Benchmarks

Recently my friend Mike, who works among the Yali people of Kosarek, forwarded me something he had written up after his last flight with me.  I thought this worth passing along.  Don't worry...I don't scare all my passengers...at least I don't think so.

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This past month, I made a trip into Kosarek for a couple of weeks without the family. As the plane was approaching Kosarek, I was listening on my headset to the exchange between the two pilots in the front of the airplane. The senior pilot began saying, “I think this altimeter is off.” Having absolute confidence in our pilots, and having made this trip many times before, I was not at all concerned… until we made our final approach to the airstrip. The approach into Kosarek means heading directly toward the face of a mountain that rises about 1,700 feet above the airstrip, and then making a U-turn across the valley to make the approach for landing (the picture below shows the plane on take-off going toward the mountain). As we kept getting closer to the face of the mountain (certainly closer than I had ever been before) the pilot kept voicing his suspicion about a faulty altimeter. Finally, as we were (what felt to me like) about “arms-length” from the trees, the pilot confirmed, “Yeah, this altimeter is definitely wrong.” In my mind these two things did not sit well together, and as my heart pumped the adrenaline through my body, I wondered how many times those exact words had been someone’s last! Of course, we made it to the ground safely, and being safely on “terra firma” I mentioned to the pilot that I had never been so close to that mountainside before. After a little friendly teasing, he apologized and explained that he had simply followed protocol for a suspected faulty altimeter. By finding a benchmark at a known altitude, and then getting as close as safely possible to compare the altimeter reading, he could check for sure whether the altimeter was faulty or not.

Taking off at Kosarek...towards Mike's mountain...the benchmark.

This made Amy and I reflect on sin.  Of course, our ultimate benchmark needs to be what is right according to God’s Word. A benchmark on a mountainside can only be set by using an accurate altimeter. If a pilot were to check a faulty altimeter by using a faulty benchmark, he may think his altimeter was accurate. The results could be disastrous if he were forced into the clouds, assuming his faulty instruments to be accurate. We often end up playing too dangerously close to faulty benchmarks, set by defective morals, all the while trying to stay an "arms-length" away. The problem with these dangerous benchmarks is that we may end up finding ourselves “in a fog,” with danger much closer than we realize (1 Tim. 1:18-19).  Though many of our Papuan friends are professing Christians, they still await God’s Word in their language, so that they can understand the one and only accurate benchmark for their faith.

Unwanted

Have I said it before?  I love this job.

One reason is the incredible variety in the types of missions we fly.  This day’s mission?  Fly some ministry colleagues from our home base in Sentani up to Nipsan, where at 5,300 feet above sea level they will get a much-needed break in the cool of the mountains—away from the heat of the tropics and demands of ministry.

The weather is perfect, the flight uneventful, the landing doesn’t break anything important, and we’re soon parked at the top of the steep airstrip at Nipsan.  The beauty of the valley is breathtaking and I’m reminded why our family has so enjoyed the breaks we’ve taken up here.   Vertical limestone massifs tower all around us.  Here and there, the sheer cliffs are split as if with an axe, and from these clefts plummet some of my favorite waterfalls in all of Papua.  Idyllic hamlets—groups of four or five huts—cling to slopes surrounding the airstrip, smoke from the overnight fires still drifting through their grass roofs.

One of the many ridge top hamlets surrounding Nipsan

Where I Come From

For a couple of years, this picture was the desktop on my computer.  I put it there so that every day I would see it, and remember where I come from.  A couple of my friends thought it was to remind myself of the days when I still had hair...what do they know?  This was the village of Bokraha, in the Terai region of southeast Nepal where we lived much of the time in my early years.

For a kid, life was good.  I remember being able to get through my schoolwork by late morning (it was that, or Mom just wanted me out of her hair) and it was the great outdoors for the rest of the day.  Life was also bone simple.  To be sure, we kept up with the Joneses, but in the context of a remote village in Nepal, that meant a house with mud walls (really) and a thatch roof.  Actually, we raised the bar for the Joneses having water in our house--it consisted of a single pipe sunk straight into the ground topped off with one of those old fashioned cast iron hand-operated water pumps...but we had indoor plumbing.  Pretty sure Dad took some flack for that from some of the hard-core missionaries.  

One Flight...

...many pictures.  A single flight to the interior villages of Papua holds hundreds of unique images.  Here are a few we captured on camera from a flight last week.

