Assignment!!!

Dear friends and family,                                                                                       Dec, 14 2015

Merry Christmas!

It is so exciting to see how the Lord is leading our little family in service for Him! We are more sure than ever that the choice to serve Him full-time is the best thing we’ve ever done.

Your prayers and support mean so much to us! Because of your generous giving, we exceeded our training fund raising goal! Thank You from the bottom of our hearts.

Training report: Training is going well. In September, Blaine Cyr, flew with us to TN as safety pilot for Edwin on a trip to see family. At the conclusion of that trip, he had added almost 12 hours of IFR experience, bringing the total to 35 hours, toward the 40 hour minimum required by the FAA for the instrument rating.  The information is proving to be very challenging as he studies for the written exam. As of this date, Edwin has just over 224 hours total time, 75 hours cross country (only 50 hours required) and 44.5 hours instrument/hood time (only 40 required). He still needs to take the written exam, do a 250 nautical mile instrument cross country with the instructor and make sure that he is ready to take the practical exam to become an instrument rated pilot. Please keep Edwin in prayer as he studies for these exams.

We will be going to serve in Guyana, soon! We have been talking with James Ash from Guyana. He is chief pilot for Guyana Adventist Ministries and Services (GAMAS) in Guyana. GAMAS has accepted our application to work with and learn from them in Guyana. We will be working with the Ash and Anderson families. We are planning to join them in Guyana in January or February, Lord willing.

Please continue to pray for us as we sort and pack the items we need to take with us and store the things we don’t. We will be cleaning out and selling the travel trailer that we have been living in. Pray that we can find a buyer this time of year.

Thank you again for your support through the Humanitarian Relief Foundation Inc. If you are interested in continuing to support our family, please send your donations to GMI (Gospel Ministries International). We are now raising our launching budget of $3800, which includes airfare and what we need to get set up in Guyana, and our budget of $1200 per month. Thank you again for your generous support in helping us reach these goals. We appreciate you helping us to make this a reality.

We care about each one of you and pray that the Lord will bless you and your families during this Holiday season and always. We will keep you informed as the Lord continues to unfold His exciting plan for our lives.

Much love,

Edwin, Laura and Kathryn Davidson

If you feel impressed to contribute financially to our work in Guyana, you can donate in the following ways:

Mail a check to:        Gospel Ministries International

                                    PO Box 506

                                    Collegedale TN 37315

Please write your check to “Gospel Ministries Int’l” and in the memo line write:             “Guyana - Davidsons”

Credit or debit:          423-473-1841

Online:                       http://gospelministry.org/donations/

                                    Please indicate your donation is for “Guyana - Davidsons”

All donations are tax-deductible and 100% of all donations go directly to the work our family is doing in Guyana. Thank you so very much!  

UW 25 Panama

As many of you already know, Laura, Kathryn and I (Edwin) went on a two week mission trip this last summer, to Changuinola Panama with Maranatha’s Ultimate Workout 25. Spring of 2015, I received a call from Maranatha asking if I would serve as the group’s nurse for the 150 individuals from around the world who would be participating on the mission trip. There would be 5 nurses/site medics in all. The Ultimate workout is primarily for teens ages 15-20 to get them outside their comfort zones, put their youthful energies into a project, and challenge them to grow as individuals physically, mentally and most of all spiritually.

After spending a week in Northern California for a family reunion with the Chase side of the family, the three of us boarded a plane in San Jose CA and flew to Dallas/ FT Worth to meet our connecting flight to Panama City Panama. Before we left home we had received a package with a T-shirt, a Bible, and a Journal as well as other final travel information. It was cool to land at Dallas/FT Worth and see other people with the Sky Blue shirts with the, UW25 Logo, all converging on the gate. On arriving in Panama City we met many others of the staff coming from the USA as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. We were met by the group leaders and taken by bus to a location where we spent the next day in orientation before the rest of the group arrived Wednesday afternoon. Thursday Morning we loaded all of our bags and suitcases onto a canvass covered truck and boarded 3 coach busses and rode 14 hours up to Changuinola, near the Costa Rica Boarder on the Caribbean. We arrived around 10:00pm at the Adventist Bilingual School.  While we waited for the truck to arrive with our bags we played games in the auditorium. We covered some of the basic orientation topics in order to use the time and save time Friday for other things. The teens were quite fascinated with the giant unicorn/rhinoceros beetles. Finally the truck arrived with our bags at 1:00 am. Hummmm Sleeeeppp…

Friday was spent in group orientation in the morning and then afternoon had site orientation for the four different work locations. I was to stay at the Changuinola construction site at the Adventist School as the site medic. Laura with Kathryn went with the Changuinola outreach team and VBS. At the Changuinola construction site, we were adding on two classrooms, as the school is already busting at the seams with 400+ students. There was a roof and posts already in place and rough footings from a smaller building that had been there at one point. New footings had been placed to make up the difference. The block for the first coarse had to be specially cut and in some places they had to just build forms and pour more concrete to make it all level to start with. My job as the site medic was to observe for safety concerns and treat the bumps and scraps as small injuries can become infected in a hurry.

