The Day JAARS Began
Above: William Cameron Townsend, left, greets another man in front of a JAARS aircraft.
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).
In 1947, my husband, Cameron, and I left our missionary training camp in southern Mexico to visit friends in Mexico City. Word was sent by radio of our expected time of arrival in Mexico City, and a crowd had gathered at the airport to meet us.
But we never arrived.
A young, inexperienced national pilot came to pick us up in a small chartered plane. Cam and I, with our little baby Grace reclining in a straw basket, climbed into the plane. It was a tight squeeze.
There wasn’t any extra room—even for a diaper bag. I lined the bottom of Grace’s little Mexican basket with a layer of diapers about six inches deep. Little did I realize how important this space-saving maneuver would turn out to be.
We went bouncing down the runway, waving as we passed by our wonderful new friends at Jungle Camp. Then we lifted off. The pilot turned the plane, but too soon. Without enough altitude, the tail of our plane hit the top of a tree on the edge of a small ravine.
We felt ourselves falling for what seemed like hours, but in a matter of seconds the nose of the plane hit the bank on the other side of the ravine. For me, all went black.
In the excitement, the pilot forgot to turn off the fuel valve. Gasoline dripped on us, just missing Grace’s eyes. Cameron feared the plane might catch fire, and he handed little Grace to a man who had been plowing a nearby field.
Those who just moments earlier had been waving a fond goodbye to us now ran frantically to reach the scene. The Lord had graciously sent a medical doctor that year to be in charge of our Jungle Camp, and soon he arrived, little black satchel in hand.
I regained consciousness by then. As I looked down at my ankle and saw my foot dangling by just a bit of flesh, my first thought was, I'll never walk again. I saw blood streaming from Cam’s hip.
With great difficulty, our rescuers pulled Cam from the demolished plane. They quickly cut down two small, straight trees and made a stretcher to carry us back to Jungle Camp. I was taken first, then the still-unconscious pilot.
As Cameron waited for the stretcher, alone with God, JAARS was born in his mind.
For years he had dreamed of using airplanes and radios to reach inaccessible areas. This crash made him determined to see it happen. To reach all remaining language groups, we needed to have our own well-trained pilots and mechanics.
During our long stretch of recuperation, Cameron’s plans took shape. When we returned to Peru later that year, Cam learned that the United States government had a surplus amphibian plane for sale in Peru. It was a Grumman Duck, and the price was $3,500.
However, we didn’t have any money.
The Lord led Cam to write three men in the United States to tell them of our need for the plane. Two wrote back saying they would pray about it, but the third sent a telegram with the good news that this was a direct answer to prayer for him.
He was the owner of a department store in Santa Ana and had been enduring labor problems, which could have been quite costly. He promised that if God would straighten out his problems without an employee strike, he would give God the money he saved. The Lord had just seen him through this crisis, and the money saved was exactly $3,500.
The JAARS fleet began with that one plane 50 years ago, but has now grown to 27 aircraft.
We began with just one pilot, Betty Greene, on loan from Mission Aviation Fellowship. Miss Greene, in the Grumman Duck, became the first woman to pilot an airplane across the Andes.
Today, our aviation personnel are working in many countries serving the needs of Bible translation.
Now, read Romans 8:28 again: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
The Lord worked out good from a plane crash. What could have been a tragedy instead inspired the beginning of JAARS.
—Elaine Townsend was the wife of William Cameron Townsend, who founded JAARS, Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL International. Throughout her life, Elaine shared her husband's dream of seeing the Bible translated into every language. In July 2007, at age 91, she was taken home to be with the Lord.
This story has been adapted from the original, which was written by Elaine in 1997.
