As the wheels touched down, coming to a stop on a strip of red stained mud in the outskirts of Yei in South Sudan, I was taken aback by the gaze of a stone-faced man with charcoal gray skin, standing what seemed to be a mile tall with an iron warship-like physique. We stared at each other, my eyes fixed, with intrigue, on someone created no different than me, but living an extremely different life in a land completely foreign to mine.
My mind shifted, then my eyes, to my backpack I had squeezed between my shins. I unstrapped my seat belt and pulled myself away from the back seat of our single propeller Cessna; cautiously I plotted my way down, aiming for the driest patch of soggy earth. Taking a step for the first time onto the soil that I had, at the age of six, said I would one day embrace, felt invigorating. A surge of energy ran through my body as I said to myself, “You’re here. Twenty-five years in the making, but you’re here.”
A tan Toyota Land Cruiser, with its hood ornament hanging on by a thread, pulled up and out jumped two of my new comrades that I would be working with for the next six months: Mr. Maurice and Lance Klepp. Lance’s parents, Dennis and Lilly, are the founders of Harvesters Reaching The Nations in South Sudan. Feeling in 2001 that God was asking them to sell everything and give it to the poor, they started a journey that has since saved the lives of hundreds of South Sudanese children.
“Welcome to South Sudan!” announced Lance as a smirk came sneaking out of his thin but full beard only missing the moustache. I would later come to find out that it would have been thicker and wild like mine, but his wife didn’t approve. Then, Mr. Maurice, a tall and thin Kenyan man, greeted me with a smile and a handshake, and in an accent that is to be envied for its grace and melodious rhythm he cordially chirped, “Good to see you again, sir.” Grasping his shoulder as we headed back towards the plane, I thanked him once again for the opportunity to come and serve alongside of him.
I had met Maurice and his wife Susan a few months earlier during their first visit to the States. They stopped through Kansas City to share stories, their heart, and their gratefulness with a church that is a large support base for the kids and the campus here, in another town up north named Terekeke, and most recently in the Rhino Refugee Camp in Uganda, which is home to nearly 1.5 million Sudanese men, women, and children who have fled their homes.
My enormous smile dimmed slightly, becoming much more serious in nature, as I headed toward the few men that exited a building, joining the war machine I had initially laid eyes on. They were dressed from head to toe in bedraggled camouflage with a South Sudan flag patch resting boldly on their left sleeve, bicep high, which took some of the attention away from the AK-47 that was being wielded over shoulder by each of the men. This image brusquely reminded me that my smile and kindness were welcome, but there were two sides that were still very much at war, and the privilege that I had been born into, was not packed on this trip.
After skipping over large puddles to gain hold of multiple packages of brittle eggs and frozen chickens that had been additionally stuffed tightly into the back of the plane with our bags, we loaded the SUV and headed to the terminal, a cement building no larger than a back yard tool shed, with a patio and awning for those stuck waiting hours for the opportunity to take off. Flight delays are not only for the western world. In remote areas like this, almost anything can hold up your flight for hours, and that’s if the plane you are expecting shows up at all.
Earlier that morning we ran in to this issue in Uganda, as low clouds and heavy rain moved in just before we were going to fly out. Unlike the wait in Yei, which is long and void of any entertainment besides that in nature, we were able to wait out the long storm in the comfortable seats of a nearby hotel café. As I sat drinking cup after cup of black coffee, watching steam rise up out of my mug as the rain fell, I thought of all those in my life who invested so much of their time, energy, and resources helping me to reach that moment. Tears of joy and gratefulness filled my eyes as I thought of God’s goodness in my life, bringing me through so much, faithfully directing my steps as I plotted and planned in my heart.
I returned my phone to my pocket after texting and emailing thank you notes and then asked Ron, the pilot-mechanic helping us that day, “In all of your time as a pilot, what is the most amazing thing you’ve had happen where God directly intervened in the midst of your normal work?” Ron told me earlier that he grew up as a missionary kid in Sudan; his father was a pastor that traveled around planting Bible schools throughout the nation, so I figured there had to be some miraculous stories locked away in his memory vault.
