27/02/2026
READY, SET…..DELAY!
How’d you be? I am sure we all have had the experience. A lot of planning and preparation has gone into getting something ready and at the last minute. circumstances have changed and what you have looked forward to has either been delayed, or worse, cancelled altogether.
It could be something like organizing an event in town. Volunteers have been recruited, lots of work has been done in organizing what will be offered to the community. Food may even have been purchased and the day before the weather changes and due to thunderstorms and high winds the event has had to be called off.
As I write this we had just received news that good friends of ours are much in need of our prayers. After five very busy years with little time for holidays, they finally got to begin a much longed for term off with the kids embarking on a road trip across this continent. Only within the first week the caravan became unhitched while on the highway and both car and caravan rolled over. Thankfully by God’s grace and a miracle, all of the family got out OK. We remember them in prayer, and ask you do the same. This week they work out where to from here. Will their trip be delayed or cancelled altogether?
Here at the Wheatbelt Christian Fellowship we had everything set to go for the first week of visits to the Murchison schools. This was all to have taken place last week. The trip had been made to Perth to get 800lt of avgas, the plane was all serviced and set to fly and four of five principals had given the green light. Then it happened.
The Monday a week before I was due to fly out, after a delicious dinner, I began to get stomach spasms. No big deal, right? By Thursday with no let up, it was off to see my GP. With new meds in hand and a referral to see a specialist, the next day it was necessary to bite the bullet and cancel the week 3 round of visits till we knew for sure what we were dealing with.
I must admit that in such circumstances one is tempted to ask God, ‘what are you doing?” To us it makes no sense. The Bible however assures us nothing that happens to us is beyond His control and whatever He allows to affect our lives (or plans) He works for our good. Just as kids don’t always (mostly?) understand the reason a parent might say “No you can’t go, or do this or that”, so we humans often (mostly) don’t understand why God allows certain things to happen to us. A Bible passage that helps me in such situations is this one: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8–9, NIV84)
Like Joseph in the Bible (of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s ‘Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat’ fame). At age 17yrs he was bullied by his brothers, sold by them into slavery and taken to a foreign land. There falsely accused and thrown into prison he was forgotten by a fellow prisoner he helped who could have got him freed. No doubt many a times he would have been distraught and wondered what on earth God was doing. He must at times have felt totally abandoned by God. Eventually being released by Pharaoh he was made second highest in rank in all of Egypt and set to work to complete a food project that would save the nation from a calamitous seven year drought. Only when looking back years later in all that had happened, he could tell his brothers whom he had brought to Egypt; “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:19–20, NIV84)
So we have had a delay in getting Gospelair going for 2026. Trusting God’s plan for our mission this year, with patience we take one step at a time. We look to His perfect purposes being worked out, for our good and that of those to whom we reach out.
Meanwhile some important work was done on the hangar where our mission aircraft stands ready for action. For a while now, at times one of the sliding hangar doors becomes caught up on a bracket of the top rail. To get the door open in that case required lifting the heavy door off the bottom rail and rolling it on the concrete footing beyond the point of obstruction till opened, being careful not to have the entire door come off. It then required someone to help lift the heavy door back onto the bottom rail, the door being too heavy to lift on my own.
So Stephen from Dynaspan (the company that installed the doors) arrived last Friday (20th) and modified the door and now everything is fixed ready for many more years of trouble free service.
A bonus for that day was the installation of a brand new ‘whirlybird’. We have two of these on the hangar roof to extract heat from the tin structure. This is important for the protection of sensitive flight instruments in the aircraft. We have already had to replace one ‘glass’ instrument due to heat causing the screen to no longer fire up on start up. A very costly exercise as these are not cheap. I had been in contact with the Shire to arrange a repair at my cost, as my wife for some time now does not allow me to climb onto the roof. With Steve noticing the racket the whirlybird was making and how wobbly it had become, having a new one on his truck, he installed it for us. How good is that!
Today (Monday 23rd) began with a trip to Dalwallinu to the Baptist Church where for many years I preached fortnightly (in between the fortnightly services in Wongan) and did pastoral work for them until they got their own minister. We were gathering with a great many people from Dally and Wongan, and some further afield, to remember and give thanks for the life of May Hood. This is the mum of David Hood, whose precious wife Lyn we laid to rest just a couple of months ago.
It was a beautiful service, which like Lyn’s, pointed us all to the HOPE we have in Jesus. It was this Jesus who seeing his followers troubled at the threat of death of their master whom they loved, said these much loved words cherished by Christians; “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1–4, NIV84)
Soon it will be Good Friday and Easter… my has the year flown by so fast! Don’t you find that? Anyway, the cross of Calvary is where Christians focus as the ONLY means by which God provided the way to be reconciled to Him and for anyone to make it into Heaven. Jesus, soon after comforting His followers, put it this way; “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NIV84) Both May and Lyn, having not just a knowledge about God and Jesus, but by grace the gifts of a personal saving relationship with Christ, were assured that when they died they would immediately be with Christ. The very same conviction Paul had (of conversion on the road to Damascus fame). In prison for preaching Christ and expecting the possibility of ex*****on, comforting his fellow believers he wrote; “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” (Philippians 1:20–23, NIV84). This May believed with all her heart. Her much longed for wish is now realised as she now sees Him face to face whom she loves so much.
So for us with Gospelair, delayed yes. Yet not discouraged for we know God has it in hand and His purposes and timing are perfect.
We now are all set to begin our 2026 Gospelair round of visits on Monday 2nd of March. Appointments have been made with the CEOs of the Shires of Meekatharra and Mt Magnet. Valuing our work in their communities, these shires have generously each donated last year $5,000 and have donated to our work over many years. We will be seeking further support for this new year of service.
