I once went to pick up a missionary who had been serving in Ecuador for 30 years. The rainfall was so intense the previous night that the water rolled off his tin roof in one continuous, corrigated sheet for hours. With such rainfalls, getting in and out of these areas require precision, patience and careful examination.

So how do jungle pilots determine the safety of the strip’s surface while still circling overhead?

Sheets of rain like this in Papua create spectacular rainbows, but that same water isn’t so great for grass and dirt airstrips.

A soft airstrip can grab your tires and flip your plane in a split second. It’s not something you want to happen to your plane. Ruts can be even worse, forcing you off the air strip as you’re landing and sending you careening into a ditch nearby or into trees surrounding the strip.

And none of these observations are worth much if you can’t see the air strip – which is a real problem when you’re flying in the rain. Whenever rain drops cover a windshield, the rain drops wreak havoc on your depth perception. We teach our pilots to rock their head from side to side as they approach air strips to avoid this problem, enabling them to clearly perceive their depth of vision.

Observing donkeys crossing the air strip, rocking your head back and forth, and assessing an air strip’s viability for landing from the air – it’s all in a day’s work for a jungle pilot.

David Harms doing routine maintenance on a Cessna Caravan.

“How many days does it take?” I’d ask. “Which inspection is it?” David would reply. He and our maintenance specialist, Todd, have served as my guides as I learn. “What do you mean, which inspection? There’s more than one kind?” It turns out there’s actually twenty different kinds, depending on which combination of elements are being inspected and how long it’s been since the last time it was inspected. Most take three days, but Inspections 6 and 13 take a week—as long as we have a full staff, longer if we don’t. And just for fun, Inspection 19 takes two weeks…try scheduling that two months in advance!

It’s all worth it, though: our maintenance habits are one of the greatest gifts we can give our passengers. Even in my own mind, I feel a lot better strapping my loved ones into a plane that’s been regularly cared for…after all, it’s not like our pilots can just “pull over” if it starts to smoke. Whether it’s changing an oil filter, a tire, or an engine, their training and attention to detail keep us flying safely to God’s glory. Now that’s “high” maintenance!

What do you think Africa will look like?
L (age 5): I think it will have lots of trees, not very much grass, lots of kids…I think there’s going to be lots of houses in Africa, too.
G (age 3): Our house. A playground. (pause…incredulous look) Mom, Africa doesn’t look. Africa can’t see!!
M (age 2): Canada.

Why do you think we are going to Africa?
L (age 5): To help people.
G (age 3): So we can see our friends.
M (age 2): Because…(stares)…YES!…(points to the paper I’m writing her responses on) Draw Africa…and an airplane and can you draw me?

What makes you happy about going to Africa?
L (age 5): That I get to see my friends.
G (age 3): You!
M (age 2 ): Paint…and we have new bibs.

What do you want to do in Africa?
L (age 5): I want to play with the kids, play in the rain, and there’s lots of airplanes.
G( age 3): See the elephants and ride on one.
M (age 2): Paint a snake.

How will Africa be different?
L (age 5): There’s an Okapi. There’s not, like, any stores.
G (age 3): Me. (points to leg) I’m white.
M (age 2): Canada.

What will Daddy be doing in Africa?
L (age 5): Working on computers.
G (age 3): I don’t know.
M (age 2): (Stares around room) Talking to a boy about a diamond. (points to my paper again) So, I want you to draw a diamond.

What is a missionary?
L (age 5): Someone who helps people and tells people about God. They use lots of airplanes.
G (age 3): (Totally distracted, raises a toy bat in the air) STAR WARS!
M (age 2): A missionary walks…A missionary can’t walk because a chicken will cross the road!

Hmmm…if the kids have their way, we are in for a crazy first term in Africa!

When I joined MAF in 1977, the training department was teaching pilots how to execute a “flap pop-off.” This technique allowed the airplane to “unstick” itself and get flying at a very slow speed when trying to take-off from an extremely muddy airstrip…a trick that became quite useful when I flew in Ecuador.

The Amazon jungle in eastern Ecuador gets between 24 and 28 FEET of rain a year, and the rain-soaked grass and dirt airstrips often hampered the ability to gain much speed on the ground in order to take off. A flap pop-off was occasionally just the right trick that helped lift the plane into the air when mud didn’t want to let go.

Most airplanes have flaps, small airfoils that increase the lift of the wings at slow speeds. Normally flaps are extended appropriately for take-off, before the take-off run is started. With a flap “pop-off,” the flaps are extended abruptly, immediately increasing the lift of the wing,

(a) and in conjunction with ground effect lift, the airplane was popped right into the air. Hence the name of the “flap pop-off.”

