Friend of the Wind

I was sitting in a DC-10, about to take off at Los Angeles Int'l Airport, with my pregnant wife beside me, holding our one-year-old on her lap. I was on my way to the other side of the world to be a bush pilot in Southeast Asia. I didn't know that in the next 17 years... -- I'd crash in airplanes three times -- five of my fellow pilots would crash and die -- we'd go through a record-breaking earthquake -- we'd go through two civil wars -- my 10-year-old son would fall out of a Jeep and fracture his skull -- two of my colleagues would be killed in a hail of arrows -- I'd take my wife home in a wheelchair -- I'd discover a WW2 plane wreck with 29 skeletons, and be the first one to investigate it on a mountain side at 14,000 feetI also didn't know that in those 17 years... -- I would solve the mystery of what happened to a Royal Australian Air Force cargo plane, that would bring closure to many next-of-kin -- I'd evacuate 36 people from a war zone in one flight in a 12-passenger airplane -- God would open a slit a in the clouds 50 miles long so I could escape from a hopeless weather trap -- I'd escape many close calls that were scarier than crashing -- I'd overcome an inferiority complex from a negative childhood and learn to be leader -- I'd see a dozen independent mission agencies unite as one to get a major job done -- I'd pick up a rebel leader and take him to surrender to the military, thus bringing peace to a large district -- I'd meet the finest, but hidden, servants in the history of the church -- a major campaign in the age-long war between good and evil would be won -- I would be part of larger team that would evangelize Papua, IndonesiaThat's why I wrote this memoir.