Today I flew in circles. Lots of circles. In fact, I flew in 44 circles with each one of them ending in a landing. Sometimes I feel like we are just “flying in circles” and not getting anywhere. It has been a long road for us trying to get to the mission field and it seems like it has brought us back full circle again.
I have to be honest, up until last night I was really sick off all this training. What happened last night you ask? I visited the airstrip that we call the “graduation” airstrip. The class that was here last year built it on the side of a mountain, and I must say, it is very intimidating. We rode out to the airstrip the only way possible, on 4-wheelers and motorcycles. On just the trip to the airstrip we broke two motorcycles and a 4-wheeler and I got a really bad bruise on my leg from getting hit with a crashing 4-wheeler.
After the long ride out there we finally arrived, and it wiped the smile right off my face. It was steep. And when I say steep, I mean steep. I actually had to down shift the motorcycle just to make it up to the top! Not only was it steep, but it was only about 20′ wide; not much room for error. I still find it hard to believe that we will be landing there in only a couple of months!
A couple of other thoughts ran across my mind as we were there. If this is the best airstrip we can build in this particular area, and we took the best road available to get there and only suffered one injury and three damaged vehicles, what would it be like for a missionary who considers the trip to the airstrip to be his driveway? It took us over an hour to get to the airstrip on motorcycles, and we did it just for fun. There are many missionaries who travel much worse roads, and they do it for days on end because they don’t have a better way. What if they wanted to build a house there? They’d have to haul all their lumber and construction supplies up that crazy road. Or if they needed to get to the hospital in an emergency, evacuate the area, or just get out to pick up their mailĀ and groceries they’d have a long trip ahead of them.
All this flying in circles we are doing now seems like insufficient training for what lies ahead of us. However, I am encouraged that it is worth it all just to make it so the missionaries have a safe, efficient way to get to and from their tribes. By using an airplane we could haul a plane full of people or cargo to the “graduation airstrip” in just over 5 minutes.
All this isn’t just for the benefit of the missionaries either. It is all about getting the Gospel to the ends of the earth, and the ends of the earth are not covered in concrete and asphalt. In fact, the easy to access parts of the world have been reached, and now the most remote and rugged parts remain. Because of this I will gladly continue to practice my flying skills until they are good enough to reach the ends of the earth with the Gospel. What a privilege to be a part in reaching these tribes, and to be part of making it happen quicker so that many will hear of their savior while they are still alive.