Road Trip Mementos

You know you're on a road trip in the northern Midwest when...

• your windshield is constantly covered in bugs
• you are avoiding roadkill every couple of miles
• you pass a sign for a road named "Bad Route Road"
• you no longer have to watch out for curvy roads...it's completely flat
• wonderful and amazing thunderstorms
• we have not even been here for 2 days before Renae has several mosquito bites...

We are so thankful to have arrived at our destination safe and sound, with sanity of mind intact!  Caleb and Aaron handled the traveling fairly well for being so little.  Here are a few pictures of our adventures.

One of Caleb's activities was to take out all the tissues in a box.  He had a lot of fun and was distracted for a few minutes.

 

   Caleb and Aaron on the bed at the motel.

We weren't kidding when we said there were a lot of bugs on the windshield.

Stopped for a picnic and no Aaron is not the main course.

Everyone else got to take a nap and Tyler was jealous..

 

...so Tyler decided he needed to sing an opera song to help keep himself awake.

Also,as many of you know, there is devastating flooding going on in Minot, ND, just west of Rugby (where we are right now).  Because of this, many roads are closed and we had to change our route a few times to be able to get here.  Renae has two cousins that have had to evacuate, and there are so many lives around here that are being affected by this.  Please pray for Minot and the surrounding areas where so many people are without homes or any personal items.  We remember that our treasures are not here on earth, but in heaven.  Yet it is devastating to lose everything you have.

Till next time,

Schmidt's

Sweet Spring Blessings

Besides the birth of our precious Aaron Benjamin, we have had many more sweet blessings this spring.  Here are a few of them in pictures and words.

Renae's mom here to help for a week

Tyler's mom back from Ecuador to help us

2 healthy, growing boys!

As Tyler's parents transition from Ecuador to the US, we were blessed with their company for several weeks.

The Lord provided a "new" minivan for our expanding family

Tyler and I were able to go on a nice date and enjoy a flight together;  I love being married to a pilot!

The Clark family stayed in the guesthouse while helping at STC.  What a blessing their friendship and mentoring was to us! Caleb loved having big brothers and a sister to play with.

Spring means time for planting and new growth

Caleb and his new sandbox

Clark kids and Caleb

sweet smiles

The STC team: Christopher, Tyler, Alycia, Ken, Jeremy

We are so thankful for the many ways the Lord has been with us and blessed us these last couple of months!

We leave June 23 for vacation time with family and to spend time building our support team. Please pray for:

      -Safety traveling

      -the Lord to guide those that He wants to join our support team

      -one more church (for July 10) to share our presentation with

      -unifying and encouraging time with family

      -spiritual encouragement and growth for our marriage and family

      -increase in our monthly support, as we are at about 40-45%

He has arrived

Aaron Benjamin Schmidt has arrived.  He came at 6pm on Monday night weighing in at a hefty 8 lbs. 10 oz. and 20 inches long.  Renae is doing just fine and has returned home when Aaron was only a day old.  There were no complications and we are very thankful that so many of you prayed for us and Aaron.

What chubby cheeks he has

Getting warm under the heat lamp

Sleeping after a hard day of labor

The proud parents

Caleb meeting his brother for the first time

Till next time,

The Schmidts

Stearman Flight

Today I got to do my first stearman flight and aerobatic flight. I had a BLAST, doing a couple of aileron rolls, loops and a hammer head. The weather was so beautiful after being rainy/snowy that there was no excuse not to go flying when I was asked.

With an open cockpit and a rumbling 450hp radial engine in front it didn't take long to leap into the air and start clawing up into the sky. I don't think I could wipe the grin off my face if I wanted to.  This was definitely an experience that I don't want to forget.

Thanks Jay for the ride!

Teaching in Sub Zero

Just like the mail man motto, "in rain or shine, snow or blizzard..." snow and wind didn't stop class time.  I dragged out those poor students, from the warmer hemispheres, for PT6 engine runs.  

They were good sports about it even though it was around -7 degrees with wind chill. They even said they learned something about the engine while they were losing feeling to their toes. Now before you label me a "mad professor" or something worse I want to point out that I was out there freezing with them.  Due to having only a limited amount of time with our students that fly in from all over the world. Weather can hinder some of the  learning opportunities, but I think we just made some memories for Dave and Jon to take back with them.

 Here is a short clip of a startup of the PT6 engine

 Not all of my teaching had to be done outside in the snow.  I picked up a section in Kodiak Systems and taught about autopilot operations.  It was my first time and it seemed to go pretty well, although I was a little nervous teaching guys that have already 1000's of flight hours of experience. Later there is a possibility to take more sections of the systems course later to help relieve some of Ken Smoll's work load.  It is amazing how much more you learn about a subject when you have to teach it rather than just sitting in a class and learning. At the moment my responsibilities have returned to developing some more curriculum while the students finish up different courses and return home.



Till next time,

The Schmidt's

Indonesia, Africa, South America...?

Just last week STC finished yet another round of training pilots on the PT6 engine.  I did a lot of sitting through classes again, refreshing my knowledge as well as making changes to the workbook.  During these weeks of training, Renae and I had the pleasure of housing two of the men upstairs in the guest house.  As always, we were blessed and encouraged as we shared several meals and the super bowl party with them.  Ricki and Daniel are both heading out to the mission field of Indonesia later this year as first time missionaries.  And, both of their wives are also expecting!  Needless to say, we had much to talk about and were able to learn more about candidacy with MAF and the preparation part of becoming overseas missionaries.  Renae and I are discovering that there is always something new to learn and think about as we continue this path of missionary life.

Recently we have been challenged both by the Lord and the president of Proclaim Aviation to really be praying about when to start the application and Technical Evaluation process with a mission organization.  Since we have been in the mindset that it could be 4-5 more years before our student loans are small enough to start that process, it is exciting to think that we might be able to begin several years sooner than expected.  There is a possibility of fund-raising support to help with our loans so that we do not have to wait as long to go overseas.  Please pray for us as we pray about this, for the Lord's ultimate timing and for Him to make it very clear what our next steps should be.  At the soonest, I might be able to take my technical evaluation in January or July of 2012.

In the meantime, we are still trying to decide on a name for our newest baby coming in about 5 weeks!  It is so exciting to look forward to the blessing of another baby.  Renae is definitely ready to be done being pregnant, although neither of us are looking forward to sleepless nights again.  (at least it's only a short phase of our lives, right?!)  As always, we pray the Lord make his peace known to you each day and gives you joy.

serving Him,

the Schmidt's

Special times sharing at churches

"And my God shall supply all your needs, according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus."

 Philippians 4:19

We have just come back from visiting family in ND, and while we were there we had an opportunity to take some time to share our missions presentation in three new churches.  It was wonderful to share our passion for missions to people that do not know what mission aviation looks like overseas.  We have met many great people that want to see us succeed and have joined our prayer support team.  We realize that without this vital ministry we could open ourselves up for spiritual attacks.  With the different contacts we have made this past trip we are praying that the Lord will continue to bring more financial support in addition to prayer support.  We are content to wait on Him as we know that the Lord knows our needs and He is faithful to supply all that we need.  Many people have been very generous this past Christmas and we are so thankful to them and that the Lord spurred their hearts to give.