King Air Down

This week, Tuesday, we had one of our (M.A.R.C.) King Air airplanes crash. The pilot landed the aircraft 50 feet to the right of the runway. It was by the grace of God that the pilot and co-pilot are safe and sound. They are emotionally wounded, but physically safe. Scott helped the team dig out the aircraft and get it ready to be moved into the hangar. The right landing gear was ripped off and the nose landing gear went straight up into the aircraft. Both engines are lost and the propeller had to be cut away during the moving because it kept hitting the ground. They had to use an inflatable raft thing to lift the wing up, you can see this in one of the photos. Please be in prayer the pilots involved that God will give them the confidence they need to pursue flying for Jesus. Also, that MARC will have the wisdom as to how to go about fixing or replacing it. A King Air is a million dollar aircraft. This is a hard week for all of us at MARC and we appreciate your prayers.

Scott painting at MARC.

This is a photo of Scott painting yesterday in the hangar at MARC. Thought you would enjoy seeing him too. :-)

Lela~

Tuesday....

I wanted to share a few things with you, some are funny and some are not. The first thing is that over the weekend, Scott took the boys tubing and during the event Jeremiah was the victim of a pile up and lost another tooth! Yes, he now is missing 3 of his top front teeth. I made him jello because I told him he wasn't leaving many teeth to eat with. :-)

Yesterday, the boys and I went to a CEF training time at ACC (Alaska Christian College). We are going to be training this week and next week to help them at the end of Feb. in Anchorage at a Native Music Camp. We were informed that Scott and I will be teaching one of the classes during the event. :-) We are very excited about it.

Today...we received very sad news that a very dear friend of ours from our home church in Ohio lost her mother. They were very close and her mom was an awesome lady. Please hold that family up in your prayers as this is a very difficult time for them. This came very sudden and unexpected. I know that God knows all things and His timing is perfect, but it is hard for us while we are the ones left behind to remember this and to go on without them. We are very sad today for our friend and wish we could be there to hug/hold her. We have asked Jesus to do this for us.

Please remember us in your prayers and thank you for hanging out with us and reading this. :-) Bless you all!!

Lela and boyz~

Valentine Cookies for the Native Students...

As you can tell from the photos, the boys and I helped to bake and pack Valentine's cookies for the local college here that only has native students. We, along with the women of M.A.R.C. and Samaritan's Purse, baked & packed and delivered cookies to the local native students. In the top photo, the boys are with Samantha. We had met Samantha the other night at dinner when we went to Bob & Joyce's house, a MARC pilot. She is a native from Hooper Bay, west of the Bearing Sea. She is, at the moment, over to our house visiting us and having dinner and hanging out. She had called me and asked me to pick her up because she wanted to hang out with us. We love talking to her and hearing her stories of her village.

She loves playing with the boys and all of the animals. She had never held a bunny before and loved it. She is a peanut butter lover just like the rest of the Lazaros gang. :-) We just ate Moose steak, cut up on top of rice, for dinner and she kept telling me that it was the best she ever had, even better than her moms...of course she IS a bright student and one of my personal favorites. LOL (that means laughing out loud). :-) She had two big helpings and just made my day!! Her birthday was yesterday, she turned 20. She is teaching Nathaniel some words in her native language. He is loving it!!

Everyone here is doing well. We are loving our time here. One of Scott's projects at the hangar is painting. He is missing MMS' big paint booth. :-) We would love to see M.A.R.C. be blessed with some type of booth for the guys to work in. I was able to take the left over cookies that didn't fit into the bags for the students to the hangar and pass them out to the guys. It was very cute watching their faces light up that A)there were left overs and B)that they were getting them. :-) The were like little kids. :-)

I found out today that my baby sister, Amanda, is having another boy!! That will make 6 boys on my side of the family. No girls. She is due in July and her little guy will be 3 at the end of February. Please keep her in your prayers.

That is about the latest on this end. We would love to hear from you. Take care and God bless you all!!

Lela and boyz~

A Beautiful Picture of Mt. Redoubt

I went to a Ladies Cafe last night at Soldotna Bible Chapel with one of the MARC wives and we made origami boxes out of fabric. It was very fun. We listened to a lady give her testimony and I found it to be very encouraging.

Scott is working on the Navajo Piper that he worked on when he was in last May. They are hoping to get it ready for the engines to be installed before we leave. This is the plane that landed gear up. He is enjoying it very much.

