mission_363

Today we will be transporting a gentleman from right here in our home city of Indianapolis. Cyrus is an 83 yr. old gentleman with endstage parkinson’s disease who has been living here in Indy in an ECF and now it is time for him to be closer to his daughter Cindy in South Carolina.

We arrive in the room where Cyrus has been residing to find him fully dressed in his street clothes, wearing his sunglasses and with quite a pleasant disposition. He is surrounded by his daughter, Cindy, her friend Laura and another lady from the facility with a therapy dog at the end of the leash she is holding. Cindy shares that she and Laura had been flight nurses together for many years in both Hawaii and Colorado. What a pleasure it was meeting them. They are so excited that they found Grace on Wings to take Cyrus home. Knowing that the flight will be a few hours long they have padded Cyrus with an egg crate mattress in an effort to keep him comfortable. 

When we asked why they were not flying with us, Cindy shared that along with her dad’s personal belongings he also has 4 cats that she must wrestle with to make the drive back home with her. One of which is quite a challenging and she is not really looking forward to that but for her father, she will. Laura has made us a huge container of homemade chocolate chip cookies for the flight. This was very generous of her and I must say we really enjoyed them. ( Made with real butter too! Mmmmm!)

Once Cyrus is in the ambulance Cindy jumps on for one last goodbye kiss as it will be a few days before she arrives in SC. She reassures her dad that her husband will be there when he arrives. The lady with the therapy dog also gives him a tearful goodbye kiss and it is evident how much she too will miss him.

We arrive back to our hangar and are greeted by Mike and Chelsea from our office, they will be staying behind answering the phones and taking information from future families that God will allow us to serve. They very rarely get to see the patients whom they are hearing about as the flights are planned because usually we are flying somewhere else to pick them up. This was nice as they are able to join us, and our ambulance driver to pray over Cyrus as we put him on board Abe.

Our flight was smooth and uneventful and Cyrus rested during most of the flight being repositioned only a few times for his comfort. Cindy and Laura had padded him very well. We took the drive to the new facility that he will call home, closer to his daughter. As we drove we saw many large trees that had been uprooted just the day before as a tornado had come through the area. We moved Cyrus over into his bed and were joined by the ambulance crew as we thanked God for Cyrus, travel safety, his new caretakers and for Cindy as she would be making the drive the next day.

The flight home was an amazing adventure as always and not one to take forgranted. Looking out and to see how God places each and every cloud in the sky. Then flying peacefully through some snow and ice all the while admiring the splendor of His creation and His majesty. Once through the snow and ice there on the horizon was an awesome burst of color, red, orange and yellow as the sun began setting on what appeared to be the top of the world.

PSALM 19:1 THE HEAVENS DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD; THE SKIES PROCLAIM THE WORK OF HIS HANDS.

Thank you to Hal, Chet and Nate for being a part of this mission and to all who continue to pray for the GOW ministry.

May the grace of God be with each of you.

Many Blessings,