Page 10 - March 2019

Gerald Carscadden was killed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in After I have instructed for a few years and once I pay off
November 1969. my student loans, then I would like to do Missions full
time. “
https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/
canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/4502938 Kristen explains to Joy how she became interested in
flying. “When I was growing up in Sherwood Park,
“Initially, I did some charter flying, but when I was widowed,
Alberta, I never really considered becoming a pilot
I had two young girls, so did not want to be away from
them. I couldn’t be. Instructing kept me at home. I would because I knew how expensive training was. My parents
could not afford to bring us on airlines very often. So I
go to work and be there when they returned from school.
never really experienced aviation very much. And I was
“I then moved to the West Coast in 1979 and worked with too scared to join Air Cadets because I did not want
Missionary Aviation Fellowship through Trinity Western anyone yelling at me. As I got older, I graduated high
College. I was the CFI at Langley, then CFI at Abbotsford.” school not knowing what I really wanted to do. I

Joy later relocated to Calgary, Alberta in 1983. “My family is thought about becoming a veterinarian because I liked
here. I was flying then out of Okotoks, where I was CFI, animals.”
then went to North American Air Training College at “Well, that’s a coincidence! I, too, wanted to be a
Springbank; after they closed down, I was asked to be the veterinarian,” says Joy. “But I would have had to go to
manager/CFI of the Calgary Flying Club until I retired in Guelph, Ontario, and that was a long way from home in
1993.” Gleichen, Alberta.”

Kristen continues, “I was too late applying to a
veterinarian program due to being indecisive. While on
the wait list, I was telling my youngest brother that he
should join Air Cadets, how he would be able to learn to
fly a glider for free. My dad said to me, ‘Why don’t you
just join the military, if you had wished to join Air
Cadets?’ I thought about it, as I wasn’t doing anything
at that time, not sure if I would get into the vet program.
I looked into jobs in the RCAF and the only job I was
interested in was being a pilot. So I was going to apply,
but I hadn’t even gone camping, having no leadership or
outdoor experience.

“I had heard that Prairie College in Three Hills, Alberta,
had an outdoor leadership program. I could go there for
a year or two, get some leadership experience and then
Kristen asks Joy, “So you enjoyed instructing for all those
I would have a better shot at getting into the Air Force
years?”
as a pilot. But a week before I was supposed to go for
“I still love it! What I most enjoy is the flying. Instructing the outdoor leadership program, my dad said that he
allows me to fly. It would pay me to go out and be able to would not give me my Registered Education Savings Plan
afford my own plane and operate it -- and the maintenance, money towards something where I would not get a job.
too. I was fortunate to co-own a plane with our So he said, ‘Just take the aviation program there.’ I told
maintenance engineer with the RCAF in Trenton -- he him, ‘Even if I have all the RESP and scholarships, I will
looked after the maintenance and flew it, too.” only be able to pay for a quarter of my training, if that.’
But at that point, it was too late to apply anywhere else,
When Joy asks Kristen about her ultimate goal in learning to
and I was still on the wait list for veterinarian medicine,
fly, Kristen replies, ”Short term: I really want to instruct. I
want to make a difference in my students’ lives, like my so I decided to go and see how far I could get.
instructors have made in my life. But then, eventually, I am “I was accepted at Prairie. I knew nothing. I did not
open to wherever God leads me. I really have a heart for know what an aileron or a rudder was, how lift was
Mission Aviation right now. generated.