My first over-nighter...

In order to describe how my first unplanned night in the jungle went, I need to describe the events preceeding that lead to it. Yesterday was a rainy day (have I said it rains here?) and it wasn't until about 2:30 in the afternoon that we could depart to make some flights. Even then we had to depart IFR (fly through the clouds) in order to get out to the jungle. We had 3 planned stops to make, with the farthest being about 60 miles from Shell. We had a great time taking our passengers and their cargo and picking up new ones along the way. The weather over the jungle was good and continually improving. At around 5:00pm we were ready to depart our last strip back to Shell, but the tower in Shell told us that the airport was closed due to low cloud ceilings and no visibility. To complicate things, the Shell airport closes at sunset (about 6:15pm) and our MAF rules also state that we cannot fly at night. So we had about an hour to get home, and our last stop was only about 55 miles from Shell, or about 27 minutes. That leaves plenty of time, but with marginal weather and the very likely chance that we would have to fly an instrument approach back into Shell (probably doubling our flight time to about 50-55 minutes) we opted to spend the night in the jungle before we did something stupid.

So from our "last" stop of the day called Molino we flew to a village called Makuma. Makuma is known as being the Holiday Inn of the jungle because of its "ammenities." Actually the history of Makuma is really awesome as there have been missioniaries living there for over 60 years, thus the living conditions are several notches above primitive. Our hosts have been living in Macuma for over 20 years working with the Ashuar tribe, and helping translate the Bible into another related language called Shuar. I failed to mention that another of our planes also ended up staying at Makuma since they couldn't return to Shell either. All told 3 pilots, and 7 passangers all stayed the night in Makuma. It is a very interesting place and the work happening there is FAR from over. The missionaries that live there are close to thier "expiration date" so any of you feeling the call to live in the jungle and work among the Indians should not ignore the call.

All told, it is VERY unlikely that this will be the last time I have to stay in the jungle over night far many reasons like weather, a planned trip, evangelism, something mechanical, ect. Staying out in what is still considered very wild still is very thrilling. The sounds at night, and the feeling of really being at the ends of the earth because of its isolation are very apparent and awesome. Being a little philosophical, I was able to feel my mortality and the fine line between life and death that we all hold so dear to, and we often forget exsists. Very unforgettable night. And yes, for those of you wondering, I did have a bed to sleep on, safe water to drink, and VERY good food due to the loving hospitality of our hosts.

We woke up this morning and flew the 25 minutes back to Shell to make it to the hangar for 8:00 prayer. I was reminded again of the power and importance of what we do, and those we help and serve. Just our 25 minute flight from Makuma to Shell takes 7 hours of driving and 8 hours of hiking through the jungle to reach it normally, or basically 2 days. How awesome it is that we can cross those barries with the speed and ease of an airplane!

Here is final approach to another airstrip in which I forgot the name. (They are really wierd names.) This one was short and slippery!

This is just a picture of an outbuilding close to where we park our airplanes in Makuma with the name Makuma on it. There are about 3-4 houses and other various out buildings on this particular part of the Makuma village where the missionaries live.