of the recovery process.

It is not full by any means, it is a gradual process and in some ways miraculous if I were to echo the words of my doctor who thought when he saw me last month that the state of my recovery was well beyond what they had ever expected for the duration in which I had been monitored.

The other day, when I said to my colleagues that I was born at 26 weeks, one of them said he saw a fighting spirit for survival in me that he had noticed in a niece of his who was also prematurely born.

Now, I do not know if there is any correlation but somehow you just believe you either would get out of it good or succumb, though the idea of succumbing is never given the space to take root.

Between priorities and perks

Having checked in my baggage, I went to the Privium Plus lounge which is a service for frequent travellers that allows for unencumbered access through airport and checking in facilities as well as iris scanning facilities for border controls.

I remember well that I was just about to be admitted in hospital the renewal notice came for my Privium Plus membership and basically, I ignored it. I just could not be bothered with frequent travel and the perks that it entailed; I was fighting for my life.

Then a few months after, a debt collector’s agency sent the first threatening letter and I wrote to both Privium Plus and the debt collector that this matter was just too far from my top priority of getting well and getting up with the sub-tone of telling them to do their worst – on the scale of recovery priority issues membership advantage subscriptions do not feature.

Eventually, I contacted the people and offered to come to some arrangement on paying off the debts which I eventually did within a month of agreement.

It has been a journey and as I plan to go by the iris scanning system in a few minutes, one just wonders if I would be recognised or some assistance would be needed – maybe chemotherapy could change the so unique identification that the iris represents – we’ll see.

Let us be thankful that the once frequent traveller is starting to travel again.

The Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF)

The worthy cause of air transport

At the news of the AF 447 air crash I was having a conversation with my good friend who had sojourned in Papua New Guinea for 2 years where he had at times had to travel to the most remote areas not reachable with regular means of transport.

He told me of MAF, the Mission Aviation Fellowship [1] which offers much needed transport to remote unprofitable areas in uncharted regions all around the world, in Papua New Guinea he found the lifeline of the services invaluable both to himself and the communities he liaised with.

I found their website and just from the first page was immediately inspired to instinctively support their efforts with a small donation.

Not trendy but essential

This afternoon, I received an acknowledgement of my small gift and more information about the work they are doing and how it is affecting people’s lives.

Now, the work of MAF is not pop star celebrity stuff, it would probably not attract the proponents or Live or Dead Aid but their selfless charitable service which is of the highest professional order with their scarce resources is more than commendable and should be supported by well-meaning people of the world.

That it is a Christian charity is beside the point though it presents a basis for the work they do in saving lives, bringing help, facilitating communication and engendering healthy existence with rural and sometime far-off communities, and obviously, there is a missionary component to these efforts.

I publish here, the thank you letter I received from them and urge you to consider the Mission Aviation Fellowship as part of your charitable giving portfolio.

Thanks.

The appreciation

Thank you indeed for your kind gift of £___ via our website. We receive so many calls to help make a significant difference to isolated men, women and children in all kinds of need, and we are so glad you are part of our team.

While the thought of catching any kind of ’flu worries people in our own country, imagine what it must be like to live with almost no healthcare. That’s why, at Madundas in Tanzania, 224 children were presented to doctors and nurses on a flying visit with our Mbeya Safari.

Almost 200 of the children were given vaccinations against at least one of polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis and measles. Give thanks that doubtless that day means more young children will now go on to live healthier lives.

We have taken delivery of our first new Kodiak 100 aircraft in the USA. The Kodiak operates on jet fuel rather than Avgas which is more expensive and scarce. Please pray that God will provide the resources for us to be able to upgrade our fleet with more Kodiaks.

The first Kodiak is expected to enter service soon in mountainous Papua, Indonesia, where there is a tremendous need for aircraft. In the past few weeks, our current planes there have carried a patient with a broken back, an unconscious pregnant lady, a teenager with a broken arm and leg, a lady needing a Caesarean section, another pregnant lady with an enlarged spleen and liver, and a man whose hand had been cut in machinery.

Also, a load of Dani Bibles was delivered to Mulia. Pray that those who read these Bibles will have their eyes opened to spiritual truth.

Once again, thank you for your practical partnership.

Yours sincerely,

(Name Supplied, Supporter Relations)

Sources

[1] MAF-UK Flying for Life

[2] MAF to Dedicate First KODIAK 100 - Mission Aviation Fellowship

Home - Mission Aviation Fellowship – International web site

Air data going nowhere

Information overload

Sometimes I wonder where all that accumulation of information goes apart from feeding the voyeuristic and controlling tendencies of the state and its apparatus in the pretence of fighting the war on terror.

Months ago when the highest European Court declared the data exchange, or rather the whole scale one-way data transfer of confidential data of European citizens who deign to travel to America illegal, that was triumph to be celebrated by all liberty seeking persons who do not want to sacrifice their freedom for temporary safety.

It so happens that the court asked that a better arrangement with legal grounding be negotiated between Europe and American authorities.

A bloody inconvenience

That negotiation seems to have broken down, and so it should, there is no valid reason for sending all that confidential information to America within 15 minutes of take-off only to find that more than halfway into the flight, the airplane has to be turned back because the computers throw up some innocuous and suspicious information which ends being a red herring.

Having never been to America, it does not really bother me, but, I have a newfound interest to visit and tour kindled by the arrival of this month’s National Geographic which had a foldout with a large map of the United States of America.

Extradition on a whim

The next thing to be resolved is that rotten extradition treaty that lets countries throw their citizens to American “justice” and sometimes gallows without court-tested evidence and with nothing of reciprocal equivalence from America.

The whole concept should be declared, unfair, unjust and illegal, the treaties should be annulled and made of non effect.

The poorest standard

The question is why America’s paranoia should become the poor standard of protecting our freedoms, that we end up serving America’s security ends at the expense of protecting and enforcing the rights of our own citizens.

It should not be so; the reciprocation of bad treaties is not the solution, rather the principles of justice, fairness, liberty, freedom and democracy that respects our privacy and protects our confidentiality grounded in good laws and enforce by good government globally is the way to go.

I do not want to know anything about American private lives; neither do I want Americans brought over to Europe on a whim without adequate legal and due process to determining proper cause.