Our pilot, Gary Lewis, opened the throttle of the small single-engine
airplane, and we surged forward as we bumped along the grassy strip.
With a final shudder, the airplane lifted into the air, cleared the
jungle treetops at the end of the runway and began to climb, leaving the
village of Paruima, Guyana, behind us.
As the village dropped away, John and I wondered whether we would ever
see this place again or fellowship with the gentle people we had come to
appreciate so much during our four short weeks of service. The plane
continued to climb. Soon, the dense jungle spread out beneath us like an
endless green carpet interrupted only by small patches of savannah,
mountain outcroppings and the Mazaruni River, a thin, dark ribbon woven
through it all.
The monotonous drone of the engine quickly lulled our daughters, Abigail
and Alissa, to sleep. Not long after that, I also succumbed to
drowsiness. Then Gary’s voice woke me. “We’re at 8,000 feet and still
haven’t reached the top of these clouds. I still don’t see any way
through them. We better start to pray.” The plane was circling and
climbing. “I’ve already started,” John replied, himself a pilot in his
younger days.
As the plane continued to labor upward and the wall of clouds in front
of us mushroomed, our earnest prayers ascended. “9,500 feet, and we’re
nowhere near the top,” Gary reported. “Wait a minute, there’s a break in
the clouds developing over there. We will have to try to get through.”
As we slipped through that canyon in the clouds and emerged on the other
side, we praised God for His deliverance.
As the challenge of raising financial support mounts up before us like
those towering clouds, I recall God’s wonderful deliverance in the skies
of Guyana and His promise: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also
will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).
