April – May
We were able to attend several motorcycle events during this
time. We attended a Bike Blessing,
Seasons of Refreshing (the Christian Motorcyclists Association’s season kickoff
event), Run for the Son (fundraising ride for missions), and a Biker Sunday in
Mahomet, IL. We were able to reconnect
with friends and pray with many for God’s protection for many starting out the
riding season.
June
June began the airshow and aerobatic competition
season. Our first event, June 8th,
was the Kokomo Wings and Wheels Show. We
were busy this year as Mrs. Hollywood sang the National Anthem and helped with
the operations in the tent, selling biplane rides for Cliff and organizing
picture and poster sales. I prayed in
the Pilot Briefing, offered the invocation, announced for most of the show, and
performed Two Wheels vs. Two Wings with Cliff.
This event was therapeutic for me as my Grandmother died in a house fire
the day before. I know I will see my
Grandma again! She was a wonderful,
God-fearing lady. She spent many hours
reading me Bible stories as a kid and many more hours praying for me as I grew
into the man I am today. As the
announcer, I was able to dedicate the performance to my Grandma. As she lived in the same county, her story
was on the front page of the paper. Many
people came up to talk with me after the show.
Even in her passing, she was touching lives with the love of Jesus.
June 14 – 15 found us back at the Ohio Aerobatic Open where
I flew to a 2nd place finish.
It was good to see friends that I had not seen since last competition
season. During the weekend, I was able
to share with one of the contest officials and pray with her for healing. I would have many more opportunities to share
with her throughout the contest season.
July
July 13 we flew into Sheridan, IN for their Wings and Wheels
Show. The runway there is too short to
perform Two Wheels vs. Two Wings so we do not perform with Cliff there. I was invited into the Pilot Briefing to pray
over the pilots and the event. Mrs.
Hollywood performed the National Anthem and I announced the airshow. We invited any WWII vets to come forward and
we were so pleased to have William Clark come forward! We love to honor the WWII vets whenever
possible. Mr. Clark was 93 years
young! Mr. Clark served in the USAF and
was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska where it was -60 in the winter! He stated that even being an Indiana native
where winters get cold, he nearly froze.
Mr. Clark was a co-pilot on a C-47.
He opened his wallet and showed me a picture of him in uniform taken
during the war. Everyone gave Mr. Clark
a resounding ovation. What a joy to meet
and say thanks to this fine Veteran!
July 27 – August 4 was our return to EAA Airventure Oshkosh!!! Oshkosh is SOOOO much fun for us! We get so many opportunities to meet, share
and pray with people. I was invited to
address the congregation of a church in Appleton that is pastored by a
wonderful friend we met at Oshkosh last year.
I was again invited to the flight line to pray with one of the top
airshow pilots in North America. We were
even filmed praying together which may be used in an upcoming documentary. I had the opportunity to share with another
of the airshow pilots about God’s amazing love for him. It was a wonderful time of sharing. And the amazing thing is that he came over to
speak to me! This is not to say anything
of me but rather how God directed this man to me to share God’s love with
him. I haven’t the space to share all of
the stories of meeting, praying and sharing with all those we made contact
with.
We also picked up two
new sponsors while at Oshkosh! A big
thank you to Adventure Pilot maker of the iFly GPS. The iFly GPS is the absolute best portable
GPS that I have seen or used. Walter Boyd
of Adventure Pilot is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and when he learned
of our ministry, he chose to come alongside of us and we are so pleased to have
Adventure Pilot as a sponsor of Open Throttle Ministries.
A big thank you is also in order to Quiet Technologies. We met Dr. Phil McCandless right after
meeting Walter Boyd. Phil’s company
produces the Halo Aviation Headset.
After hearing about our involvement in aerobatics, Phil decided to be
part of our team through sponsorship. I
am the proud owner of a bright yellow Halo Headset and am very pleased with its
performance.
There are links to our new sponsors in the right hand
column. Please check out their websites
and if you are looking for a GPS (or GPS app) or a new aviation headset, Walter
and Phil are definitely the guys to do business with!
August
August 9 – 11 found us at the Hoosier Hoedown, the
International Aerobatic Club Competition held in Kokomo, IN and hosted by the
Indiana Chapter of the IAC: The Hoosier Hammerheads. I came away with a 3rd place
finish. More importantly, Open Throttle
Ministries held a Sunday morning service in one of the hangars prior to the
start of competition Sunday. The
service was well received by those in attendance.
August 16 – 17 We
attended the Indiana State Rally for the Christian Motorcyclists
Association. This year the event was
held at a new facility which I found to be fantastic… We were in the landing
pattern for Indianapolis International Airport.
I just could NOT understand those who found the jet “noise” as they
called it difficult to sleep through.
