The start of a beautiful friendship
Exhilarating, mind blinding aviation. That's what I thought when I first took up the challenge of learning to pilot aircraft. "This will be the coolest thing in the world". I dreamt of dashing heroes casting themselves across the sky in fearless abandon. THIS,
this aviation thing
I wanted a piece of THIS. I wish I had known back in 1985 when I took my very first flying lesson just how engrossing and rapturous a skill I was beginning to acquire. I had not even begun to guess the extent of training or the depth of the rewards that lay ahead of me. In 1985 I was a factory worker, in a orange juice production plant in Bartow, Fl. I had taken a flight with my brother's friend from Houston, TX to Houma, LA a few years previously, and my brother's friend Aubrey encouraged me to take a hands-on approach to the situation. Aubrey allowed me to actually take command of the aircraft for a period of some several minutes. I was nervous and excited, and totally had no idea what in the world I was doing! I did manage to keep the shiny side up, and he even complimented me on my "skill". I was hooked, but didn't yet realize just how hooked I was.
I've never had a lot of money in my life. I have always been a "worker bee" you could say. Well fate, or the Higher Power, or God (call Him what you will, I call Him God) had plans for my butt, let me tell you. In 1985 I was sitting in the break room with a co-worker named Billy Finley and happened to share with him my desire to somehow learn to fly airplanes. Billy and I were working the night shift at Orange-Co, (the juice plant I mentioned in Bartow, Florida). Billy and I are both former Marines and there are no artifices, and few layers of societal nicety intertwined in our relationship. In other words, we have a no BS friendship. As our break ended and we got back to the daily grind at Orange-Co I thought nothing more about our conversation until I passed through the break-room a short while later. There, on the chalkboard as written: "Bartow Flying Service" and a phone number. It was a direct challenge as only could be issued between two good friends. In essence, Billy was saying "put up, or shut up". I stopped in at Bartow Flying Service when I got off of work the very next morning at 07:00am. I began a journey that has been more rewarding than I could possibly have imagined at that time. I intended to merely check out the situation and see what the cost would be and see if it was something that I could do. I did not realize at that moment that within the next half-hour I would step into the cockpit of the ubiquitous Cessna 152. Thats right, I actually flew on the morning I was only going to find out the scoop on this flying thing.
I was very fortunate that Billy had picked Bartow Flying Service, in Bartow, Florida for his challenge. The folks there run an excellent school with above average facilities. I worked hard and attained the level of Private Pilot, single-engine land certification, in about three months. I spent many of the first few years after becoming a pilot in the search for the elusive "perfect" airport lunch. Those of you who are certified pilots (student, private, or otherwise) realize that by that I mean I used lunch as the perfect excuse to rent an airplane and fly somewhere to eat.
Over the ensuing years of flying I discovered that I am totally addicted to this strange avocation. The avocation of piloting aircraft through the almost immaterial essence above terra firma, the air. I became so addicted to practicing this skill that many times I ran articles in the local paper to sell off my accumulated possessions so I could afford the next flight. The lessons weren't terribly expensive but being a worker bee on an hourly wage made each lesson a choice between luxuries. Each lesson required a small sacrifice that I never hesitated to make. I further accumulated flight hours and ratings to the point where I became a commercial pilot with an instrument rating.
Let's fast-forward to the year 1994. In the intervening years since those fledgling attempts in aviation several things occurred. I met and married my wife Carolyn, who is a professional pilot also. Carolyn and I moved to West Warwick, Rhode Island. My wife and myself became devout Christians and met two of our very best friends in life, Vinny and Cathy Castellani. Vinny at the time was the Pastor of the church we attended, and became a flight student of my wifes because of his interest in aviation. Since becoming Christians my wife and I always dreamt of using our skills in service to God's kingdom. We once shared our desire to use our aviation skills in service to our Lord with our Pastor, mentor, and best friend Vincent Castellani. "Vinny" has always encouraged our desire and since he also later became a pilot Vinny completely understands and supports us in our quest, the quest for further uses of our God-given talents in service to Gods kingdom. In life, if one thing remains certain it is the fact that nothing remains static, there is always change. Carolyn and I moved from West Warwick, RI where we were members of Vinnys church back to Galveston, TX. Vinny after completing his doctorate degree at Harvard University moved his family from the church in Rhode Island to accept a position as a professor at East Coast Bible College, in North Carolina, and then later to Athens, Tennessee. Over a period of those several years, we stayed in contact with Vinny and Cathy and they continued to encourage us in our goal. Vinny and Cathy had previously spent a long period of time dedicating themselves to missionary pursuits in Guatemala so they both encouraged Carolyn and I to pursue our dreams by dedicating ourselves to helping others in poorer countries with fewer facilities and infrastructures.
