PostScript: The End of The Beginning

From the desk of Jonathan Hartness, Peru Team Member:

Hope, to me, is a paradox.  As a pilot, I hold dear the creed, "There is no room for hope in aviation."  It simply means that if the weather ahead is poor, a pilot does not hope that the weather will improve.  We land and wait for the weather to pass or we fly somewhere else.

If the aircraft just completed a maintenance check, a pilot does not hope that the plane is in a good condition to fly.  We inspect it carefully before flight.  We must not assume, but take action to control everything that we can, and leave nothing to chance.

This philosophy bleeds over to my non-aviation life, too.

Yet Hebrews 11 tells us, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."  So if I do not hope, do I have faith?

Psalms, likewise has countless references to placing our hope in the Lord.

So I am in conflict.  How much to try to control?  How much do I place in God's hands?  Our Savior came that we may have life, and know the Father intimately.  And that we know how much He cares for us.  And that we can hope in Him.

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Our Team is back in Greensboro.  We are all back to work, Mike returned from the Andes, Steve recovered from his illness, and we are in our normal routines. 

We feel so fortunate to have spent time with the families working in the Pucallpa area.  I am grateful that our Lord set up a church whose purpose it is to send out workers into a field of harvest.  And I get to be a part of that church.  That is a true honor.

Sometime this summer and again during our Fall Global Celebration, several of the SAMAIR missionaries may visit Westover.  I hope they do.  I hope more people here at home meet these new friends.

And for our Team, I hope that the five of us still serve together.  I hope we dare to allow God to use us in a way we cannot imagine.  We may travel thousands of miles, or across Muirs Chapel Road.  We may complete a project together that changes the course of history, or we may paint a wall that no one will ever notice.  Regardless, I found four brothers that I can count on.

Winston Churchill said in 1942, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

So what's my role?  What do I do now?  Pray.  Share the Gospel.  Tell other Christians about what SAM and SAMAIR are doing in Peru.  And hope.

Day 8 - A Cast of Millions

We awoke Saturday morning before dawn to bid the SAMAIR Base at Cashibococha farewell.  We flew from Pucallpa to Lima with Marilyn for a day of exploring Lima.  Peru's capital city is home to ten million people, one third of the country's population.

As our trip winds down, Michael's adventure is just beginning.  We wished him well as he left our team for a week of exploring the Cuzco and Machu Picchu on his own. 

South America Mission owns a house near the Lima airport.  It acts as a kind of missionary boarding house for individuals and families traveling to and from Peru.  A missionary may be on their way to a remote village somewhere in the country.  When they travel from their home to Peru, they may need a place to stay before venturing to their destination.  They contact SAM with information on their missionary agency, their name, and date of arrival.  If one of the five rooms is available, they have a hospitable bed and breakfast waiting when they arrive.

Our team used the SAM house just for the day as a place to rest and prepare for our flights home.  Marilyn also guided us through Lima to see many historical sites and enjoy a delicious Peruvian meal.  We then visited the Inca Market to buy gifts for family and friends.

While walking the streets of Lima, I thought about the Shipibo people who live in the dense jungle near Pucallpa, and other indigenous Peruvian peoples.  I thought about the missionaries from many different nations who were called by one Holy God to take His message to those who had not heard.  The children and grandchildren of those missionaries carry that mantle today.  They share the message in the outer reaches of the wilderness.  They share the message in the middle of the cities.  And Christ's commission is being fulfilled.

As we drive to the airport for our departure from this amazing place, we look back at our week with gratitude.  Last night Scott guided us through a devotional based on 1 Corinthians 12.  We discussed the body of Christ, and how each member is important.  Some of us may seem unsightly to others, but Paul writes how those will be lifted up.  Each part of the body was created specifically by God to do a good work.  Praise God for His handiwork and how He can work through each one of us.

 

Huascarán:  At 22,132 feet, it is the tallest mountain in Peru.

Our Team, minus Mike, in front of the Presidential Palace in Lima

Marilyn and our Team watching the sunset on our last day in Peru.

Purple Pin:  Where we served in Pucallpa
Blue Dot:  Where we toured on Day 8 in Lima
Way North: Westover Church in Greensboro

Day 7 - Last Work Day

Friday began with plans to finish setting the toilet, putting the vanity in place, connecting the water lines to the sink and hopefully being able to prime and paint the walls above the tile. After breakfast, Scott gave a quick devotional from Philippians 2 and Patrick sent us out with prayer.

We have been blessed with dry weather the entire week.  The good weather has enabled us to work consistently to accomplish our goals. A couple of years ago Pucallpa got its own version of Home Depot, which has made things much easier on the staff in terms of being able to have many different types of supplies in one place. What could have taken several hours driving to multiple different hardware stores, now can be done in as little as an hour.

While we ran out of time to complete everything to our satisfaction, we were able to make all of the water connections and set the vanity in place, so the bathroom is functional.  The walls were primed and painted as well. The SAMAIR staff will need to make several tweaks to the fixtures before they use them on a regular basis, and they will be able to do so in a short time.  The staff that we worked with were pleased with all that was accomplished. 
 