(b) with the airplane popping right into the air. Hence the name of the “flap pop-off.”

One afternoon I was flying family physician Dr. Jack Olinger out of a water-saturated, muddy air strip in Ecuador – and taking off here wasn’t going to be easy. If ever the flap pop-off technique was necessary, this situation was it.

Piloting a Cessna 180, with large, lift-enhancing and manually-controlled flaps, I rolled down the airstrip once to determine just how much speed I might be able to gain on the ground. Once I was satisfied that I could employ the flap pop-off technique safely to get us into the air, we began splashing down the airstrip again.

At just the right moment, I jerked the flap lever up and we jumped into the air. The nose of the airplane had to be carefully lowered to gain speed, without touching down again. I think that this maneuver surprised Dr. Olinger, as it was a non-standard maneuver. As we established a solid climb rate and rose over the jungle trees, Dr. Jack said that “this was so much fun,” and “could we land and do it again?” – a request I politely declined.

In most newer planes, electronically-powered flaps render flap pop-offs useless, but in the Cessna 180 and 185 they sure came in handy at the right time and in the right place!

I am returning home because in the DR Congo, even in the capital city, there is no real way to take care of a mother and baby if anything were to go wrong. So, I am lucky that I have the ability to travel to a country that has safe medical practices; however, my heart hurts for the millions of mothers here that do not have that choice.

Women here are expected to do almost everything. They’re expected to have lots of children, take care of their families, and also go out and make a living. I cannot imagine having that pressure put on me and also having to give birth multiple times in unsafe conditions.

David Burton doing a morning check on one of the MAF airplanes.

MAF has been here in the DRC for the last 50 years, serving many amazing churches and organizations that are working to heal this country. And MAF has stayed true to the calling that God has for us here. It is a very difficult task and we need all the prayer we can get, as the enemy against our souls would love to see us gone from this place. But we have something in us that is much stronger than him. We stand firm on the words of Jesus:

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

So, as I head home next week and get to speak to my friends and family about the difficulty of life here and how there is so much need sometimes you can feel like you are drowning in it, I will also get to tell them how MAF is a light in a dark place. How we’re committed to staying, because even when things are hard, we know that He has overcome the world. I am so glad that He did and I don’t have to.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. – Ephesians 4:11-13, NIV

When it comes to Christian leadership, we must be careful to hold our vision up for everyone to see, reminding them of our goal: To become more Christ-like and make disciples as we share the Good News of the Gospel. When Christian leaders focus on becoming more like our savior it ensures that the organization stays on-track—that ministry goals don’t become distilled into mere tasks and objectives.

If we aren’t growing, we can’t be effective in our going. Knowing that staff development is critical to any organization, MAF recently held a seven-day Leadership Conference to help our current and future leaders to obtain various “tools” that will allow them to hone their leadership skills. Eighty-six MAF staff gathered in Nampa to learn from other MAF personnel as well as university professors, pastors, and other ministry leadership experts. The learning sessions were excellent, but most valuable was the time spent praying, worshipping, and sharing with co-workers from around the world.

Matt Hannan, pastor of New Heights Church and one of our keynote speakers, discussed the various styles that leaders use when dealing with others. Some are truth tellers who aren’t afraid to call a spade, a spade. Others are grace givers who are more inclined to spare feelings. However, the most effective leaders are those who have a little of both, those who speak the truth, tempered with love. In doing this we become more like Christ, who is as truthful as he is loving.

The apostle Paul put it plainly:

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” – Ephesians 4:15-16, NIV

In our desire to be effective in our leadership we need to ask God to help us set aside our natural inclinations and seek a more Christ-like balance of truth and grace. As we do this, we will both empower people with the truth and give them the freedom to grow in their giftings.

I’d bought them during last month’s visit to the States. Purchased in a store with wide aisles and cool air; placed in a huge cart filled with other special goodies. I picked the pair with the sparkly rhinestones that made me feel less like a 34-year-old tired mom and more like a movie star.

But sometime after I packed them in my suitcase, after they made the three-day journey to Indonesia, jostled through four countries’ x-ray machines, or after I’d unpacked them in my steamy Indonesian house in a race against my kids’ attempts at “helping” me, they broke.

Photo by Mr. Thinktank

Typical. Figures. No movie star eyes for me. Those were my first cynical thoughts sprung from disappointment.

Hours later, I crushed the pretty new purse I’d bought in the States in the door of my car—after the rain had begun again and I was in a hurry to put my kids into their seats before another motorcycle splashed more water on me. One of the pretty beads now fractured and floating in the oil-glistened puddle.

