“Push your feet against mine when we take off. You’ll need to brace yourself.”

It was time to board the Evangel. Back then, as newcomers, we didn’t know of its fame and capabilities. Neither did we know that Ron was renowned as a pilot and, together with the plane, he was the stuff of legends.

While Dave and the Rush guys, Loren and Doug, hauled our bags to the tarmac, Laura and I performed our guard ritual until all the luggage sat on the ground next to the plane.

Beside it, under the wing, stood Karen and Matt, who had a firm grip on his Winnie the Pooh. I snapped a picture.

We watched Ron weigh each piece of luggage and push it into place in the little twin-engine, strapping the load securely. He asked us our weight, recorded it in his paperwork, and suggested Dave sit in the co-pilot’s seat.

Ron helped the rest of us climb into the cargo-passenger section where we strapped ourselves onto free-standing, hand-made, padded, square seats, sitting sideways with our backs against the fuselage, facing one another.

Ron climbed into the pilot’s seat, started the engines, checked the plane’s functions, contacted the tower, and taxied the small aircraft onto the runway, revving the engines.

Ron on the right

Sitting opposite me, Loren hollered above the roar, “Push your feet against mine when we take off. You’ll need to brace yourself.”

In one throbbing, thunderous minute, we were on our way to Lomalinda, twenty-five minutes away. Ron flew low above the llanos, one of the world’s most lush tropical grasslands, an immense savanna in the Orinoco River basin.

Except for several white houses with red tile roofs, everything below was green—light green grassy hills and what looked like broccoli: dark green tropical trees crowded along streams or in swampy areas.

Our flight took us over grazing cattle, an occasional campesino (small farm), buildings gray from age and weather, and cattle paths and dirt roads like curly orange ribbons.

“Look down there,” Loren pointed, “that’s the Ariari River. That means we’ll be in Lomalinda in a few minutes. Get your camera ready!”

I held my breath, my mind a-jumble, my heart pounding in my ears. We would soon glimpse our new home, that vague, hazy, foreign place we’d wondered about for a year and a half. (From Chapter 5, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)