One simple acronym whispered in North East Congo and an entire village will flee in terror. Mentioning the LRA makes stomachs churn, blood run cold, and conversations come to a halt.

Once upon a time, this rebel group from Northern Uganda had some sort of political agenda. But since coming to Congo, their sole reason for existence seems to be to terrorize. They descend on a village and rape, loot, burn, steal, kidnap and kill. They maim and deface their victims. Besides the physical scars, the scars left on their lives, hearts and souls are even more devastating.

It’s Saturday. I’m not sure what the significance of Saturday is, but lately it seems that every weekend we get the blood chilling phone call from Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontieres – MSF). “Please come to Dingila, Ngilima and Doruma. The LRA was here last night.” Or, “The LRA is coming. Please come and evacuate us from Aba and Faradje.”

MSF, for the most part, is a group of doctors and administrators who give three to six months of their lives to serve in mobile bush clinics and hospitals in the worst corners of the earth. Here in Congo, they spend a lot of time repairing LRA victims. The LRA marches in, MSF has to evacuate. But as soon as the rebels are out, MSF calls and we come flying back in.

These flights are always hard. Charred villages. Eerie silence. It’s a solemn greeting at the airstrip. Those who help unload the relief supplies, or load the victim, seem to be wondering if it will be them or a family member next. I can’t even imagine the terror these precious people live with every day.

It’s Saturday. The volleyball game can wait; it’s not important anymore. Get the plane ready. Get your heart ready. Here we go … again.

[Story from Joey Lincoln, Program Manager of MAF’s East Democractic Republic of Congo program.]

Note: The LRA stands for the Lord’s Resistance Army; however, this group is far from godly.

Villagers learned there was a healthy demand for crocodiles, so they began raising them until they were big enough to sell to a croc farm. But getting crocodiles to the city in a speedy manner required something more than weary foot travelers. It required a plane––a plane piloted by MAF’s Paul Bergen.

Upon Paul’s arrival in the village, there was plenty of fanfare. “I was feeling pretty important until I realized it had nothing to do with me,” Bergen said. “It was all about their special cargo they were waiting to load onto the plane.”

Coming toward the plane, he noticed a group of men struggling to carry an old rice sack that was wiggling all over the place. Bergen guesses the sack that usually held 200 pounds of rice had 30 baby crocs stuffed inside, doing everything in their power to escape.

As the men reached the plane with the writhing sack, Bergen asked, “You want me to load that?!”

“Oh ya tuan,” they replied. We have four more just like these.

Once the men loaded four sacks on the floor of the plane, Bergen noticed a pungent smell, one that he realized would be with him for the hour-long flight.

Then three bamboo crates appeared with even more crocs. Bergen was relieved to discover that each croc’s snout was tied with vine so it couldn’t bite its way out of the sack … or snip a pilot. He also learned someone from the village would be accompanying him to make the deal at the croc farm.

Once airborne, Bergen climbed to 9,000 feet altitude, thankful for the fresh air ventilation. Around this time, he began suspecting something was looking at him. He glanced back to see one of the crocs had escaped from a bag and was lurking just four feet away––without a vine on its snout!

With MAF protocol lacking for such a situation, Bergen turned to his passenger for help. The “helper” was fast asleep. What to do? Very carefully, Bergen moved his hand over and tapped the man on his leg. The man opened his eyes and Bergen pointed to the hungry croc still staring at him. He nearly jumped out of his seat.

The “croc babysitter” regained his composure and slowly moved towards the croc before lunging for the snout and tail as the croc went crazy. Even with the croc at three feet long, it was quite a battle. Bergen fought through the distraction to fly the plane before the man finally subdued the croc and retied its snout.

The landing was uneventful, until one of the workers began unloading the pod. He suddenly jumped and yelled, pulling his hand out of the pod with a croc attached, gnawing on a chunk of the man’s hand. By now, five other crocs had escaped and were running all over the tarmac. It took another hour for everyone to recapture those and get the whole batch off to the croc farm.

MAF Pilot Paul Bergen & wife Carol with Kodiak

From 1980 through 1990, Paul Bergen and his wife, Carol, served in Irian Jaya (now Papua), Indonesia. Paul was an MAF Pilot/Mechanic ; Carol took care of flight following. Today Paul serves as the manager of Aviation Training, and Carol is an administrative assistant in the Information Technology (IT) department in Nampa.

While he was stationed at the Wamena base in Papua on his first term, Jim Harris had many adventures as an MAF helicopter pilot. Looking back, some of them seem comical, almost surreal. Like the time he landed the helicopter at Vakabuis for a second contact with this South Coast Citak tribe, who were known headhunters and cannibals. He was transporting Clarence Gillett, Margaret Stringer and her linguist, Noak, Team missionaries based in Senggo. John Forsythe flew circles overhead in the float plane from Yaosakor to make sure they would be alright.