Our communication with Vinny and his family culminated with Vinny arranging a trip to Honduras so that Carolyn and I could see the type of necessary flying that still occurs in the poorer parts of the world. In the years between our brief stay in Rhode Island Carolyn and I continued to advance our career and ratings, so that I now fly the Hawker business jet for a living and Carolyn flys the Citation II and V. Carolyn and I both have earned the much-coveted ATP rating and several type-ratings are attached to our certificates.
Anyone who has ever taken a trip of this sort can well understand the logistical nightmare it may soon become. This trip was our very first of this sort and was exciting, and challenging, and rewarding. Upon our return from Honduras I sent a letter to our relatives describing our adventure. Here is that letter, in part:
Carolyn's last day at work was the 9th (for that week) she flew in the afternoon of the 9th , into San Antonio. I had spent the whole day doing laundry (does it EVER end?) and packing the rest of our trip clothes. I made sure I had my passport, clothes, compass, Global Positioning System gadget, cell phone charged, pocket PC charged, etc, etc, etc. These are wonderful gadgets. I simply could not do without them. I picked Carolyn up at the San Antonio airport at about 1:00pm on the 9th. Our plane was leaving out of Houston airport at 6:33am the next morning so we had to drive to Houston (Intercontinental Airport). We chose to make the drive to Houston because the cost of the tickets to Honduras was SO much cheaper leaving from there, as opposed to flying out of San Antonio. This cost-consciousness is a guiding tenet of what later became the organization of Casa de Servicio (Home of Service). Also, it is only a three-hour drive, so we figured "what the heck". Carolyn was able to get her ticket for free (roundtrip) because of accumulated airline mileage on American Airlines. My ticket cost $589.00 (roundtrip), which we thought was really not to bad. So I picked Carolyn up at San Antonio (SAT) airport at 1:00pm. Carolyn had packed prior to going into work that week, so her bags for Honduras were already packed and in the Toyota Tundra. I was suffering from a real bad chest cold, and felt like I could hardly move, so we agreed that Carolyn should drive to Houston while I tried to get some sleep. And that's the way it worked out. We had a hotel (Holiday Inn Express Intercontinental) booked on Beltway 8 east, north of the airport. We drove to the hotel, got checked in with no problems and went up to our room. I was feeling just a little bit better at this point (thank you Carolyn for driving!). We were both tired and kind of flaked out on the bed for a second as soon as we walked in the room. We called for a 3:45am wake up call (darned airlines want you to be there two HOURS before departure time). Just about that time, Carolyn says, "did you bring my ticket". My head snapped around like a power hitter's swing. I determined instantly that she was NOT kidding. I have to admit that a word slipped out of my mouth that is usually NOT associated with a Christian person. I regained control of myself fairly quickly and advised Carolyn to call the airline and explain what had happened. We got in touch with a real nice lady in customer service who assured us that is was no problem and there would be an "e-ticket" waiting for us at the counter in the morning. WHAT A RELIEF THAT WAS TO HEAR. We had arranged for a taxi to meet us in front of the hotel the next morning at 4:15am (arghh!). We got to the airport, checked in, checked our bags, and got through security in about 15 minutes. So we waited at the gate for about an hour and 45 minutes. Hey, no problem, at least we knew we had tickets, and were getting on the airplane! We were scheduled to fly to Miami International (where we were to meet our other adventurer, Vinny Castellani) and then to fly from Miami to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The trip went without a hitch from there on out. We met Vinny as planned in Miami at the gate, and landed (after overflying Cuba) at San Pedro Sula without any problems whatsoever. We were met at baggage claim by the fellow who was going to be our guide/pilot while we were there. His name is Jarley Hofstadt (you would think it would be pronounced "Harley" with the Latin American pronunciation, but it is actually pronounced like a "Yale" lock would be pronounced in Spanish i.e. "yawlay"). He is of Norwegian descent and he and his family have been missionaries in Honduras for the last six years.