Sabbath morning as we were getting ready for church I was informed of a Participant that was not feeling good-tummy troubles. So I stayed back while the rest of the group divided up to go visit the churches local to their respective job sites.

On Sunday each construction group attacked their projects learning how to properly lay block. Fortunately very few injuries occurred and I spent most of my time coordinating and translating between local laborers and the UW personnel. The Participant with tummy troubles was back on his feet and ready to go by mid to late morning.

Throughout the trip when the tummy troubles began it usually only ran about a day, to a day and a half, with mild symptoms. The main ailments that I saw were scrapes, sand and concrete in the eyes, a broken pinky finger, and a few sprains and strains. We were very fortunate that nothing serious happened. It is common with a group of this size for there to be a few people who ignore caution in regard to safe and unsafe food and drink, and end up really sick.

Sunday through Friday construction progressed nicely as the block walls came up and doors and windows formed.

Wednesday the group took a trip out to Star beach in las Bocas del Toro for a little swimming and playing in the sand.

Sabbath we had Sabbath School all together at the school, then each group went to a different church in the area for the church service. During our trip, there were 6 of the participants who decided to surrender fully to Jesus through baptism or re-baptism. All 150 of us went down to a lovely river on Sabbath afternoon. With several musicians barefoot and standing in the shallow water leading hymns of consecration, we witnessed the rebirth of 6 precious souls.

A note from Laura;

Our trip to Panama was my first time out of the US, other than a weekend in Canada long ago. I was not sure what to expect. Overall it was not as bad as I had feared. Any inconveniences were worth it to be able to help with the VBS and interact with the local children. It was so touching to see them singing the songs and participating in the group prayers. We had 50-100 children each day, and gave out over 100 lunch sacks filled with toiletries and school supplies, on the last day. During VBS one day, a little boy fell on a broken bottle and gashed his shin open. A couple of the girls rose to the occasion, cleaning the wound and wrapping it with a strip of a shirt that one of the girls was able to spare. We took the boy and his mother to a nearby clinic. It was the boy’s first time out of his little village.

One of the highlights for me was the local Sabbath services and meeting the local Seventh-day Adventist people. They are such wonderful, sweet people. The Lord worked a miracle in my heart and made me willing to sacrifice all, to be able to take His Love to people everywhere. Jesus gave me a love for the people; I cannot wait to go back to South America to work for Him.

We are 72% to our goal!!!!!

Whew! What a whirlwind the last three weeks have been, with family reunion in California and Maranatha Ultimate Workout in Panama. We will have a post about our Maranatha trip a little later. There are so many things to tell. For now we want to give a report on the fundraising efforts. We presented our project at church on July 11, and many of the members came out and helped stuff fundraising envelopes before prayer meeting on Wednesday evening, July 15. Around 260 letters were mailed out. If any of you didn't receive a letter and would like one, please feel free to email or private message me on Facebook. We have had a number of the letters come back with "return to sender, address unknown".  The last report I received was that we are over $5,000 at this point. 72% of the way for this stage!!! Praise the Lord. A huge thank you for all the prayer, love, and support.

Annual Inspection Complete

Lessons have been going great. The instructor has complemented me several times on my progress and performance of various tasks. The lesson on partial panel flying (which is learning to fly instruments with certain ones failed) he warned me “this will be a very challenging lesson so don’t feel discouraged if it feels rough.” He was right! Whew! WOW! But I survived it and at the end he said I did well. It was actually very comforting to successfully “fly” the simulator with “dead” instruments and still keep it under control. He has also said on multiple occasions that “sim flying” is harder than real aircraft. The next step is to transfer that training to the plane. Unfortunately the timing of the transition to using the actual airplane perfectly aligned with the annual inspection of N4192F.

The weather here in Oklahoma has been very wet with the ground so soggy we couldn’t get the plane out of the hanger.  We finally had two days in a row that were warm, sunny, and windy and dried things out enough that I could get the plane to the runway and fly it over to Gundy’s airport (O38) and start the annual inspection. When we did the compression check; cylinder #4 failed and had to be serviced. It took 3 weeks to get it back. On the plus side I’ve been learning a lot from the Inspector about aircraft maintenance and aircraft care. Yesterday (6-23) I took the airplane up and did the initial break in procedures for the work that had been done. So the plane is flying again and I can pick up where I left off 3 weeks ago!

 The next 2 weeks are going to be very busy getting everything together to go to Panama. Thank you all for your love, prayers, and support.

Training has begun!

We are excited to report that a lot has happened since our last blog post.Thank you so much for your support so that progress can begin!

Flight training is going well. I started training with Destination EFC flight school, working out of the Jones Riverside Airport (RVS).  I have chosen to use them, because they are very professional, teach things in a way that is easy to understand, and they use a full motion flight simulator. The FAA allows about 10 hours of the required training to be in the full motion simulator. I am finding this training to be more valuable than using the airplane at this point, for two reasons. 1) I can do an exercise, then we can pause the simulator and discuss what went well and what needs to be done differently. Then in a matter of seconds, have everything set up to do it again, instead of flying for 15-20 min to be able to practice the exercise again. 2) It has been so wet and muddy, I hadn't able to get the plane out of the hanger. Whereas the simulator is always ready!