It is -14 this morning. The sky is a beautiful blue and the sun is shining. I just love waking up and watching the sun come up and building the fire for the day, marveling at God's wonderful creation. My mom called me yesterday and laughed at me when I told her I was stoking the fire. She said she thought it was funny how God was teaching me different things. She said that God was teaching me to live in the country and doing without (high speed internet, close to stores, t.v., etc.) and now he was teaching me how to stay warm with fires. She said it reminded her of her life growing up. LOL

Well, I just wanted to say good morning and let you all know that all is still good here in Alaska. They are still monitoring Mt. Redoubt and tell us that the activity level has increased and show pictures of the steam coming out of it but that must be from the other side of the opening because we can't see the steam from this side.

God bless you all and until next time...

Lela and boyz~

Boys having fun at Home Depot

This morning Scott took Nathaniel and Jeremiah to Home Depot for Kids Craft Day with a couple other guys from MARC. Travis and Greg took their kids too. Here is a photo of their time there.

Enjoy!

MAF Chad 206 Dissasembly Video at done at MMS

http://vimeo.com/2916131

This is MAF Cessna 206 project that we had at MMS. This gives a really cool look at the types of projects we get to help with. My friend Paul Jones took over 10,000 pictures for this time lapse video. This airplane will be returned to missionary service in Chad Africa.

This was the first project that Scott started on when we started our time at MMS and seeing it to completion is a great honor. Paul did a great job putting this together and I hope you enjoy it and get a taste of what MMS does and how it helps missions around the world.

Enjoy!!

Lela

God blesses again!!

We wanted to share with you another HUGE blessing that God threw our way. In the mail, we received a letter from a very dear friend that said she had received our newsletter stating how God had provided our entire trip to Alaska for all 6 of us for under $300. She stated how she got excited when she read that and wanted to be a part of the whole process. She felt God prompting her to step out in faith and that He wanted us to go to Alaska...FREE!! So, she apologized for taking so long to get it to us but the outcome is still the same...GOD HAS DONE IT AGAIN!!!! He has provided the entire cost of all 6 of us...round trip to Alaska!!!!!

Praise the Lord!!!! From whom all blessings flow!!!! Thank you Jesus!!!!!

Common sights here in Alaska

A Bald Eagle in a nearby tree.

Good afternoon from Alaska!

We are stopping for lunch here in the Lazaros Homeschool Class and I thought I would do another post for you.

God is so amazing. He woke Scott and I both up last night (or this morning) at 3 a.m. Neither of us could go back to sleep so Scott got up and read 3 chapters in Hebrews and went before the thrown in prayer. Later, we both discussed what we felt the Lord was telling us and then spent some time in prayer together. Scott rolled over and went back to sleep...I did not. Apparently God wasn't finished with me yet. I prayed some more and felt God directing me to read something in my new DJ (Discipleship Journal) magazine that I had received just before leaving Ohio. I had totally forgotten that I had got it and that I had brought it. The Lord is so good like that.

I took Scott to work today since I needed the vehicle to run the older boys to church early tonight for worship practice. We also are going to go to the library today and return a few things. So, errands I will run and then pick Scott up by 5 from work.

The days are getting longer pretty fast lately. Cozene, MARC's Director's wife, told me at the Superbowl Party that on March 15th there will be 12/12...12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of dark. They will start gaining daylight at approx. 5 minutes per day from there out. Pretty amazing. The weather here is very dry. We are using lots of chap stick and hand lotions. :-)

The boys are all doing great and loving the new youth group they have been going to. They are having a difficult time with the whole "let's try other churches too" thing. Daddy wants to try at least 3 different churches while we are here, each for 3 weeks, and they are not too excited about it. They don't want to leave the one at the Chapel. They are willing to try others for 1 weeks, they say, but the don't want to miss anything at the Chapel. Pretty funny to listen to them and their dad try to share their view points. I am not sure who will "win" so to speak this debate. I think they are afraid of liking them all and having to choose. :-)

Well, off to do the errands. God bless you all. We love hearing from you so drop us a line if you want.

Lela and boyz~

Jeremiah lost his front tooth this morning!!

Yes, we are all happy for Jeremiah!! It has been "dangling" for over 2 weeks now. Yeah...it is finally out!

The weather here is cooler today but very sunny. -17 but the fire makes it nice. Scott is loving the fact that the garage here is heated to 50 degrees. He doesn't have to go out and start the vehicle before leaving for work. It makes it really nice. The sky is a pretty blue and the trees are lined with snow. Beautiful!!

Everyone is doing good. Shaughn is keeping us stocked with wood for the fireplace and is loving having 2 big dogs to play with. He says they are his size and he doesn't feel like he will hurt them as he does with small animals. :-) The pets here at the Swensen's ranch are all very good animals. We are enjoying them a lot.