The active, useful lifespan of the little Stinson airplane my father flew out there in the jungle was not very long. \u00a0The fabric skin it was covered with, succumbed to the brutal heat and humidity typical to the rain forrest. \u00a0God, however, used the little plane to do some important work before the elements took it out. \u00a0One such occasion was the part the duo of plane and pilot played in locating the wreckage of a DC3 near the coast of the country of these posts.<\/p>\n
Some background would be useful to the reader at this point. \u00a0It was June 9, 1950 between 7:00 and 7:30 pm. The DC3 with a number of missionaries on board was due to land at a large city in the Northwest part of the country within the half hour. \u00a0It was dark and the terrain was mountainous. For, to this day, unexplained reasons, the radio communication from their last point of departure had shut down. \u00a0Also for unexplained reasons, the airport radio and landing lights at their destination airport had shut down. \u00a0Apparently the airport from which they had last departed figured the plane was as good as already on the ground so shut down without bothering to confirm whether or not radio contact had been established at the destination airport. \u00a0The flight was on time as per the unclosed fight plan later discovered by those officials investigating the tragedy.<\/p>\n
It seems likely the strong wind, as experienced and noted by others in the area at that time, had blown the plane off course and as the \u00a0pilots began their descent they hit some tall trees on the highest mountain in the area, the wings were ripped off, the plane hit the mountain, the missionaries were ushered into the presence of the Lord, and the plane burned.<\/p>\n
By the time my father and his little Stinson arrived from the South of the country dozens of aircraft had been searching for almost a whole month for the mission DC3. \u00a0Several missionaries from another organization in that area helped my father and his missionary companion (this missionary’s wife and children were on board the missing plane) get to some of the villages along the DC3’s route to determine if anyone had seen or heard anything the night of June 9th. \u00a0In each village the information was the same; between 7:00 and 7:30 pm a plane with lights on had passed over, there was a loud crash after which there was nothing but silence.<\/p>\n
So it was that on the morning of July 6, 1950 the little Stinson lifted off the runway and headed to the mountains to begin the lonely search for any sign of the missing DC3. \u00a0My father was flying while his missionary companion diligently looked for any evidence of a downed airplane. \u00a0The weather was very bad and clouds covered the mountains but just as they were about to turn back and wait for another day with better weather they spotted something through a little hole in the clouds. \u00a0Sure enough it was the missing DC3 and though there is a lot more to the story of the search by air I want to move on to the effort to reach the crash scene on foot.<\/p>\n
Several attempts had been made but in the end my father and a few officials were the only ones who reached the crash site on foot. \u00a0The climbing conditions were so bad that most men in the search party were forced to turn back. \u00a0The climbers hands and feet were skinned and swollen. \u00a0In some cases the only way for the men to climb was by clinging to vines and pulling themselves up hand over hand, over and around and between huge boulders. \u00a0The supplies had to be passed up person to person by ropes. \u00a0At night they were cold and often as not soaking wet. \u00a0When they reached the crash site they found the plane and everything in it had been almost totally consumed by fire. \u00a0They were able to confirm the wreckage was indeed the missing DC3 by some of the tail section and pieces that had broken off as it had smashed down the mountain side.<\/p>\n
In describing the scene my father wrote, “it was like a holy place clean and far above the filth of the world- a garden of beautiful green foliage, chosen by God Himself as a place where He wanted to meet those in the plane face to face”. \u00a0 Exhausted physically and coming down with typhoid fever he said it would have been the most natural thing to bow his head and meet his Saviour right there as well but there was still much work to do.<\/p>\n
These were the early days of missionary work in the jungles of the country of these posts. \u00a0The missionaries on board the DC3 were to have joined the effort in the Southern part of the country. \u00a0It was bitter sweet news to the little band of missionaries waiting for much needed reinforcements out there in the jungle to hear that their potential coworkers had been called home to heaven. \u00a0The reality seemed to be that often the first efforts made in the taking of the Gospel into the unreached people groups were met with fierce resistance by Satan himself. \u00a0And yes those first years were very difficult. \u00a0But by God’s grace those early pioneers persevered and today there are dozens of churches and hundreds if not thousands of jungle peoples who have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of His beloved Son. \u00a0 Amen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The active, useful lifespan of the little Stinson airplane my father flew out there in the jungle was not very long. \u00a0The fabric skin it was covered with, succumbed to the brutal heat and humidity typical to the rain forrest. \u00a0God, however, used the little plane to do some important work before the elements took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}