Most often when I ask people to share stories of their work, they shy away from the long version, but Ron dove right in, highlighting with much depth. “I always loved planes and flying, but I didn’t think I could be a pilot and still be a missionary,” he began. “Also, I didn’t think my grades would be good enough to get me into flight school. So, in order to stay around planes, I did the closest thing I could to flying, I became an aircraft mechanic.”
“You didn’t originally start out as a pilot?” I responded with intrigue.
“I thought I would just be a mechanic,” he proceeded and then paused, checking a message from our contact. “Still heavy rain there, but they’re saying the clouds are heading south,” he mentioned to our pilot.
“Where was I?” he asked.
“You thought you were just going to be a mechanic.” I reminded him.
“Oh, yeah, I was just going to be a flight mechanic. Well, this part deep inside of me still wanted to be a missionary, so I enrolled at Moody Bible College to gain more knowledge of Jesus and what it meant to follow Him. In that process, for some reason I took a test for their missionary pilot program, and the professor came to let me know I scored so well that he wanted me to enroll in the flight school. I knew I didn’t have the money, but when I was home on holiday, I told my parents about the program. I figured it wasn’t possible and would never happen, but I half halfheartedly and with little faith, told God, ‘If you provide, I’ll do it.’ A week or so after that, two old missionary women knocked on my parents’ door. They said that they had been informed about my father’s work (because of his friendship with the Sudanese president, he was the only Christian pastor at that time able to plant bible schools). They said they were going to give him five thousand dollars a month, and also wanted to know if any of his children were in mission work because they wanted to support them as well.”
Ron went on to tell me that his father explained his position with the flight school, and they told him that all of his schooling would be covered. Amazed and confused at all of this, he inquired how two old missionary women could do such things. They shared that they had been put in charge of the tithe money for the Tropicana Juice Company.
I laughed in disbelief at the incredible way God had provided for him and his family. I was about to chime in with another question when Ron started again, “Well,” sitting up and looking off into the distance as if finding himself back in the cockpit, “one time I was flying solo, and my oil pressure gauge shot from its normal level, straight over to zero. No warning lights or anything, tack just went straight over to zero. By the book, I had four minutes of flight time before my engine would give out and seize up. As I hastily scoured my maps, I told God that I needed at least twelve minutes to reach the nearest strip I had found, which was located in the Congo. Mind you, at the time, they were at war. As I started my descent, I saw huts ablaze and tracer fire heading in all different directions, so I pulled up and, for the second time, pleaded with God for twelve more minutes to get to the next closest strip.”
I interrupted him: “What were you thinking?”
“As far as I can remember, not a lot. I just kept praying, asking God to get me there. So I flew on to the next location and as I aimed the plane down toward the strip, I was again not able to land as the grass had become so overgrown that I knew I would be wrapped up in it and roll the plane.”
“So you were now twenty-four minutes into what should have only been the four which was allotted?” I asked, trying to clarify what seemed impossible.
“Yes, I wasn’t sure what was going on. The thought left my mind that God was somehow saving my life, and I now figured I was having an instrument issue.” He expounded that it didn’t make sense to be flying that long without it being some problem with an instrument. “I radioed to my team and told them my original flight plan was back in order as it must have been some strange failure with the gauge.”
“That’s ridiculous and amazing! And you obviously made it,” I chuckled, thinking the story was ending there.
“Oh, the story isn’t finished,” he smiled. “I flew twenty-eight more minutes to my original airstrip, and as soon as I landed, the engine locked up on me and black smoke came pouring out of the motor. It was toast.”
“No way! That’s insane!” I exclaimed while shaking my head, humored by what a crazy event that had to be.
“The best part is, it’s the same plane you’re flying out on today . . . With a new engine of course,” he assured me with a smirk.
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