jungle aviation

I remember reading about JAARS as an impressionable teenager and feeling inspired by the men who dedicated their lives to aviation and using it as a tool to take the Gospel to the most remote corners of the world.  Reading stories about harrowing flights, miraculous landings and even gut-wrenching accidents served to plant in me a fascination of aviation and how I might one day be a part of global missions - taking the Message of Hope to a hurting world.  I write this blog post from the JAARS Center, the headquarters of Wycliff Bible Translators' aviation organization (which stands for Jungle Aviation And Radio Service) in NC.  

I am about midway through a month long stay at JAARS, in which I am participating in a training on the Cessna 206 aircraft (which our mission operates in Brazil), as well as helping prepare our new airplane to be flown to Brazil.  JAARS is a partner organization in Brazil and they have allowed us to use their hangar to make some modifications to a recently purchased airplane before importing it for mission service in Brazil.

Most of the JAARS guys I have been working alongside in the hangar have spent several years overseas serving in places like Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Cameroon, and the Philippines.  Their shared knowledge of bush flying would be difficult to match anywhere in the world.  And yet the kindness and humility I've seen is what impresses me the most. 

The training class I am participating in includes students who will be serving in Peru, Togo, Papua New Guinea and Africa.

Importing an airplane generates a ridiculous amount of paperwork so I have been working on getting all of the airplane's documentation in order to help with the process.

As well as training and maintenance, JAARS also does Research and Development which has lead to a number of modifications on their airplanes that improves safety and the usefulness of airplanes in mission work.  In this photo, the R and D team is loading lead weights (seen on the pallet) into a litter mounted in a helicopter fuselage (the coffin-looking box).  They are testing this modification that will allow a helicopter operating in Africa to use a stretcher when transporting sick and injured people.  

Using the FAA's rigorous standards they test the modification to see if it withstands several times the weight of a person (up to 3500 lbs.).  

I go to the "Brazil Prayer Meeting" made up of several former missionaries to Brazil meeting for lunch to pray about mission work in Brazil and friends they have left behind. 

Our mission's new airplane is in very good shape, but we are doing a thorough inspection and taking care of any issues before it begins serving in Brazil. 

Being away from my family has not been easy, but it has been so good to get a broader view of missions and in particular how God is using aviation to reach people around the world.  I've also found myself reflecting on how good God has been to me, allowing me to participate in the work that so captured me as a young man.