Since our first visit to Humaita, we’ve recognized the advantages of having this as a strategic base. It is a fairly large city (50,000) but yet is also very close to the river communities. It is connected to Porto Vehlo (the capital city of the state south of Amazonas) by an asphalt road which is then connected to the rest of Brazil. Another aviation mission organization is located in Porto Velho, however almost every flight comes close to Humaita and then they continue past. This means they fly two hours, one coming and one going, before they start their “mission”.

Therefore we have spent the last 8 months getting our mission set-up (office for Scott, our accountant; guest rooms for both Americans and Brazilians while they are here helping at the mission, etc) and we have also been planning a hangar. Our goal is to have at least two planes based here. In the future, we see this as the maintenance hub for the other mission bases. Praise the Lord plans have been moving forward! With some generous donations and some strategic contacts here in Humaita we were able to “break ground” in August.

Last week we were able to put the Bearhawk “under roof”. Although the ferrying of this plane did not go as planned, we are thankful for a great place to begin working to put the Bearhawk back in service.

A quick timeline of the hanger. It may look like we were out taking pics daily…..one advantage of living in a culture where things move sssslllllooooollllllyyyyyy is that you only need to take a picture once a week or so to monitor progress!