Jarley "knew the ropes" and was able to expedite our passage through security at the airport. We pretty much just walked past security and right back out onto the airport ramp to put all our baggage into his Cessna 185. We had passed through immigration and customs prior to getting to baggage claim and were issued a temporary (30 day) visa for Honduras. We loaded up the Cessna 185 taildragger, and took off from San Pedro Sula, headed for La Ceiba, and then to Auas (LaSayba, and Ahwass). The C185 is a six-place single engine airplane. I rode in the front right seat, Jarley in the front left seat (his plane), Carolyn in the right middle seat, and Vinny in the left middle seat. Our baggage was in the belly cargo pod. This aircraft was not in new condition. It was obviously a workhorse and utilitarian aircraft. I didnt realize at the time just how important and useful a tool this venerable aircraft was. Airplanes are wonderful time machines. They save time by means of straight-line travel and speedy transport. The time this little airplane saves, in reality saves lives. Most of us in the more developed regions of the world consider an airplane a convenience (albeit an expensive one). The heroes of underdeveloped regions, those pilots with angels wings lodged deeply within their hearts, live a real life of caring and empathy for the people they live, work and interact amongst. We found ourselves very impressed with Jarleys mission in Honduras. He lives and works amongst very underdeveloped villages. In Jarleys, and other pilots like Jarleys care are many neighboring villages. All of these villages have existed for many years and life goes on without Jarleys intervention. The important thing is that with Jarley and people like Jarley devoting themselves to helping and caring and physically transporting these villagers, the actual lifespan of each village resident increases. Sick or injured people have a much higher chance of living through whatever catastrophe has overtaken them with Jarleys little time machine.
It was about an hour flight to the east to get to La Ceiba (our first stop). Jarley needed to stock up on some supplies while he was "in town". Jarley took us to the mall to exchange some dollars for Lempira (which is the monetary unit in Honduras, 16.2 lmps to 1 dollar). We exchanged about a hundred dollars each so we'd have some "walking around money" in the native currency. While Jarley was buying frozen chickens and stuff like that, we went to Applebee's restaurant. I know, I know, Applebee's is an American restaurant. But, it was that last little touch of home we needed to become acclimated. We had been told to be very careful of drinking ANY water while we were in Honduras unless it was bottled so we ordered our diet Coca Cola "sin hielo" (no ice). Jarley finished his business and met us at Applebee's. We got him a lemonade, and ordered a "to go" plate for his wife. Then we packed Jarley's stuff into the airplane at the La Ceiba airport and took off for Auas, which is where Jarley and his family live. The airport at La Ceiba was paved, but the strip at Auas is dirt. It is nice and long and plenty wide, although it could probably be a little smoother. They actually have a Czechoslovakian airplane (LET) that flys regular air service into Auas. We didn't find out about the air service until the next day actually. Jarley's wife Yngvil met us at the landing strip, which is actually almost in their back yard. Yngvil had their two boys with her, Tobias, and Benjamin. Tobias is three years old, and Benjamin is 11 months. The Hofstadts are a good looking and very nice family.
We got our rooms assigned to us (we WERE going to stay in the hospital, which is where most visitors stay, but there was a group of ten missionaries from Colorado already there, so we fortunate enough, and Jarleys family was persevering enough to allow us to stay in their house). We sat around and "jawed" for the rest of the evening. They only have electricity in Auas from 7:00am to 9:00am, and from 7:00pm to 9:00pm (that's when they turn the generator on). So we pretty much called it a night at 9:00pm when the lights went out. We took showers before the electricity went off so we could have a warm shower, which seemed an unusual consideration at the time. We had not truly learned jus how luxurious a warm shower could feel yet.
