Here's my 9/11 story. I was in the jungle, where were you?
I remember that day. We were in the jungle and had just completed a very intense medical clinic among the indians, both Ye'kwana and Sanema. We were hosting, in our jungle hut, two missionary families as well as 8 medical missionaries who had come on a short missions trip, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and dentists. Just some regular Christian folk trying to do some good for the poor and underprivileged of this world, as taught by our Lord.
The clinic ended on September 10th, and the 11th was travel day for the Americans to return, via 3 mission planes, to the town of Puerto Ayacucho where they would catch a flight to Caracas and then on to the US.
We awoke and had breakfast as planned and began the job of weighing everyone and their luggage to decide how best to disburse the weight among the three planes as we could only take off from our short airstrip with a limited cargo.
The first MAF plane arrived early as planned and the pilot came up to the house where we talked over the planned flights for the day. He and my husband then began to prep the flight for a cargo only flight. As he taxied to the end of our airstrip to prepare for take off, he placed his radio call into the mission base at Puerto Ayacucho for flight following. He slowly taxied back and began to walk up the hill towards our house.
He entered the house where we were all laughing and joking about our week. He was white and shaky and said," The US is under attack! Two planes have hit the Twin Towers and one has hit the Pentagon!"
We all stared at him in disbelief! How could this be? He said he needed to sit and get himself together before he tried to take off.
We all began talking. We had no TV, no radio, except the hamm radio, no way to find out any information.We called Puerto Ayacucho by radio to see if they had more news for us and were told of the plane in Pennsylvania. They also told us that all air traffic was closed down in the states. Our American friends became very uncomfortable when as they realized they could not get home!
I remember wondering how I could continue to feed so many people indefinitely...I put water on to boil for some pasta not knowing how many people I would need to feed or for how long.
The visitors became very upset at not being able to communicate with their family and friends and we decided to continue with the plan to fly them all to Puerto Ayacucho where they would at least be able to phone home.
As we waited for all the flights, one of the visiting doctors, a Lebanese-American, listening to all of our consternation at this vile attack on our country, said, "Welcome to the real world!" Her comment was not well received by all at the table, but she had a point! She told us how as a child growing up in Lebanon, her family said good bye every morning not knowing if they would ever see one another again. She was raised as a Christian in Lebanon and terror was a part of her daily life. She said we, Americans, needed to ,"Grow up!" She was right.
We ended up having 5 planes land and take off from our strip that day. I remember Clint looking at me as the last one took off and saying, "Do you realize we just had more flights here than in the entire US today?" We would not see video of the towers falling for 2 more weeks. I remember thinking of the obvious differences between radical Islam and Christianity that day. Here we were trying to spread aid and comfort and the Islamic terrorists were spreading death and destruction.
I remember that day. We were in the jungle and had just completed a very intense medical clinic among the indians, both Ye'kwana and Sanema. We were hosting, in our jungle hut, two missionary families as well as 8 medical missionaries who had come on a short missions trip, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and dentists. Just some regular Christian folk trying to do some good for the poor and underprivileged of this world, as taught by our Lord.
The clinic ended on September 10th, and the 11th was travel day for the Americans to return, via 3 mission planes, to the town of Puerto Ayacucho where they would catch a flight to Caracas and then on to the US.
We awoke and had breakfast as planned and began the job of weighing everyone and their luggage to decide how best to disburse the weight among the three planes as we could only take off from our short airstrip with a limited cargo.
The first MAF plane arrived early as planned and the pilot came up to the house where we talked over the planned flights for the day. He and my husband then began to prep the flight for a cargo only flight. As he taxied to the end of our airstrip to prepare for take off, he placed his radio call into the mission base at Puerto Ayacucho for flight following. He slowly taxied back and began to walk up the hill towards our house.
He entered the house where we were all laughing and joking about our week. He was white and shaky and said," The US is under attack! Two planes have hit the Twin Towers and one has hit the Pentagon!"
We all stared at him in disbelief! How could this be? He said he needed to sit and get himself together before he tried to take off.
We all began talking. We had no TV, no radio, except the hamm radio, no way to find out any information.We called Puerto Ayacucho by radio to see if they had more news for us and were told of the plane in Pennsylvania. They also told us that all air traffic was closed down in the states. Our American friends became very uncomfortable when as they realized they could not get home!
I remember wondering how I could continue to feed so many people indefinitely...I put water on to boil for some pasta not knowing how many people I would need to feed or for how long.
The visitors became very upset at not being able to communicate with their family and friends and we decided to continue with the plan to fly them all to Puerto Ayacucho where they would at least be able to phone home.
As we waited for all the flights, one of the visiting doctors, a Lebanese-American, listening to all of our consternation at this vile attack on our country, said, "Welcome to the real world!" Her comment was not well received by all at the table, but she had a point! She told us how as a child growing up in Lebanon, her family said good bye every morning not knowing if they would ever see one another again. She was raised as a Christian in Lebanon and terror was a part of her daily life. She said we, Americans, needed to ,"Grow up!" She was right.
We ended up having 5 planes land and take off from our strip that day. I remember Clint looking at me as the last one took off and saying, "Do you realize we just had more flights here than in the entire US today?" We would not see video of the towers falling for 2 more weeks. I remember thinking of the obvious differences between radical Islam and Christianity that day. Here we were trying to spread aid and comfort and the Islamic terrorists were spreading death and destruction.
2 comments:
I remember thinking of the obvious differences between radical Islam and Christianity that day. Here we were trying to spread aid and comfort and the Islamic terrorists were spreading death and destruction.
This last line of yours is the best explanation of both faiths.
I was teaching a class of K3 students that day. I was amazed at how few parents came to pick up their children. The first thing I would want if we were attacked again is to have my child within arms reach, but so many of these parents seemed to be more interested in watching the news coverage than in taking care of their most precious little ones. To make matters worse, with the CDC in Atlanta, many people thought we might get hit too. Yet still so few parents came to pick up their kids. :(
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