Photo courtesy of Margaret Stringer

This was Jim’s second trip to Vakabuis to drop off Margaret and her team. But this time he actually shut down the helicopter and got out of the aircraft. The Citaks were not used to seeing the helicopter, which they called the “flying canoe,” or the strange-looking pilot that disembarked from it. Jim was wearing a Nomex flight suit and a helmet with the visor down.

Photo courtesy of Margaret Stringer

Margaret’s team had been telling them about the Creator (God) who loved them, and how he lived up in the sky. Since Jim came out of the sky, that’s who they thought he was. So, when he jumped out of the helicopter they were saying, “There’s the Creator!” Unaware, really, of what they were thinking of him at the time, Jim reached out and touched the closest man to him. The man fainted, thinking Jim was going to kill him.

The crowd grew even more excited when Jim went to take off his helmet. “I suppose they thought I was removing my head!”

Once inside the men’s hut, sitting around the fire, the chief gave Jim a beautiful stone ax. It was one of the chief’s prized possessions. Clarence reached for it, meaning to examine it. At that point, the men in the tribe all went for their bows and arrows hanging in the rafters of the hut. The interpreter started yelling at Clarence to give it back, saying, “Don’t touch it or they will kill you!”

Jim also recalls Margaret asking the chief where his wife was. He said, “She is hiding from that THING!” That Thing was Jim.

Margaret and her team kept coming back and began to make progress. Eventually, the Citaks came to believe the message about God’s love and how Jesus had died for them. You can read all about Margaret’s ministry to the Citak people in her book From Cannibalism to Christianity.

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When I first contacted Jim about another story I was working on, he mentioned his Log Book. Somewhat surprised that he still had it, I asked him if all MAF pilots held on to their Log Books. He said it was likely that they did and explained why: “Those were the best times of our lives.” So, I thought I would start a regular feature here and share some of those best times with you. If you are a former MAF pilot and have a story you want to share, please contact me at jwolf*at*maf.org.

An Ethiopian man whose life was saved in the ‘70s as a result of an MAF flight by former pilot Denny Hoekstra. (Photo courtesy of Denny Hoekstra)

One man had had his leg amputated and now wore a prosthetic. The other man had been speared in the abdomen as a teen; he lifted his shirt to show Denny the scar. Both men thanked him for saving their lives. They said they would not have come to know the Lord had they not been flown out for medical help.

Denny’s brother, Paul, who was also on this trip, told him some additional news about the man who had been speared. “Denny,” he said. “That’s only half the story.” He went on to say that back in the village, the boy who had thrown the spear had been tied up. The villagers told him that if the other boy died, he would die, too. “So you not only saved the one life, you saved two lives that day!”
From December of 1967 through June 1976, Denny flew 2786 hours and executed 16,716 flights in Ethiopia. That works out to 34.5 work years saved for Kingdom work. Denny continues his life-long connection to MAF and now serves as a contact officer in California.

Videos from the event:

For more of the story, including additional photos and video, visit www.maf.org/field_stories/stories/the-hoekstra-family-legacy.

Willie Berghuis during her weekly ministry to street kids from Wamena, Papua.

So Willie provided the mom with peanuts and a glass of milk every morning. She told her to get lots of rest, eat lots of vegetables and not to carry heavy stuff. Even more, she was able to pray with her and tell her she needed to trust God, and He would bless her efforts to keep the baby alive.

After the baby was born, Willie noticed that the mother had tied a string around the baby’s wrist. When she asked her about it, the mother admitted that it was like a fetish, for protection against evil spirits. Willie says, “I challenged her to trust God instead and cut off the string.” She was hesitant, until the older daughter said, “Mom, you need to do this. You need to trust God and cut off the string!” And so she did.

Willie had to leave after a few months, but the next time she returned, the couple came to visit her. The mother was holding a healthy baby girl named Willie.

It’s the Job

In the normal course of my work week, I might be led to tears, but I’m just as likely to have joy . . . even laughter.  And it seems I have had my share of both extremes lately.  My job here as Resource Coordinator means that I get to gather and read stories from the field, or do research for something I’m going to write.  So last week, in between the tears, I was also receiving delightful stories about babies that have been named after our pilots or their wives in the field.  Some of these have been so sweet, and some have been just plain funny . . .  thus the occasional laughter emanating from my cubicle. (And thanks to those responsible for this.  You know who you are and I won’t name names.)  I look forward to writing about that at a later date.

Bring it On

I suppose an emotional rollercoaster kind of job is not necessarily a bad thing.  It just means that what’s happening in the field, and the reports we get in Chapel, well, it’s all powerful stuff.  God is at work, and I am just so thankful to be connected in some small way to what He’s doing around the world through MAF.  And the more laughter or tears, the stronger the story we can share with our readers and supporters.  So I say, bring it on!  Hit me with your best story.  I am ready and waiting with Kleenex in hand.

What about your job has you laughing or crying?