stories

30 knots…50 knots…70 knots… The Cessna Caravan’s Air Speed Indicator kept climbing as she sped
down the runway, gathering speed for takeoff. At the controls, AIM AIR pilot Ken pulled back on the yoke
and the plane lifted off into the cold morning air.

AIM AIR pilot Joe Batchelder glanced at the GPS display on the dashboard in the cockpit of his Cessna 208 Caravan. Nearly three-quarters of an hour into the flight from Nairobi, the screen showed that he was around forty miles from his destination- a region in Eastern Kenya.

Checklist: Clothes for a week, shoes, socks, water filter(in case they don’t have clean water), laptop, memory cards, cameras, lenses, batteries, battery banks(in case they don’t have power), hammock, tent, sleeping bag, toiletries… check. All packed to go and capture content.

Recently Sudan tumbled headlong into chaos. Violence and political instability escalated rapidly, driving organizations to evacuate their people. Compelled by the love of neighbor and the sake of the gospel, these are people who have chosen to go to a place that is already quite difficult, even without a violent civil war erupting overnight.

“Where can my guys get discipled or mentored?” The question, posed by my friend in the arid northern Kenya county of Marsabit, resonated with me. As an aviation ministry, we often feel like we have one foot planted in the bustling, busy, and blooming city of Nairobi. Our other foot is in the heat, dust, and scarcity of northern or eastern Kenya, and beyond.

Sunlight slowly spills over the horizon. My fingers brush over this Cessna U206F’s dented aluminum, the signs of many years of affliction from gravel runways that the plastic anti-abrasion tape cannot hide. This plane, 5Y-SIL, was the oldest 206 in AIM AIR’s fleet. After one more flight to haul 400 kilograms of supplies up to the Boma plateau in South Sudan, she would move down to Nairobi for inspection.

I’ve filled the snug airplane cabin with mothers holding babies on their laps, mountain bikes, medicine boxes, or even a V6 boat engine before. For every flight, each item is weighed to ensure my total load is within the weight limit of the airplane – usually around half a ton of cargo and people. Many times the cargo weighs more than expected, and some items have to be removed from the airplane to await a future flight. Fortunately, this was not the case today. Flowers and ice cream weighed very little. The challenge was carefully storing and loading them so they arrived in excellent condition.

Boots on the sand, I pulled my cell phone out of its pocket. I called the chief pilot to let her know everything was OK. Then I called Breanna. "Just wanted to let you know we've had an issue with the airplane here in northern Kenya. Everyone's OK, but we probably...

Early on Monday morning I headed to the airport with more questions than answers. Would South Sudan allow me to enter their airspace since they started restricting international flights the previous Friday? Would the UN-controlled airstrip at Doro be open for me to pull out the SIM team? Would any of the passengers have symptoms?