I loved flying Ecuadorian jungle kids. They reveled in life, not yet acquiring their elders’ stoicism. At the village airstrips, girls moved in tight, giggling knots. Boys ganged, separated, then ganged again at each new wonder. They spoke whisper soft, peering, pointing, touching tentatively, watching me for any sign. In the midst of adult conversations, […]
Jim Manley served 17 years in Ecuador as a pilot, radio tech and program manager. He is now assigned to Learning Technologies serving at MAF Headquarters in Nampa, Idaho.
I stand at the plane’s open door. My helmet hangs in the cockpit, its cables dangling to panel connectors. My navigation notes lay on the clipboard over […]
A Shuar man holds the first complete Shuar Bible in Makuma, Ecuador – Aug. 2010. Photo Credit by Chad Irwin.
Revenge cycles tortured Shuar Indian lives for centuries. The father of a sick child asked the witch doctor only one question, “Who put this curse on my son?” Then dad and friends stalked and […]
I inhabited the sky that day. Jesus let me play with clouds, soar with eagles and race the wind. He showed me sights that multitudes dreamt of, many yearned for, but few realized. Clearly He cared enough to grant my deepest desires.
So why was I angry?
A few minutes before, I was cruising west, high in […]
That Christmas morning I was off duty. Mike listened to the radio for emergency calls. I sat across the road, adorned tree behind me, front window view before me. In the distance a towering storm moved slowly across the Amazon Jungle. Wind lashed treetops. Rain drenched leaf, ground and animal. Monolithic, powerful, and oblivious to […]
Airplane that flew the generator into Zappallo Grande
As the small pickup backed towards the plane, my confidence wavered. The truck’s rear springs compressed completely. The tires rubbed wheel wells at every bump in our grass ramp. In its bed a diesel powered generator hunched like a docile beast whose size and weight substituted […]