Jerrett Roy

Catching our own silhouette framed in a rainbow.

You Can Hurt Yourself Here

Once in a while I get tasked with landing at a brand new airstrip and checking it out for our team.  A few weeks ago, I needed to check out an airstrip that has been in service since the 1960's, but it was new to us--none of our pilots had been there before.

Another mission aviation service operates in and out of the airstrip regularly, so I picked the brain of their chief pilot and anyone else who would talk to me about the place.  I also got my hands on the 'strip chart'--a document that shows how the runway lays in relation to terrain, details a bunch of numbers like elevation, width, length, slope etc, gives a textual description of how to fly the approach, and has notes on hazards unique to the airstrip.

Perusing the strip chart for this place was a bit like reading the warning label on a chain saw.  The message that came through loud and clear was: you can hurt yourself here.  Blind approach (video here), an early committal point, dogleg for takeoff, slippery when wet, bad downdrafts and a 9:00 a.m. wind curfew.  Translation: you fly a long portion of the final approach without being able to see what you're landing on, the airstrip itself is crooked, and the place is closed for operations after 9:00 because the mountain winds create turbulent conditions that can place undue stress on a pilot's adrenal glands.

I arrived overhead early in the morning when the air was still smooth and the overnight fog was just burning off.

This Is Gonna Hurt...Part II

Here's one who paid the ultimate price.  Were you to speak with her now, I doubt she'd express any regrets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/24/jerusalem-victim-british-bible-translator

Piato Needs To Pray

In this line of work one tends to collect a pretty eclectic bunch of friends.  Perhaps one of my more interesting acquaintances is a fellow named Piato.  His story, from stone-age killer to follower of Jesus, is fascinating and I only know a small fraction of it.  For some interesting backstory to what follows in this blog entry, check out more of Piato's story here.

Last week I found myself back in the little hamlet of Daboto.  Climbing out of the Pilatus Porter at the top of the airstrip, I was delighted to find Piato waiting for the airplane.

Piato and his young son at Daboto last week.

This Is Gonna Hurt

To believe is not enough--the demons do that much and don't seem to get a lot of Sunday school credit for it.

Jesus calls us to something much more difficult than belief.  He calls us to follow Him.  And one thing He makes abundantly clear:  in the short term, this is gonna hurt.  The long term?  That's looking pretty spectacular.

I'm still immersed in the riches of the Gospel of Luke.  In chapter 9 of the story, Jesus, having just finished a time of communion with His Father, tells His followers:

[I] must suffer many things...and [I] must be killed

And then He immediately adds:

If anyone would come after me, 

he must deny himself 
and take up his cross daily 
and follow me.

Jesus is saying to me, "Nate, I'm going to go pick up this cross of wood, lug it up a hill, allow myself to be stripped, ridiculed and then stapled to it.  You want to follow?  Go grab a cross and let's go."

Not All Here

For years, we've gone to church with a woman who is often referred to, in less-than-politically-correct terms, as 'the crazy lady.'  She's not all there.

Her name is Yemima.  She's probably around fifty, dresses in rumpled 1970's era dresses with lots of not-always-clean lace and frills.  She wears lots of lipstick, some of which actually ends up on her lips.  Last week the dress was an unwashed dirty-white and the lipstick was metallic gold.

Our church services always have a time when anyone can share a story about how God is working in their lives or simply sing a song.  Frequently, different groups in the church will have practiced a number and come up front and share it with the rest of us.  Yemima always joins these groups, even though she isn't a member of the group nor has she practiced with them.  When the youth go up front, she's right there with them.  Men's groups?  You bet.  She adds her soprano to the basses and tenors.  Sometimes she goes up by herself, grabs the mike, and sings a shrill, wavering acapella hymn.

She's not all there.

So where is she?

Belated Update On Our Sick Guy...

Should have posted this a while ago.  A week after we prayed for Anius under the wing of the airplane (see previous post here), I was making my "five minutes out" call on radio for landing at an airstrip called Lumo and I heard Andi, the pastor from Omban, on the radio.

I quick asked him, "How's Anius?"

The immediate response was, "You won't believe this, but from the moment we all prayed for him at the airplane, he's been well!"

Oh me of little faith.  I really had been worried that he would go down hill.  Praise God...when you live in an environment where the dark spiritual forces exercise very real power, seeing Jesus demonstrate Himself as Lord over everything is huge for the young church.