Word from Our Missionaries

The United Methodist missionaries, Rachel and Dan Gabler visited our church in March 2007. Update letters from Rachel are attached here. To help with shipping costs, tax deductible contributions may be sent to: Enright Flight Ministries, 1919 Jackson Lane, Port Orange, FL 32128 and designated "Bible Story Book." For more information about the Gablers, go to the "Links" page on this website.

E-mail sent to Maryalice McHugh from Rachel Gabler, January 30, 2008

Dear Fellow Workers,

"Mama Rachel" is proud of her "children" and a bit wistful that the growing up period went so fast. Do you know what that is like?

Last week in Zambia a team of seminar facilitators took the Sunday School Seminar to another district that had not had seminars before. This was part of a new strategy that they planned in November when I went to Zambia.

I really wished I could have been a fly on the wall and watched and heard what went on. I am told it went really well and they plan to do it in an even more distant district next week.

The reasons for the mobile seminars were financial and logistical. It is much more economical to send a team than to try and get a group to come to the center.

A very positive logistical reason was that it needed to be held on the weekend because--GET THIS ! ! !--people had jobs and couldn't come in the middle of the week. Alleluia! That, my friends, is an answer to prayer.

I will be going back to Zambia twice this year for the advanced level seminar. But the beginning and intermediate levels are going on without me.

Usually, as children grow up the parents stay put and the kids move away. This time we did it backwards. We moved away and the "children" stayed put. But they stayed with the work that had been started. I'm very proud of them.

In Christ,
Mama Rachel

From: rachel gabler [mailto:gabler2004@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 1:30 AM
Subject: Flight Following

I sat in the meeting. It was about reviewing procedures for flight following. Flight following, in case you don’t know, is what one person on the ground is doing while a plane or planes are flying. It is regularly done when civil aviation support is inadequate. The purpose is to know, if a plane should have an unplanned encounter with the ground, where to start looking for it.

That is a pretty sobering thought. However, the actual job can be fairly boring. In fact, you hope it stays boring. When a pilot forgets to call in on schedule, you start to get concerned.

There have been changes in Flight Following in the last few years. It used to be done on an HF radio and the follower had to stay within ear shot of the radio for as long as a whole day. Now it is a combination of satellite phone or regular cell phones. This means it is more flexible and portable for the person on the ground.

One of the things I was hearing in this meeting was a reminder that even though it is flexible, portable and “easier”, it still needs to be taken seriously. The lives at stake are still as precious and valuable as they were when one’s whole day was devoted to the task. Flexible and portable can mean distractible.

I thought of my communication with the Lord. Is my hectic schedule distracting me from receiving the messages I need to receive? Have my conveniences helped or hindered in my walk with the Lord?

Over and out,

Rachel Gabler

From: rachel gabler [mailto:gabler2004@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 5:18 AM
Subject: May update from Gablers

Dear Churches,

It has been too long since I’ve written. I know, and I’m sorry. We have arrived with our car at White River, South Africa, but our shipment of household goods is still in Lusaka. We have a very long list of things to do in order to get settled, and I am trying to do each thing thoroughly in a logical sequence so I don’t have to repeat myself.

One of the first things to deal with when you come to work in another country for any length of time is your legal status. Here it involved the type of visa required to be more than a tourist. We had a page long list of requirements to provide documents just to get the simplest visa.

Some of the requirements were simple and straight forward. Some were monumental. For the monumental ones, all we could do was to demonstrate that we were in the process of obtaining the documents. (Police clearances for every country we have ever lived in for more than twelve months in our lives!!! Those of you who know us have an idea what a hurdle that is!)

Dan has gone straight to work on planes. I got straight to work on paperwork. I put together the best package of documents I could assemble. [One ironic one: Marriage Certificate—is in the shipment that is in transit. “Are we sure we are married?”]

We submitted our request for the correct visa to the Department of Home Affairs last Tuesday. Pray that we will be granted the visa we need to be able to function here. We should hear by the end of next week.

Prayer Requests:

The shipment—that it will get here As Soon As Possible.
Wisdom for a decision about our car—too complicated to explain.
Our visa—see above.
Our settling in the house we found to rent.

That should keep you busy praying for a while

Your fellow worker,

Rachel Gabler

Gabler April 2007 Letter & Photos