The Schandorff Family

Posted in family news by Tim on March 24th, 2010 at 9:39 pm.

For those of you who read my last post, I finished my time in Florida about 2 weeks ago. It was a great time of relationship building, and hard work. If you didn’t read the last post about my work in Florida I recommend finding it in the archives.

After I wrote the last post to this blog I got an amazing opportunity that I would like to share. While I was in Florida I was primarily responsible for putting together the cargo load for a Cessna Caravan airplane. This plane carries about 2500lbs of cargo plus the crew. When I arrived at Missionary Flights International one of the pilots mentioned that I might be able to take a flight down to Haiti while I was there. I didn’t think this was very likely because at the time I did not have a current passport but we figured it was worth the extra fee to try and get my passport expedited. Sure enough, with some work on Liz’s part and a little luck my passport came in with time to spare. So when I built the load for the Saturday flight I included myself and took off for Port au Prince.



The flight to Haiti on a commercial jet is about 2 hours. The flight to Haiti in a small single engine plane is about 5 hours plus the time that it takes to stop and fill up with fuel in the Bahamas. On the flight down I was wedged into a small space that had been left when we packed the cargo into the plane. I don’t recommend it as an alternative to American Airlines but it was an experience. My flight back was much different, but more on that later.



The weather on the day that I few down was not great so when we got over the country of Haiti we came in under the cloud cover and pretty low to the ground. Everywhere that people had built houses along the coast you could see an increasing number of bright blue tarps that were being used as shelter. The cloud cover that the pilot was trying to avoid is a sign that the rainy season is getting about to arrive and many still have no shelter at all. As we got closer to Port au Prince the blue specks that I had been seeing gave way whole city block that were solid blue with tarps. As I would find out later, the people living under these tarps were lucky to have them. After landing my first order of business was to have a look at what MAF had been doing with the cargo that I sent down once it landed at the MAF hanger. They had four tents set up in front of their hanger (if you get on Google earth you can see a triangle shaped piece of grass in front of a hanger on the middle ramp of the airport. This grass area is where the tents are. You can tell it is MAF because you can actually see two red and white MAF planes.) one of the tents was filled with MRE style self cooking meals from the World Food Program. another was filled with general donations that could be distributed to missions that could then give them to the people of Haiti. The other two tents were filled with the cargo that I had been sending down all grouped by the mission that it was sent for. Ken from MAF gave me a tour of how their operations worked and we had time to talk about what we could do at MFI to make the task easier.



On Sunday I got the chance to go to church at an English speaking church made up of mostly Haitians and some expats. We then spent most of the day at Mark Williams house (the Program manager for the Haiti program). I had a great time talking with Mark’s son, Marc who grew up in Haiti and stayed there after the earthquake. He had a lot of great information to share about life in Haiti and the reasons that he loved living there.



I was scheduled to fly out on Monday afternoon, so when I got to the airport I knew I didn’t have a lot of time. I was really excited when I was invited by Micheal Broyles, an MAF pilot, on a short flight to the island of La Gonave. The flight was only 20 minutes each way and we landed on a small dirt landing strip next to the water. I honestly didn’t even recognize that we were flying past the landing strip until Micheal turned the plan around and lined up on approach. The flight itself was short and uneventful. We dropped off one passenger and waited for another who had already taken a boat to the main land. Then we flew back to the hanger. But that short time that I spent learning about the MAF program and life in Haiti was a great source of encouragement. It helped me to get a glimpse of what God has in store for us when we get to Haiti and how God can use us.



At about 1:00 in the afternoon the Caravan arrived with another load of cargo and was quickly ready to take me back to Florida. I had a new pilot this time and no copilot so I was able to sit in the front seat with a headset instead of a small removable seat. After takeoff I asked the pilot if I could lay down in the back. He smiled and said “sure would you like a hammock?” Having spent most of my flight time wondering if the fasten seat belt sign would turn off, the idea of a hammock was a bit of a shift. Whether I needed it or not though curiosity took over and I decided that at the very least I wanted to see how a pilot puts up a hammock while flying an airplane. The answer? Autopilot, and a quick tutorial to the passenger on how to control the plane if the autopilot turns off. Thankfully I didn’t have to use those new skills. When the pilot returned to the controls he had hung a camping hammock from one corner of the cargo area to the other. I climbed back into the cargo area and kicked back. after relaxing for about 3 hours and sleeping a little I returned to my seat as we approached Ft. Pierce Florida.



It is not very often that pre-field staff with MAF get to visit the country that they will be living in before they move. This was a great opportunity that I have very thankful for. It was a great encouragement and I can’t wait to get back to Haiti as soon as possible.



Thanks for reading
Tim Schandorff