Another new thing, broken.

Just like me, I thought.

Somewhere along the journey to Indonesia, through my husband’s and baby’s bouts with dengue fever, in the midst of the loneliness of those first years overseas, jostled through two pregnancies and two babies born overseas, rubbed against the heartbreaking lives of Indonesian friends, I’ve become more broken. Less new and shiny. More shattered by the poverty and hard stories around me. And, well, more gray.

Ideals of making a difference sanded down by the realities of serving. Bravery of adventure fractured by the fears brought by overseas motherhood. The closeness of community peeking through the cracks of my own sin.

Less movie star. More frazzled mom.

And yet…

He asked me to come here. He brought me through those hard things. He allowed the jostling to happen. And He alone makes me new.

And somehow, through my brokenness, the Gospel is made most true. My own cracks allowing His love inside me to be seen. My own humility—sometimes humiliation—giving way to His grace. And because of His brokenness, I, too, am made whole. I, too, am saved for a happy ending.

After asking me if I could wait while they fetched the fish, the pair returned five minutes later carrying a vagre (or catfish) weighing about 300 pounds! The fish’s head – carried on one fisherman’s back with his hands over his head in the gills – was about two and a half feet wide. Its whiskers were wider than my arm span. The other fisherman was doing all he could to hold up the remaining weight of the six-foot-long fish by hoisting up the slippery tail fin.

There was just enough room to squeeze the fish into the cargo pod beneath the airplane. However, the fish was still alive. Throughout my flight back to Shell, the fish thrashed about in the pod with such veracity that it caused the plane to shake from side to side.

Once we finally landed, some of the workers at the hangar cleaned the fish and cut up fillets to be sold locally. It was incredibly delicious.

Lord, give me wisdom, I pray, advancing the throttle and heaving the Cessna 206 into the cool mountain air. I was making a difficult decision: conserve fuel and head home in the deteriorating weather, or press on to complete a critical medical emergency flight that would probably leave me stranded in the mountains with a fuel supply at a minimum.

We call them “Code 1” patients. They have extremely high priority and, if possible, must be attended to that day. Almost 90% of our flying is medically related and these flights are not uncommon.

On the ground near the patient’s home, a nurse fills me in on Palesa, 25. “She is in need of an urgent blood transfusion. Her hemoglobin has dropped critically low.” Palesa makes a quiet groan as she lifts herself into the middle passenger seat; her abnormally light color and silent determination both catch my attention. We are on our way in minutes, not wasting any precious time.

The hospital lies just 12 miles away and Palesa is scarcely in my care more than 15 minutes. Once on the ground again, she quietly slips out of the airplane and into the waiting ambulance and is gone, on her way to get the urgent care that she needs.

I turn and walk back to my fuel-starved 206, now with only 20 minutes above reserves––not near enough to return home. For the moment, I’m stranded. Powering up the aircraft radios, I hear a colleague has just broken through the weather and is on his way to meet me with some extra fuel. I breathe a sigh of relief. I’ll be home tonight after all.

Welcome to the realities of being the family of a missionary pilot “on call.” Since we were already in town, our whole family went directly to the MAF dock/hangar so my husband could talk to the people requesting the flight.

As my three daughters and I waited in the car, I glanced back to see my oldest crying big, silent tears of disappointment. Swimming is one of her very favorite activities. She’d been begging to go for weeks. Finally, a day had come when we thought we could make it happen and she’d been ecstatic. Now, she wasn’t going to get to go swimming after all.

My heart broke for my little girl. For my husband and I, the change of plans was easy to take in stride. We understood the situation––we knew Sean was on call. And we also knew that we were here for the very purpose of helping people like that woman in the jungle. But to our eight-year-old little girl it was yet another disappointment.

Brooklyn and I spent a lot of time talking about how things don’t always go the way we want them to. We talked about that woman and her family hurting out there so far from medical help and how they must be so scared and worried. We talked about how God can use Daddy and his airplane to help and share Jesus’ love with them. We talked about how we can’t be selfish and that opportunities to go swimming will come again. The tears didn’t necessarily subside right away––it was a tough lesson.

We couldn’t swim but we could still have fun. I took my girls home and we pulled out the special tea set. We made scones and even added precious chocolate chips from America. As we gathered around the kitchen table, now dressed in our favorite dresses instead of swimming suits, we smiled at each other and bowed our heads to pray for Daddy as he flew and for the stranger he was on his way to help.

The following weekend (when Sean wasn’t on call) we went swimming!