Mrs. Hollywood and I slept quite soundly… Ah the sweet sound of jets on
glidepath to land… The event was well
attended and gave us a chance to reconnect with some of our brothers and
sisters in CMA. And the facility really
was superb (even those who didn’t like the “noise” really liked the
facilities)!
August 23 – 25 we made a return to Oshkosh (I just love it
there… but only in summer!) for the Oshkosh Air Maneuvers Challenge. As we were getting the last few things loaded
to go, I logged onto the EAA site to double check some info… There on the
homepage was a picture of the founder of the EAA taken many years ago, with
years below. Our beloved leader, Paul
Poberezny, had passed. I never had the
chance to meet the man though I had seen in a couple of times around the
grounds during AirVenture. Just three
weeks prior, I had seen him and waved at him from a distance. He smiled and gave me his well-known thumbs
up. I was saddened for the organization,
I was saddened for his family. At the
same time, I reflected on the life of a man who pursued his passion and forever
changed the aviation community around the world! And the hosts for the Air Maneuvers were
Michael and Audra Hoy. Audra is the
granddaughter of Paul Poberezny. We
drove through the night to get to Oshkosh.
We got a little sleep about an hour outside of Oshkosh and then finished
the drive early Friday morning. As soon
as we could get pulled into the area where the competition was centered, I
walked in, found Audra and offered our condolences. Audra thanked me and then asked who I
was. When I said, “Hollywood,” she lit
up and said, “I should have known! I
have heard your name several times in the last few days.” Apparently, some of our friends in Oshkosh
had been telling Mike and Audra about us.
And thus began a cherished friendship between the Hoys and the
Hollywoods. What followed was a great
weekend! Michael and Audra asked if I
would offer an invocation. Of
course! Then Audra said, “We were hoping
to have someone sing the National Anthem but it doesn’t look like that is gonna
happen.” Mrs. Hollywood and I just
looked at each other and grinned… As Audra was explaining, I just kept pointing
to Mrs. Hollywood. Finally, she realized
what I was doing. Audra said, “Could you
sing for us.” Mrs. HW said, “That’s what
we do! He prays and preaches and I
sing!” We had a wonderful time around
the flagpole outside of the IAC headquarters.
As I prayed, I remembered the life of Paul Poberezny. We had many people come thank us for the
prayer and the singing of the National Anthem.
That event opened up the opportunity for many new relationships within the
IAC!
August 31 – September 1… and the rain came… Labor Day Weekend is always fun and
BUSY! We started off the day towing the
OTM rig to Marion for their annual fly-in/fundraiser. The reason we towed it there was due to our
ultimate destination that day. We always
get the chance to connect with some great folks at Marion. We have gotten to know the airport personnel
pretty well over the years. We get to
connect with a friend of mine from my days of going to car shows every
weekend. And this year we were able to
visit with my aunt and uncle. The Marion
fly-in is just one of those events people expect to see you at. We left Marion and headed for Red Stewart Field
in Waynesville, OH. This is the home
field of Brett Hunter. Brett is a great
competition and airshow pilot. Brett
finished 3rd in the L. Paul Soucy Series in the Unlimited Category,
3rd in the 4 minute Freestyle at the US Nationals, 4th
Overall in the US in the Unlimited Category, and 5th in the 4 minute
Freestyle at the WORLD Aerobatic Championships!
Did I mention Brett is a great pilot?!?
Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, Red Stewart Field holds a great airshow for
the community. They have fun things for
kids. They have a great meal Sat.
evening. They do an afternoon AND night
show. They also have a large area for
camping. The next morning they serve a
great pancake breakfast. We had always
wanted to stay overnight. This year we
took the OTM rig and set up for the night.
As we left Marion, we soon found ourselves traveling through rain. It would stop and start and then stop and
start. We got to Red Stewart Field where
it was not yet raining and I hustled to get the camper all set up before the
show started. To make a long story short,
we got to see two acts and the show was called for low clouds and rain. We spent the night in the camper watching
college football. It was actually a fun
night for Mrs. Hollywood and I. The next
morning we enjoyed the pancake breakfast and got to talk to some pilots and got
to meet a Christian couple who have started a small business to help promote
General Aviation. We then headed back to
Kokomo for a practice day. Ten miles
from the airport, the sky was blue.
However, Kokomo airport was under low clouds and rain. Practice was cancelled and we headed home.
September
September 20 – 22 Glenndale Days is one of our favorite
events! This is an airport openhouse
fundraiser. The money raised goes to SMA
Support. SMA Support is a non-profit
that helps families who have a child suffering with Spinal Muscular
Atrophy. You can research this dreaded
disease and make a donation to SMA Support on-line. This year we were again very involved in the
event. I did the announcing, offered the
invocation, prayed over meals, and preached the Sunday morning service, while
Mrs. Hollywood sang the National Anthem and led worship for the service. One man came to me after the service and
thanked me for the message. He said he
felt like I was preaching to him personally.
