No Longer Make-Believe
Above: Jeff Ron during a cross-country training flight.
“Sentani Tower, Papa Kilo Juliet Alpha Alpha is three-two miles, seven thousand, ready for descent.”
Hearing that familiar, confident voice on the tower frequency brings a warm smile to my face ... and some great memories to mind. Could it be that this same voice belonged to the nervous young man who white-knuckled his way through his first training flight just a few years back?
As Jeff Ron Sohilait’s first instructor, I can now admit that that first “all-over-the-sky” flight shook my faith in the whole endeavor. Would I really ever see this “youngster” command a high performance STOL (short take-off and landing) aircraft in the rugged interior of Papua?
But three weeks later, with my faith fully restored, I stepped out of that Cessna 172 and allowed this young man to fly the airplane away ... alone ... on his first solo. Watching from the edge of the JAARS Townsend Field, the white knuckles were now my own.
Solos are now routine for Jeff Ron as he flies over vast expanses of the Papuan rain forest—and if his steady radio voice is any indication, I don’t think there’s a white knuckle in sight.
His sister, Elsye, recalls her younger brother converting their furniture into his own make-believe Cessna, making airplane noises and dreaming of being a pilot. Though an “outsider,” Jeff Ron quickly became accepted by the local Lani kids. He grew up throwing pint-sized spears through grass hoops with the other children—perhaps his first exposure to the laws of physics and aerodynamics.
As a teenager, Jeff Ron left the isolation of the mountains for the better education offered on the coast. Finishing high school in 1992, he made several attempts to get into flight training programs, all of them unsuccessful. With his childhood dream crushed, Jeff Ron began to search for meaning. Like so many others, that search led him to Christ. He began looking to God for direction in his life, and it wasn’t long in coming: in 1994 God opened the doors for Jeff Ron to work in the hangar at YAJASI, a JAARS aviation partner.
He proved to be a quick study, and his mastery of things mechanical was remarkable. I recall coming upon one of our experienced mechanics standing over Jeff Ron and shaking his head. The mechanic had taught him the art of welding, and it was now obvious that the student had surpassed his teacher—who looked on with a mixture of chagrin and admiration.
By 2002, the YAJASI Flight Training Program began, weaving technical training into a mentoring and discipleship model with the goal of preparing committed missionaries who excelled as pilots. It obtained a Cessna 172, which YAJASI and JAARS modified to a taildragger configuration specifically to prepare Jeff Ron for the Helio, also a taildragger aircraft.
Working with YAJASI field pilots and the JAARS training department staff as instructors and mentors, Jeff Ron earned his Private and Commercial Pilot Licenses and his Instrument Rating in the four sessions of the Flight Training Program. Jeff Ron then stepped up to the challenge of learning to fly the Helio Courier. This entailed about 200 hours of dual instruction and closely supervised solo flights.
The day the evaluation concluded, Jeff Ron called me and read the team’s consensus: he had passed!
That triumphant moment seemed like the end of a long journey, but in many ways, Jeff Ron’s story is just beginning. Many opportunities await him to gently love and pray for hurting people in the villages to which he flies.
If history is any indicator, in a few years there will be little boys running around the interior of Papua named Jeff Ron, because his airplane rescued their mothers from a labor gone wrong. He’ll drop food and medicine to people living in famine zones. He’ll transport kids to school, and the crops to market, which will pay the kids’ tuition.
He’ll help open new airstrips, giving communities access to healthcare, education, and economic development. He’ll fly teams of doctors to areas hard hit with epidemics. Linguists, literacy workers, AIDS patients, government officials, and tribal warriors will trust him to safely navigate across the trackless rainforest and rugged mountain passes of Papua.
Welcome to the brotherhood of missionary pilots, Jeff Ron. You are my brother, my friend, and my peer. My prayer for you is that you will fully embrace the life-changing joy of demonstrating God’s love for the isolated peoples of Papua.
This story originally appeared in "Flight Plan," the Summer 2009 issue of Rev. 7.
