We are flying from Galmi to the capitol: Niamey

Aug 19

SIM Air

 Kevin Rideout   knew that he wanted to be a missionary pilot when he was 12years old.  He grew up as a missionary kid in Nigeria and was fascinated by the missionaries who did their service in the air like angels delivering what was needed, people and supplies just in the nick of time.  Kevin studied the specialized field of mission aviation at the Moody Bible College, one of only two suh programs in the US.  Currently, He is the sole pilot running Niger SIM AIR the main provider of air courier service thoughout all of West Africa.  His partner is due back next week and his brother is about to join him as well.   He and his wife are raising their 4 children here in Niamey while he flies to a variety of mission stations all over western Africa.  They have 2 (sometimes 3 planes and pilots ) They put close to 1,000 hours per year in the air flying a Cessna and a Piper.  There are probably less than 500 people in the world that do what he does: fly little planes, heavily loaded for many hours long distances in very extreme conditions and very remote from all support and in multiple very foreign countries.  He does all his own maintenance and repair and must administer a complex program with a quarter million dollar budget which operates on a shoestring in the sense that most of the money goes for fuel and maintenance of his 20yr old aircraft with very little left for extras or miscalculations.   If Chad Wnsor, Stephen Montgomery and Kevin Rideout were not doing what they are doing in support of the Galmi Mission Hospital then it would not be able to have the impact that it has had over the last 50 years.

 We have two days here waiting for our flight out of Niger

Brad