I’ve been overwhelmed with gratitude the last few weeks. There’s nothing like flying into the tribe for the first time and seeing firsthand the things that God is doing among the people to make one feel grateful-grateful for the missionaries, the pilots, and for the grace of God to see His good work accomplished among the nations.
I am grateful to the missionaries who have given their lives to serve a people who would have never had the chance to hear had they not willingly left their families to come live with them. I have had two sweet opportunities the past two weeks to fly in and visit two different tribes and I was completely blown away. The amount of work that goes into just living there, let alone translate God’s Word and teach the people how to read and write and then pass on that teaching to others is truly overwhelming. Can you imagine? They teach and preach and are doctors – plus, they print and laminate and edit and draw and color and translate and edit and re-edit and re-re-edit…whew! All the while having kids and grandkids in their home countries to miss. They have sacrificed so much to be a light to these people and I am grateful. In the second of the two tribes I visited, the missionary was returning back to her tribal home after being in town for months. I was overwhelmed by the amount of work she had in front of her. In the States, when you return home after a long trip, you have some dusting to do and maybe change the sheets on the beds. In a tribal house, after a few months of being gone, the rats and termites have claimed ownership and taken over the house. She was going to have to take EVERYTHING out of every cabinet and drawer and clean inside, wash every pot and pan and fork and spoon even though no one has used them, maybe even wash all of her clothes again (by hand) and that is just the beginning! Not to mention she had just traveled an hour to get to the airplane for the second day in a row(the first day we drove out to the plane only to find the weather was not good enough to fly. So we drove all the way back to town, she had to buy new fresh food, pay for another night in the guest house, and wait to MAYBE get in the next day.) Thankfully we DID get in the next day and the work began – unpacking boxes, cleaning the house, reuniting with friends…it was too much for my little brain to process and it left me feeling grateful for the hard work these missionaries put in every single day, for the sake of the Gospel. Thank you all of our missionaries who work so hard and are so faithful.
Experiences like this also make me feel grateful for my husband and all the other pilots out there who are allowing the missionaries to stay in the tribe and reach these people. One of the days that I was able to fly with Brian, the weather was bad and the decision was solely on him whether or not our missionary friend would make it back home into the tribe to be with her husband. Talk about pressure! I am so thankful for the wisdom and discernment the Lord has given our pilots to make hard decisions like these. On this particular day, Brian had quite the task ahead of him. He was to fly my friend, Judy, and I into the tribe along with some cargo. He would unload, load 5 passengers (all of them just kids) who spoke no English into the plane, fly back to the airport, unload and drive all the kids to the road about 10 minutes away, come back to the airplane, load the second round of cargo onto the plane, fly back in to the same jungle strip to unload cargo and pick me up, head to another one of our tribal strips to do two airdrops, then finally head back to the airport for the day. This all happened before 11 am and he was battling weather the entire time. I left him to clean up so I could get our kids so when Brian arrived home he had two kids and a wife waiting for him and demanding his attention. He deals with all this with patience and grace and love, just like all of our other pilots do as well. So…all of you pilots, thank you for all you do for our missionaries and your families!
Of course, most of all, experiences like these make me so grateful that we are not doing these alone! In fact, these things would be completely impossible have we not the Lord holding our hands the entire way. It is Him who guides us and gives us the strength to carry on with the day-to-day, tedious tasks of life in the jungles, and Him who gives us the wisdom to know when to fly and when to not fight the weather. It is because He loves us and the whole world that any of us are here and I am so incredibly grateful that He has allowed us to play such a part in reaching a world that He loves. Thank you, Lord, for how you take care of us and love us and carry us and allow us to serve in this way. And thank you, also, for allowing me the opportunity to see Your hand at work.