The Evangel, a twin-engine Proverbs 31 lady

With skinny dogs and chickens at our feet and a short row of low, humble buildings behind us, we stood looking over a cyclone fence.

There, on a pocky tarmac, rested the legendary blue and white twin-engine, The Evangel, and pilot Ron McIntosh had just smiled and introduced himself to us. (If you missed last week’s post, click on “I heard a loud rush of air and I realized I’d been holding my breath.”)

Our first look at the Evangel

Our young family was about to take our first flight on a small plane, and we were headed into a wild, open, steamy territory.

Budd Davisson wrote that The Evangel was “the brunt of many jokes: ‘looks like it’s still in its shipping crate,’ or ‘has the grace and lines of a toolbox.’ And every one of those remarks is true. . . . It was easy to see why it had given rise to so many snickers. It’s so square it would have looked just right with gallon paint cans for spinners.”

Budd wrote of her “outright cubism,” adding that the Evangel “inspires the comic in all of us.”

But just like a Proverbs 31 woman, the Evangel’s worth didn’t depend on her charm or beauty—which, by the way, can be deceitful and vain (Proverbs 31:30). A Proverbs 31 woman is “a woman of valor. A courageous woman. A woman of strength and dignity” (Lysa TerKeurst; Proverbs 31:25).

The same can be said of the Evangel.

The Evangel (Howie Bowman photo)

Like many a good Proverbs 31 woman who arises before sunrise (verse 15), the Evangel and her crew at the hangar often got up when it was still dark, getting her ready to lift off within minutes of sunrise at 6 every morning. (On the equator, the sun always rises within minutes of 6 a.m. and sets within minutes of 6 p.m.)

And hundreds of times every year, the Evangel opened her hands (doors) to the poor and reached out to the needy (verse 20). I wrote this in Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir: 

“Reminiscent of Indiana Jones, sometimes our legendary pilots got calls from desperate villagers asking not to find a mystical stone, but young ladies in the jungle fleeing from guerrillas, or Wen Jones fighting for his life after a snake bite.

“They flew high-ranking elected officials, military top brass, ambassadors, and illiterate semi-naked native men and women; new young Bible translators—some excited, others scared nearly out of their wits; hopeful people, discouraged people, faith-filled people, broken people; confused people, committed people, exhausted people, tenacious people.

“They flew happy and sad people, young and old, sick and healthy, and women about to give birth; dying friends, grieving friends, and dead friends.” (From Chapter 33, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir) 

A Proverbs 31 woman is “different than the majority of women in the world,” and the Evangel, too, was a uniquely designed gal, a most capable lady, a woman of excellence worth far more than jewels (verse 10). Those who knew her and loved her arose and called her blessed (verse 28).

A Proverbs 31 woman doesn’t need to be beautiful. Or perfect.

The Evangel didn’t need to be beautiful or perfect, either.

Both exist to serve God and help others.

Nothing could be finer!

“I heard a loud rush of air and I realized I’d been holding my breath”

We'd been waiting for two hours at the Villavicencio airport with our traveling companions and new co-workers, the Rushes, when they spotted the blue and white Evangel in the sky.

Within minutes, Ron McIntosh, our pilot, strode across the pock-marked tarmac to meet us. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Bad weather in southern Colombia forced me down.” We’d soon learn that pilots, travelers—all of us—wrote our schedules in pencil, not ink, because of weather and iffy communications.

Our first look at The Evangel

So there our family stood with our first four Lomalinda friends: Ron, Loren, Laura, and Doug. We were off to a great start.

At the time, we didn’t realize Ron had a reputation for his exceptional skills in challenging circumstances and that, day by day, he was living a story that many still talk about all these years later.

Budd Davisson, an accomplished airplane guy himself, wrote one of the most enjoyable articles I’ve ever read, a piece about Ron and the legendary Evangel. Budd’s article, “Evangel 4500,” begins with him sitting next to Ron in the copilot’s seat as they approached a landing strip in the Amazon jungle:

“As we turned final, my heart nearly stopped because it was wedged solidly against the back of my teeth.

“We had the gear down and were pointed at this ridiculously tiny box canyon. It wasn’t actually a canyon, but it might as well have been because it was just a slit in the jungle and the trees on three sides were 60 feet high. What was scaring . . . me was that the whole ‘canyon’ was a little over 900 feet long, and we weren’t exactly flying a Super Cub.

“The sweat running down my legs was starting to pool in my boots. . . . 

“I figured the pilot, Ron McIntosh, knew what he was doing, but twin-engine airplanes just don’t land on airstrips like this one—not more than once anyway.

“We crept over the first row of trees and Ron slowly brought the throttles back and started to flare. . . .  I couldn’t take my eyes off the trees at the other end of the runway. I thought about my wife and child. I thought about the five bucks I owed a friend. 

“The trees were staring down on us as the tires thumped onto the runway, and I instinctively slid my feet up on the rudder pedals to help Ron smash the brakes to the floor.

“Then a crazy miraculous thing happened: We stopped moving. Just like that.

“The brakes helped a little, but even so, we hadn’t used more than two-thirds of what they laughingly called a runway.

“Then I heard a loud rush of air and I realized I’d been holding my breath. . . .

“Was I scared? I’d prefer to say pensive, but I’ll have to admit that I saw the Evangel 4500 do things that no twin-engine plane has a right to do.” (Click on this link to read more and see photos: “Evangel 4500” by Budd Davisson.)

Oh, what adventures awaited us!

What remarkable people God was giving us as friends!