In June, he also traveled to the United Kingdom to dismantle and pack up a Cessna 172 training aircraft for shipment to the mission aviation program at Victoria Bible College in Australia.

And as Life Link went to press, he was preparing for a trip to Indonesia this fall to dismantle two Cessna 185s for shipment back to the United States.

Hugh willingly takes on these special projects on a volunteer basis, with MAF covering out-of-pocket travel and living expenses.

“Thus far, retirement has not meant cutting our ties with MAF, and as long as there is a need and we are physically able to help, we hope to be able to continue in this role for a bit,” says Hugh, who served as an MAF aircraft maintenance engineer in Africa for 38 years before his retirement.

While in Dodoma, Tanzania, this year, Hugh covered routine maintenance and inspections for engineers who were busy preparing for exams to upgrade their Tanzanian licences in advance of the arrival of the program’s first Cessna Caravan.

He also rebuilt the horizontal stabilizer of an aircraft going  through a Check 3, a project that included making up new ribs and fitting new aluminum sheet skins.

Hundreds of small holes had to be drilled into the new skin for the rivets that hold the structure together, and Norma was able to help on this job by de-burring these holes, removing the slight roughness around the edge of each hole.

In the Becks’ long career with MAF, Norma was always happy to lend a hand with maintenance jobs when she could.

Their three children were raised in Africa as the Becks moved from Sudan, to Ethiopia and then Kenya.

Hugh notes that during this year’s trip to Tanzania it was good to meet up again with Tartisio Valentino, whom he first got to know many years ago in his home country of Sudan. Tartisio is now an engineer with MAF.