The Simon Family: Busy, Busy, Busy!

Elsie runs to the door to greet me after getting done with school for the day! As I run to meet her from the other side of the door, I can hardly wait. She struggles to open our front door, (which sticks due to a tight fit), and after a little help, the door opens and I see what I have been waiting for since I started the day 12 hours and 15 minutes before. Elsie is smiling and laughing, with stories flying out of her about nearly everything that happened during the day, questions about my day, questions about whether I want to play with her... I stop to make sure she is still stopping to take a breath every now and then. Then I look at Sammy, who is also smiling big and making his best efforts to say "da-da-da-da" and crawling like a race car in my direction. I give each of them a warm embrace and spend quality time catching up with all that I missed, then it's time to share a meal at supper together. This is what life is all about folks! When I was flying with the airlines, I would only get this kind of greeting once a week. I was missing out!

Our average day is like most in this phase of life: busy! I was challenged in a recent sermon to evaluate my love for God and others. I realized that the lens I look through on most days is more of a task-completion lens... what needs to be done, what do I need to prepare for next, what can I do to get ahead and stay on top of things... wrong lens. While all of that is important, and still needs to be addressed in every day life, it falls short of truly living. This mindset is an easy trap to fall into. It leads to more doing and planning, more stress and worry - while producing less reliance on God, less rest, less peace, and less joy. As Paul so eloquently described, "And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. (I Corinthians 12: 30- 13:1-3) In this letter to the Corinthian church, on the subject of worship, love is Paul's answer to our greatest means of genuine worship. If the church gets that right, it will be on the right track. Focusing on other goals or programs while failing to genuinely love means failure no matter how great the appearances seem from the surface. You have to really be intentional about putting on that lens and living through it day after day. This message has been stirring within me for the past week as I have considered how I am doing with loving God and others. Is this my focus? Would others close to me say of me that I am loving them in such a way that they know the love of God? I am praying for a deepening capacity to love, and I am seeking a greater capacity to see the world around me through the lens that the Father sees.

"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us." (I John 4:11-12)

"This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you." (John 15:12)

School is going awesome! I was absolutely stunned to learn about a scholarship opportunity on a recent Friday afternoon, as the school receptionist was walking through the lunch area asking random students who were residents of North Dakota. I picked one up, filled out a short essay over the weekend, turned in a couple teacher recommendations, and submitted in on Monday. On Wednesday, I was notified I had received the $1000 scholarship!!! God is so good! This is another demonstration, on top of several others in recent weeks, where God has abundantly supplied our needs as we have trusted Him and waited for Him to act. Here are some recent projects at school, where good times are being had by all!

This is a Piper Aztec twin engine aircraft with no rudder... yet.

This is the rudder being put back on with a lot of help and coordination. We had taken it off to do a control surface balance, which is important to prevent flutter (vibration during flight).

I'm pretty sure that these pieces of metal will not come apart! In sheet metal, we have done a lot of riveting, drilling, re-drilling, rivet-removal, and re-installation of more rivets. There are thousands of these on most aircraft... and they hold everything together.

This is actually two channels of sheet metal that were carefully calculated to fit into each other at specific dimensions (the next picture shows them side by side, in this one they are together). Bending is a lot of fun!

Before you can produce the finished bend with the correct dimensions, you do a lot of simple math and lay everything out so you can apply the math to the tool that makes the bend.

These are copper tools that we hand made with a hammer and welding torch. They are used in hydraulic systems to install and remove O-Rings.

Below is an I-beam made from four separate flanges and another middle piece. The big whole is called a lightening whole which has nothing to do with lightning. It reduces weight.

This is a spoiler actuator from our DC-9, taken off and disassembled. It was fun and a bit of a challenge getting this off the plane correctly.

This is called a spool valve, and it converts mechanical motion from a cable and linkage shown on the left side of the valve, to hydraulic actuation to drive the spoilers during flight. This valve specifically ensures that as that mechanical motion translates into hydraulic power, it happens proportionally versus all at once.