 Our last meal in the house we lived in on the SAMAIR base

The bathroom before we started...

Toilet, urinal and tile completed!

Shower, vanity and sink completed!

Day 6 - Things don't always go as planned

To keep things real, Thursday was a tough day in terms of things not going right. Whether it was having the wrong part or the part not fitting correctly, being tired from the daily grind in the heat, differing opinions on how a task should be done, too many guys in a small space in each others' way, etc., life was at full-on, in-your-face tough!  But with God's grace we made it through the day as one body.

God put our team together to come and do some specific tasks. One member of the team thought he really didn't have the skill set for the tasks we would be doing, but was willing to be used in whatever capacity was needed. Thursday morning as four of us were making a flight in SAMAIR's float plane, God had some very specific plans for Jonathan.

Jonathan is a flight instructor at home. One of the SAMAIR pilots, David Speyers, needed to have an Instrument Proficiency Check performed to keep up his certifications. Jonathan had the ability to perform the IPC and sign-off on the certification. This saved SAMAIR $1000.00 due to the fact this task was completed with one hour of air time versus the four to five hours of air time that would have been needed to perform this test. For someone who was willing to come and be a "gofer", God had plans all along for Jonathan to be used as a blessing to SAMAIR.

SAMAIR Pilot David Speyers

SAMAIR Director of Aviation Maintenance Todd Edgar
(Obviously taking 30 winks while we snapped his photo!)

SAMAIR Pilot David Boogaard

Day 5 - Continuing Progress

Before we share the Wednesday's events, allow us to share a little about the South American Mission and SAMAIR staff.  These men and women are daily heeding our Lord's call to reach those who have not yet heard the Gospel. They work diligently to meet the spiritual and physical needs of indigenous tribes, modern citizens,  and fellow missionaries in eastern Peru. We are all impressed with the breadth of God's reach through this team. It is our honor to work alongside them.

http://www.sam-air.com

 
Day 5 found us continuing our work on the terminal bathroom and around the hangar.  SAMAIR base Operations Director Bryce Fonda is our supervisor of sorts, keeping us apprised of our service priorities.  He is a good leader and a true gentleman.

Scott putting some finishing touches on the shower tile

Bryce, Steve, Scott, Patrick, Mike, Jonathan and Craig

Bryce Fonda and Jammer Torres

We worked until lunch, and then drove into Pucallpa with Marilyn and Dave to learn about the city.  We visited the Pregnancy Care Center that their daughter, Stephanie, founded six years ago.  Stephanie, Marilyn, and local volunteers counsel pregnant women who are considering abortion, or who have had an abortion and are struggling with the guilt.

Afterward we toured the South America Mission base in Pucallpa.  It includes SAM Academy for missionary children, missionary housing, and the local Mil Palmeras church.  We attended a weekly prayer meeting with SAM and SAMAIR staff and their families.

Day 4 - Flying and Working

Jonathan and Scott in the bathroom

Mike and Bryce Fonda cutting the tile for the vanity top

Jonathan with John Armstrong after their flight

Sunset on Cashibo Lake

Our typical day begins at 0730 at the SAMAIR hangar working with the SAMAIR staff. We continued working on tiling the walls in the bathroom and began working on the vanity for the sink.  As the day progressed, we completed the tile for the walls and we began planning for the shower installation.  We also continued working on the rain deflectors as time permitted.

One of the SAMAIR pilots, John Armstrong, had a scheduled a passenger flight to Puerto Breu that left the base about 0815. All of our team is scheduled to go flying in one of the SAMAIR planes. Due to weight limitations, it would be impossible for the entire team to go up together. Jonathan was selected to go with John on this flight which took about an hour in each direction with about a half hour on the ground. They dropped off several passengers and some cargo and picked up one passenger and more cargo.

As a team we acted as a courier service for multiple SAMAIR staff in bringing items from the US that they cannot get in Peru or are too expensive to have shipped to them. As thanks, one of the SAMAIR pilots, David Speyers, took the five of us for a boat ride on Cashibo Lake as the sun was setting. We were able to enjoy the sunset and the beautiful shoreline before heading to Dave and Marilyn Simmons home for dinner.

After a delicious meal and good conversation, Dave shared some home movies from back in the day of the early years of SAMAIR.

Day 3 - First Day Serving

Our day began after a wonderful night's sleep. We walked up to the SAMAIR hangar from our house and met with Craig Gahagen, Director of SAMAIR, and multiple SAMAIR staff personnel. We started in on our projects shortly thereafter. Mike, Scott and Jonathan started working on the tile going into the bathroom, while Patrick and Steve worked on adding rain deflectors to the lower edge of the hangar roof.

Mike on his knees praying this tile will stay on the wall!

Steve and Patrick cutting sheet metal for the rain deflectors

Hanging the rain deflectors