We had planned on getting up early the next day and visiting as many "bush" strips (landing sites) as we could possibly visit in a day. Jarley was cutting us a break and only charging us for whatever fuel we used in his airplane. This sort of gesture was common amongst missionary people. Whenever Jarley had to take a patient to a clinic, or had another emergency flight that left open seats in his airplane, we were welcomed to "come along" at no charge. At 6:30 the next morning we found that Jarley had to take a village councilman to Caqueria village on the northeastern coast of Honduras. We were able to "ride along" on this trip. Caqueria village has a 1400-foot dirt strip (we wouldn't see paved strips again for some time) which is very narrow and full of ruts. We landed nicely, dropped off the village councilman and looked around a bit. Every little village we landed at seemed to come already equipped with half naked little brown children who congregated at the airstrip to see what all the excitement was about. And not just children either. The adults would often hang around to see who or what was going on. Caqueria's most distinctive feature was that there were horses running around on the runway, and we had to rev the airplane engine a few times to get them to move off so we could takeoff. We didn't really go into the village at Caqueria, just looked around a bit, and took back off. It was interesting to see our first real village
.
We took off from Caqueria, and headed for a few other little villages. I can't name them all off-hand, but there were about eight villages we visited that first day. The two that stand out in my mind were RusRus, and Puerta Lempira. RusRus stands out because it was the smallest strip we flew into and had a twisty crooked approach.
We had to drop below the tree line into a sort of channel. The channel twisted to the right and then to the left so you could swoop around a big tree that was in the way. After navigating the channel, you dropped onto the 1100-foot strip. The strip was VERY rutted, and it had rained the previous day so there was standing water and mud which splashed up in a wall and drenched the C-185 as we slowed from our landing. We visited the clinic at RusRus, and saw the work they were doing on the Church. We met the headman of the village and the pastor of the church.
The inhabitants of RusRus are very nice people. Carolyn and myself learned rather quickly that our language skills needed development. In RusRus, and every other place we went they mostly spoke either Spanish, or Misquito Indian. So Carolyn and I were following along as best we could. (Our Spanish needs a LOT of improvement). Vinny learned to speak Spanish fluently during his missionary work in Guatemala, and Jarley speaks Spanish fluently. Carolyn and I very much appreciated Vinny and Jarleys help in understanding what was going on while we were there.
We left RusRus, and headed for Puerta Lempira which is a coastal community and a fairly big city. We walked about a mile to the town from the landing strip (dirt again, but in good repair). We visited the mission in Puerta Lempira and walked over to a local restaurant. Restaurant probably connotes a very different picture in your mind, than what was actually there. But the place appeared clean and the food was absolutely marvelous. Jarley asked the lady if she had lobster (coastal community, remember) and she says (in Spanish of course) grilled, garlic, fried, or smoked. We all liked the sound of that. So we had fresh lobster for lunch. After lunch we took a walk around Puerta Lempira and strolled out onto the pier (very low pier, and about three feet wide with no handrails). We walked back to the mission and talked to the hermanas and hermanos (sisters and brothers) there for awhile. Jarley received a couple of letters to deliver in his ongoing travels. It may be interesting to note here that a letter in the outlying villages of Honduras is different than what we are accustomed to seeing in the United States. The letters that Jarley took possession of where simply sealed envelopes with a persons name on them and a village name.
