aircraft – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

Denny tilted sideways in the aircraft seat just enough that I could catch his voice above the engine hum. His message brought sweat to my palms.

The missionary pilot had directed the aircraft westward, above East Africa’s plains. The Cessna was a baby fly at the foreground of the continent’s most stunning monument, Mt. Kilimanjaro. Massive. Majestic.

We had lifted off from Moshi’s small airport and were bound for remote preaching outposts. Five of them. Each outpost was marked by a small gathering of Maasai huddled under one or two trees or beneath a shiny tin roof indicating a village schoolroom.

Denny’s passengers also numbered five, meaning the Cessna 206 was at her half-dozen capacity.

“Every three weeks or so I fly young evangelists to these outposts, leaving them one by one at each preaching point”, Denny had said when inviting me along. “They share with any locals gathered who want to learn about God. I myself offer a short teaching at the final spot on the circuit. Afterwards I retur home, retracing the earlier route, collecting the young men once again on the way.”

Denny said travelling by air cut the travel time for such a venture by days.

By now, we had touched down and taken off a couple times.

We departed the most recent dirt strip where we had left the third preacher-trainee. It was near this time my French pilot friend began cluing me in on particulars of our next landing site.

“So, now we will be coming, in about fifteen minutes to an unusual landing place. It is among that range of peaks there.” The landscape ahead was varied, featuring moderate elevations merging with steep green slopes revealing spherical volcanic outlines. Nothing of the terrain hinted at flatness.

As we flew, several distinct bumps alerted us to updrafts. We were passing within near range of one of Africa’s towering escarpment cliffs.

The missionary’s accented monologue resumed. “We approach soon the most difficult landing strip I visit in all the region.”

It was here that my palms began moistening. This, despite Denny’s steady, undramatic, near-casual manner. What does ‘most difficult landing strip’ actually mean? For Denny. For me. Today?

He seemed in a mood to describe something of our coming destination. In more detail than I would prefer.

“First, the terrain near this village has few suitable places for landing a plane, so the length of the strip is quite short.

“Then the landing/take-off space lies slanted a bit – uneven, not quite flat – resting at the edge of a greater slope. . .”

The aircraft brought us nearer the village and, in the distance the ribbon of runway came into view. . .

My instinct here was to wave a friendly hand – further moistened by now – to signal satisfaction with the amount of info he had supplied. I did not.

“And, finally”, Denny went on, “there is the wind. Up here it is seldom moving the direction best suited for landing and takeoff.”

Our descent was well underway. Apart from the queasy feeling brought on by the data just delivered me, I relished taking in the wonder of the volcanic mountain landscape rising to meet us.

With a talent common to seasoned bush pilots alone, the Frenchman brought the airplane safely in. A smooth, entirely glitch-free landing.

Denny’s performance, in my estimation, confirmed the viewpoint of a person whose opinion should count for something. . .

It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill. – Wilbur Wright

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience,

but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to

rouse a deaf world.” – C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

***

What awaits me down there, really?

A few minutes earlier, as the great aircraft began its descent to Nairobi’s mile-high runway, I had drawn the Navy-blue passenger blanket away from my head and shoulders. The covering had served to conceal a stubborn trickle of tears that had persisted these past minutes.

Inside I knew I had not come to this place entirely on my own. . . knew that God had journeyed together with Ann and me from the outset along this sudden bewildering trail, a pathway ending who knew where? Still, I could not recall in my lifetime bearing such a sense of ‘aloneness’. I sat in a cloister of fellow passengers gazing out the plane’s window onto a land beneath of fifteen million inhabitants. It didn’t matter. Alone is alone regardless the surroundings.

Lord, I do need your presence. Be near me these coming days.

My tired mind went over again the sequence of events these past weeks.

So what is the missing piece, where is the accusation, what is the scandal. . . Is there one? Why would I be disinvited to serve in this land, among this people we’ve grown to care so deeply about?

The grand ball of sun had for an hour been inching its way above the Indian Ocean 200 miles eastward, its revealing light stretching inland, drenching the Nairobi Game Park that lay near the capital city’s airport at the city’s edge. I well knew that giraffe, zebra, antelope and the occasional pride of lion had long wakened to the sun’s encroaching blaze, their animal senses already on high alert. Knew this even as I detected my own protective instincts rising.

Certainly, as with all long-term residents coming from an outside culture, I had made my share of goofs, mis-pronouncing language, klutzy embarrassments that locals regularly let slide. In the end though, search for it as I might, no complaint of my violating any cultural, moral or religious code came to my mind.

Thuh-THUMP. The plane touched down and her sturdy tires soon moved us toward the mobile stairways for our exit.

I was “home”, where I had first landed a dozen years ago. But this was different. . . the first time in my overseas travels without my dear wife. She and our children, thousands of miles distance, would await word of my safe arrival. I felt the sense of aloneness threaten me again. Mercifully, a flight attendant’s voice sounded in a microphone.

“Please take care leaving, ladies and gentlemen, that you remember your carry-on items. And mind the steps as you move down to the tarmac.”

Stepping outside and onto the stairway platform, carry-on in hand, I paused a moment and drank in the Africa air. Then, trailing a chatty group of tourists toward the tarmac below I stole a further look across the Kenya landscape.

How much longer will this be our home?

Tag: aircraft

Extra Descriptive

The Unknowing