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AWA-PA instructor Earl Binder (left) and Allen show their aviation grin.
A Chance to Fly?
by Eric Engen
For we know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28, RSV
The frustration has been tangible over the last two years. After the 2006-07 school year in which Jameson Hilliard, our task force assistant boys’ dean, served as our certified flight instructor, our search for a CFI seemed to be blocked at every turn. We were ecstatic in September 2008 when Earl Binder, a local businessman who retired from running a flight school at a nearby airport, agreed to teach for us.
Then came our extended annual, (see the Winter 2009 Flight Log online at www.flyawa.org), waiting for parts, good flying weather and schedules to coincide. We got N9197U back in February, but Mr. Binder was out of the country until the end of March. This was when the next saga began.
Discovering the joy of flight may lead Will (right) to take up flight training!
Flight training has always been expensive. So with the state of the economy, and with academy tuition being what it is, we had lots of interest in our program, but only a couple of students who thought they could afford to start training. As it turned out, the two who were willing and able to learn to fly were not United States citizens. This meant they needed to undergo a background check process with the Transportation Security Administration. What an education that turned out to be!
Patience, persistence, fortitude, determination, endurance, staying power all supplied by God. This is what it took for us to go through the process for the first time. We had to submit documents, resubmit documents, clarify street addresses for previous residences (even from back when the students were six years old!), pay processing fees, get fingerprints. It was not possible to submit the information all at once because each stage of the process required permission to proceed to the next. On top of this, add the structured schedule of academy routine, home-leaves, end-of-the-year activities and exams.
Which brings us to May 2009, the last week-and-a-half of school. Official permission to begin training finally arrived! As aggressively as we could, we put N9197U to work and were able to squeeze in two training sessions for each candidate before the end of school! As a result of seeing the airplane flying again and hearing students talking about it, one additional student went up for a discovery flight, which we hope will lead to further flight training opportunities for AWA-PA.
Two thumbs up from our CFI Earl Binder (left) and Faisal (right).
I think God has been preparing us for mission service in helping us work through the application and approval process for alien flight training, showing us the merits of waiting on Him and His timing. Having been through it now, we know what to expect, which will help make it easier the next time we need to help non-US citizens begin their training.