We took off from Puerta Lempira, and headed back to Auas. We had dinner with Jarley and his family and discussed tomorrow's plans. In discussions with Jarley, we decided to make a visit to a couple of small villages that no one had ever been to before. The experienced missionaries among us called them an "unreached people group". The plan was to fly to a village called Wampusirpi, land there and hire a canoe to transport us upriver to Pimienta, Krausirpi, Krautara, Yapuauas and back to Wampusirpi. It is a two-day trip, if we rush it. We packed the evening before by taking foodstuffs, and mosquito nets, and sleeping pads and drinking water and such as that. Everything went exactly according to plan. We heard on the radio that there was a Cuban doctor that was at Wampusirpi that would wait for us with his 40 horsepower boat motor if we could get to Wampusirpi early in the morning, and if we would pay for the gas we could use it to get upriver and look around when we got there. So we planned on an early departure (getting up at 4:00am to 5:00am was common every day we were there). We took off early the next morning and flew into Wampusirpi. We landed at the dirt strip and visited some missionaries who were there named Scott and Dianne. Scott is a veterinarian, and Dianne is his wife.
Scott and Dianne have set up a system of using the villagers to make necklaces out of native seeds. The villagers string the seeds for necklaces and bracelets. We all bought some of them of course. The villagers get the money except for one dollar out of each sale. Scott and Dianne use that bankrolled dollar to buy cows. Each family that participates in the project gets a cow. The cow is like a savings account to the villagers. If ever something happens where the villager's family needs money, they can sell the cow. It is a good program because the villagers are working for themselves and not just being "given" anything. Apparently it is a big problem among villagers to help them to be self-sufficient. It is a bad thing to do to just "hand over" stuff to the villagers. They are not lazy people but, like anyone, they will do as little as they need to to get by. This program helps to make them self-sufficient, instead of just teaching them to rely on handouts from gringos. Scott and Dianne sell the necklaces and bracelets in La Ceiba, and other places.
So we talked to Scott and Dianne and the group at their house for awhile, and then met up with Dr. Alejandro, the Cuban doctor and went down to the river. Now I know that Cubans are communists, and have no real understanding of how to make their citizens free, and happy, but this doctor was just great! I do not think it is a bad thing to see people for who they are, and what they personally represent to the underprivileged people they help. It is easy under these circumstances to overlook the political differences and ideologies of the country they are from.
The river is the Patucha River. It is about a mile walk from the airstrip to the river. We paid about a hundred dollars for gasoline for the canoe, and loaded up and headed on our way. Dr. Alejandro is a heck of a nice guy., and really helps a lot of different villages out by visiting their clinics. It was a LONG canoe ride. The sun was blistering hot. The seats were very uncomfortable. The seats are actually not seats. The canoe was about 30 feet long, and had no seats of any sort. The canoes are just hollowed out logs that have been painted really. So the villagers took sticks (about 4 inches in diameter) and wedged them into the canoe for us to sit on. I don't know if you've ever sat on a 4-inch stick for four hours, but MAN that gets old quick. We really enjoyed the scenery every step of the way though. We dealt with the uncomfortable seating as best we could. We had two boatmen aboard, so that when we hit the shallows, they could "pole" us through them. We also had five native villagers aboard that needed to be dropped off at different places. The canoe is only wide enough to seat one abreast, so we were all lined up in single file aboard it.
That is where the journal ends and our own journey begins. Carolyn and Vinny and I have started a non-profit organization called "Casa de Servicio" which is dedicated to training missionary pilots, and used to transport missionaries and villagers to and from clinics and remote locations. The five-hour canoe trip that we had to endure was nothing compared to the length of the walk that some missionaries must take to reach some of these remote villages. The air trip to Krausirpi is merely twenty minutes. The young lady that lost her child while we were in the village of Krausirpi would most likely not have lost her child had there been a dirt-strip runway in her village. There is a sense of urgency in taking care of these matters for us, we know that impact those little strips of dirt have on the village, and the health and welfare of the inhabitants. We have dedicated our organization to supporting those heroes of faith and service. Our organization, Casa de Servicio, exists to enable them to more efficiently do their jobs. We are a non-profit, non-denominational volunteer outfit that is organized under IRS code 501(C) 3. So any donations that you care to share with us is completely tax-deductible. Please visit our website at http://www.casadeservicio.org to share in our mission, or feel free to write or call for more information. This, for us is the essence of aviation at it's very finest.