I challenged those attending the service to look at where they were in
their relationship to Christ. I compared
the journey of Christianity to the journey of becoming a pilot.
September 23 – 28 We
left Glenndale Days and headed for my home state of Texas! The weather was starting to become very fall
like so the trip to Texas was great. In
fact, it was very summer like! We headed
to Texas to participate in the US National Aerobatic Championships. What an amazing experience! The OTM rig was parked right along the
ramp. The new logos on the front and
rear are great! Thanks must go to Mark’s
Auto Body for sponsoring us! They
installed our logos at no cost! A dear
friend of mine donated the large vinyl logos to us as well! It was so great as we traveled all the way to
Texas and back, people saw the cross and new we were literally on a
mission! The whole week of the US
Nationals, it was clear that we weren’t there just so I could compete but also
so we could share the love of Jesus with others. I didn’t score as well as I would have liked
but the competition was very tight!
During the week, we talked with and prayed with several people. I even got to “preach” the message I gave at
Glenndale to a young man while we sat in the shade of his plane waiting our
turn in the aerobatic box.
October
October 4 - 6 The
rain continues to chase! We headed to
Madison, IN for the Madison Airshow.
This is the home field for Cliff Robinson, my brother in Christ and my
partner in the airshow routine we perform.
We got to Madison late Friday and got camp set up. We awoke to threatening skies Sat.
morning. Due to the weather, we were
unable to perform the race; however, we were able to perform the “handshake.” If you have not seen this, check out the
videos in the right hand column. Every
time we perform this, we are afforded the chance to talk to folks about
Jesus! We even got to share Jesus with a
couple of jet pilots who were passing through!
After the show concluded (and it was a shortened show) the sky opened up
and it poured all night long! It was
awfully soggy getting everything loaded back up and heading home.
October 12 – 19 MORE
Rain! We headed back to the Christian
Motorcyclists Association headquarters for the Changing of the Colors
Rally. This is really a time of
refreshing for us as we attend church services twice a day. And we NORMALLY go riding between
services. Not this year! It rained and rained and rained some
more. We did finally get one day that
was beautiful! However, things were just
drying out. A friend came over to the
rig to talk about finally realizing his dream of flight. After talking for quite a while, I suggested
we head to the local airport for a short ride.
Snowman’s eyes lit up as he said, “Let’s go, man!” We headed to Mena Intermountain Airport where
Nathan Cline of Priority Aviation rented us a Cessna 172.
Snowman and Frosty (Mrs. Snow) along with Mrs. Hollywood and I enjoyed a
fantastic flight overlooking the CMA grounds and the surrounding mountainous
terrain. It was a perfect afternoon for
the flight. The air was so smooth! That ride really lit a fire in Snowman! He sent me a message the other day to let me
know he had passed his ground school exam!
October 26 My friend
Billy told me about a show he was putting on at Bedford, IN. After a long season and two week long trips
in the previous few weeks, we were broke!
We prayed and asked God to provide the finances to go to Bedford. We headed to the airport where I pulled the
Skylane out and calculated exactly how much fuel I needed to get to Bedford and
back with legal reserves. I put the
exact amount of fuel in the tanks and we flew to Mount Comfort where we met up
with Billy and Russell. It was great to
see them both! I met Russell at the US
Nationals. He is a great guy and fellow
Texan. He had come up for the day to
participate in the show. We flew
formation from Mount Comfort to Bedford.
It is sooo much fun to fly formation with fellow aerobats! We attended the pilot briefing and then I
offered the invocation and Mrs. Hollywood sang the National Anthem. The show was a lot of fun! We knew it was the last of the year so that
added a special element to the event. As
we were all loading up to depart, the airport manager came out and thanked Mrs.
Hollywood and I for our participation.
He said, “I didn’t even know you guys were coming!” The next thing he said blew me away. He told me to pull my plane up to the fuel
pump and said he was going to put a number of gallons in as a way of thanking
us. The number of gallons? The exact number I had calculated and added
to my tanks that morning!
When the final results were tabulated, I ended 2013 as the number one ranked primary aerobatic pilot in the nation, finished number one in the primary category in the L. Paul Soucy Series, and the Mid America Region Primary Champion. Thanks to everyone in the International Aerobatic Club for a great year!
It was a wonderful year in ministry. We experienced a terrible family tragedy in
the middle of the year but Jesus saw us through that and blessed us beyond our
wildest imaginations! We are looking forward
to 2014 and what God has in store for us this year!
