Have I Got a Story to Tell You!

Describing a ministry involving aviation can be challenging at times. If you live in a country like the United States, it is difficult to comprehend how important an airplane can be in a remote place.

One way to answer the questions people ask is to write stories describing my ministry as a pilot. Here are some questions people ask, with my cropped responses. If we ever do meet, ask, and I’ll tell you the stories!

Glenn, why use airplanes?

I could write about vast swamps; large rivers; soaring mountains; glaciers; sweltering heat; high humidity; rain forests; leeches; swarms of mosquitoes; malaria; rainy seasons; flying for hours without seeing a single house, road or person; crocodiles; how a 25-second flight can save a person six hours of hiking; dugout canoes; dugout canoes that sink; tribal warfare. But I don’t have space to go into detail.

How are the planes used?

To bring out this point, I’d write stories of what we carry in them, stuff such as live pigs, dead pigs, live fish, dead fish, dried fish, canned fish, cows, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, live crocodiles, dead crocodiles, bottled gas, gas in drums, rocking chairs, bows and arrows, pipes, cement, pianos, boats, boat motors, refrigerators, chain saws, sheet metal, skeletons, medicine, food, books, money, spears, motorcycles, and yes, the proverbial kitchen sink.

You would be amazed at the people who fly in our planes: heads of state, former cannibals, church leaders, former cannibals who are church leaders (sorry, no former church leaders who are cannibals), missionaries, preachers, tourists, film crews, movie stars, students, grandmas and grandpas, Bible translators, language workers, doctors, nurses, carpenters, college professors, college students, college presidents, college administrators, shamans, soldiers, policemen, conservationists, scientists, ornithologists, proctologists, anthropologists, evangelists, evangelists’ wives, evangelists’ wives with arrow wounds, live people, dead people, and dead people who are still talking. That last one is a pretty good story.

What’s life like where you fly?

Life is not the same as it is back in my hometown of Dillon, South Carolina. You won’t hear many of my childhood friends tell stories about: standing at a church dedication and being the only one with clothes on, having friends who have eaten people, typhoid fever, a friend whose name means “smells like a frog,” dengue fever, church meetings where the topic of discussion is whether to forgive someone or kill him, living with no doctors around, vacations interrupted by tribal warfare, snakes (that should read, "really big snakes"), bugs, bats. The list goes on.

What are your frustrations?

Flying in Asia is different from flying in the United States. My headaches usually come from: flying with low fuel; flying in bad weather; flying with low fuel in bad weather; trying to keep an airline-type schedule with people who don’t wear watches; leaving the house at 4:30 a.m.; coming home at 5 p.m.; coming home crusty with sweat, sunburned and with a really bad case of helmet hair; not coming home; flying at treetop level; flying in narrow valleys; flying in turbulence; landing on steep strips; passengers who puke; passengers in pain; passengers who are dying; passengers who are dead (wasn’t my fault); muddy airstrips; pigs on the airstrip; people on the airstrip; horses on the airstrip.

What is your motivation, Glenn?

Here are the stories I like to write about: seeing excitement in the eyes of a missionary when I deliver mail from home, bringing in the first load of New Testaments for a people group, taking a translator in for his first visit to a village, bringing out a translator who has completed his work, getting someone to the hospital in time, flying at treetop level, flying in narrow valleys, flying in turbulence, landing on steep strips (Yes, these can be fun too!), seeing a child alive because of a flight I provided.

Yeah, I’ve got a lot of stories but not nearly enough space to write them. Which brings me to the greatest motivation for my ministry as a pilot—aviation speeds the gospel so that more may know Jesus. Next time I see you, ask me about it and I’ll tell you more.

—Glenn Grubb is a JAARS-trained pilot serving with our aviation partner YAJASI. He and his wife, Sharlene, have served with Wycliffe Bible Translators since 1987.