I have had three lessons so far. I am starting with classes three days a week to see how well I do with that intensity, as far as retention of the material. If I am doing really well we may bump it up to four days a week. Please pray that I will learn quickly and be able to retain what I have learned.

Annual Inspection. Thursday last week (5-21) it was sunny and windy enough to barely dry out the taxi way where the plane is based. My dad and I were able to get the plane out and onto the runway (great time to practice soft field technique). I took the plane over to Gundy Airport (O38) where a mechanic will do the annual inspection. We started the inspection and found that one cylinder is really weak and needs to be reworked. The mechanic gave us the name of a guy who works the cylinders over, fairly inexpensively. He has a two day turn around, instead of six months like some other places.

Maranatha called and asked if I would go and serve as a Nurse for the two week, Ultimate Workout, to Panama. We will be going down on July 20 and coming back August 3. 160 kids from ages 15 to 20 will be participating in 4 different project sites in north eastern Panama. Laura is especially excited about this opportunity as she has never been out of the country. This will be an excellent introduction for her, to international travel and mission work. Please keep this project in your prayers. We would also like to ask for your prayers, that we will be able to find reasonably priced plane tickets!

Passports! All three of us have our passports, current, up to date and in our possession! Praise the Lord! Thank you so much for your prayers, we have had our faith built by seeing the Lord leading and providing in the last few weeks.

God bless you all! Thank you for your love and support!
Edwin, Laura and Kathryn

Mission Opportunity!
The Davidson family (Edwin, Laura, and Kathryn) are very excited to announce we are stepping out in faith into the mission field!  With a little help from you, we will complete the necessary pilot aviation training and enter His service.  We would like to tell you a little more about this opportunity in hopes that you will consider partnering with us in this timely endeavor!
It has been Edwin’s goal to be a mission pilot since he was a little boy.  A few months ago, David Gates of Gospel Ministries International (GMI) gave us a call to serve in S. America, on condition that Edwin gets his pilot instrument rating.  Lately, we have tried to make this happen on our own, but the Lord has made it evident that we can’t do it on our own – we need help!  God’s timing is perfect; we have faith that now is the time and pray that you will consider sponsoring us and being a part of this work!
Over the next few months, Edwin will be working toward his pilot instrument rating which requires 40 to 60 hours of instrument experience (with 15 of that being with a certified flight instructor).  Edwin has located several pilots that are happy to ride as safety pilots for free while he practices the skills and builds up his experience. Most instructors advise against trying to accomplish the rating in less than 3 months. They say the information and skills don’t stick with you if you pack it in too tight.  Another cost saving is being able to use Edwin’s dad’s airplane, which is about half the price of renting a plane.  At the end of his training (3-5 months), Edwin will take the FAA exams to get the instrument rating license.  We are estimating that between living expenses, flying, and FAA testing, we will need to raise $7,000.
With the instrument rating, we will be placed somewhere within South America depending upon the immediate need of Gospel Ministries International.  David Gates wants us to work with other missionaries for a while, then move to a station of our own.  By God’s grace, we hope to be in service to Him by January 1st, 2016.  We are asking for earnest prayer that the Lord will be with us each and every step of the way.  We are truly stepping out in faith and following the Lord.  It will be exciting to see which country the Lord will send us.  We plan to start a blog to keep everyone updated.  We will miss all of you, our family and friends in the US, but our time on this earth is short. The Lord is returning soon to take us all home.  We will have all of eternity to spend with you in heaven and the new earth.  We must work hard and fast to invite others to know and love Jesus.
With the help of Humanitarian Relief Foundation, Inc. (a local Tulsa-based humanitarian organization) we are able to accept donations that will be 100% tax deductible and eligible for employer matching.
“There is something for everyone to do.  Every soul that believes the truth is to stand in his lot and place, saying, ‘Here am I; send me.’“ Isa 6:8. Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 49.
“He who becomes a child of God should henceforth look upon himself as a link in the chain let down to save the world, one with Christ and His plan of mercy, going fourth with Him to seek and to save the lost.” The Ministry of Healing, p. 105.
Please pray for us and we would be most grateful for your support.  Instructions on how to make our mission opportunity a reality are attached.  Keep looking up!
Blessings,


 Edwin and Laura







Our partnering organization is Humanitarian Relief Foundation, Inc.  They will receive your gift and send a donor receipt letter to you at the end of this phase of the project (estimated to be before the year's end ).  Please fill out the voucher below and include it with your gift in the enclosed self-addressed envelope.  Thank you for joining with us to hasten the return of our Lord.

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To help us reach our goal, please select a gift amount set by our sponsor:
2 Hours Plane use    $100

10 Hours of instructions       $250

FAA Exams            $500

20 Hour Plane Use $1,000

Or

Other $_________

Monthly Gift $_________

My Employer Can Match (please send a receipt immediately)

Mail to:
Humanitarian Relief Foundation, Inc.
1214 Forest Dr.
Sand Springs, OK  74063

Be sure to include an address to send the receipt to.

* To protect the deductibility of your gift, please do not include any notes other than “gift” or “donation” on your check.