Football with Dad

The first section of this post is written in British for a British audience!

This Saturday I did something I don’t normally do, I watched football! Ok not so surprising. But I watched football with my Dad, not so surprising! On TV, big deal!
But all of this took place in the US and it was no ordinary match.

In order to watch football in the States you have to find it on a website. So I subscribed to Fox Soccer. Dad and I got to watch the FA Cup 3rd round match between Fleetwood and Blackpool.

Now you may see the significance of this. Being from Fleetwood means that’s our home team but my family has been long term Blackpool fans! Oh the dilemma! We wanted both teams to win.

It was good to be able to see the match from Highbury Stadium, Fleetwood, Lancashire, England; while Dad and I sat on the sofa in Coshocton, Ohio, USA! We had to watch the crowd closely to see if we knew anyone!

It was a good match and the final score didn’t really reflect the match. Fleetwood fought a good 1st half and lost out in the second half.

. . . .  We interrupt this broadcast for an American explanation!

Football is Soccer. Saturday is the day for football in the UK, not Sunday. The home team is the name that is displayed first on the scores.

The FA Cup is the Football Association Cup a knock out competition for any soccer team in the UK. In this competition you can get a small town team playing the big league team, and sometimes winning.

Fleetwood is our home town. Blackpool is the other big town on the Fylde coast of Lancashire. They basically form one large conurbation along the coast. So you get people living on one town and working in the other. So who are people to support?

The fans of Fleetwood Town FC are known as the Cod Army due to the towns fishing heritage.

. . . . We interrupt this interruption:

For those who know me know I don’t really like football, but for such a big occasion I made an exception. I don’t think we’ll ever get to repeat it. Thanks Dad for being here.

Football!

In Ohio they take their sport seriously and football is no exception (that’s American Football, NFL & gridiron and the like!)

Today saw the big game of the season, the Ohio State University Buckeyes vs. the University of Michigan Wolverines. For those of you reading back in Lancashire, think Blackpool vs. PNE or Blackburn vs. Burnley!

This means that the whole state turns scarlet and grey (OSU’s colours)

My OSU t-shirt.

 

All this means a problem if you aren’t from the state, or you’ve married an Ohioan, hence this maybe seen outside some houses:

 

The game was end to end and both teams played hard till the end but after a 7 year OSU wining streak Michigan won this year.

As an Englishman I find it hard to believe all this excitement is because of a university sport, just another example of the cross cultural experience that is living in Coshocton.

Fixing other things apart from planes!

Last week I arrived at church to find a frenzy of activity around the sound desk:

“It’s blown a fuse”, was the shout. Hmm sounds like something I could help with.

We had 2 spare fuses and it blow one of those when we tried it again! There was something really wrong inside the desk, so we set up a few guitars amps for the service and I took the desk away.

Upon opening the desk up I found a nice power supply:

Using my previous occupation skills in electronics I check the transformer (the block on the right of the photo) and that tested ok. So I checked the circuit board to find a short circuit on a diode (the black cylinders in the middle of this photo):

A quick check online and I found a new one for the huge cost of 20cents or 13pence! I ordered a new one and had the desk fixed by Friday. Was back and running the next Sunday!

All because of this:

Just shows that the smallest things can have a big impact.

Praying for missionaries daily seems so small and insignificant;
giving a small amount to support a missionary doesn’t seem enough;

but they are all part of keeping missionaries on the field spreading the amazing Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for playing your small part in our ministry.

God bless, Andy P

After repairs . . .

After repairing aircraft you have to put everything back together! Including the parts that are hard to reach.

This is the inside of the wing baggage locker on the 402. The brand new firewall is the shiny stainless steel sheet right at the front of the locker, we replaced this as part of our work.

Unfortunately it needs to be covered. This is the cover once it was installed by a brave mechanic!

Why a brave mechanic? Because it’s just big enough to fit inside and long enough to lay in!

I was the brave mechanic!
Which gave me a great photo!!!!!

Thank you for your support which enables this brave mechanic to work on missionary planes that will wing the Gospel around the world.

New Boots!

Over the past week we’ve been installing new boots on the 402.

“Boots?” I hear you say! Yes boots, de-ice boots. Ice build up on a plane wing can cause problems and so we install rubber boots over the leading edge. They look like this:

If the plane is flying in weather that may cause ice the boots are inflated momentarily, which cracks any ice that may have formed. Then the boots are flattened down again the the wing works the way it should.

Installing the boots involves a lot of glue!

We also install smaller boots on the tail:

I got to work with Ben on of the boots:

Once all the glue is dry we’ll seal the edges and check they operate correctly. Ensuring this plane can fly in North Eastern US and eastern Canada.

Thank you for you support that enables me to part of the unique ministry here at MMS.