Like Birds Hovering Overhead
On a Sunday morning of 1964, my wife and I started a trip that would eventually take us to Roatan. I had bought a Cessna 170 aircraft and envisioned starting a small business on the island. In those years, Roatan didn’t have an airport, only a small grass strip. The intention was to take this little aircraft to the island and provide a charter service between Roatan and La Ceiba.
Our journey wouldn’t be a direct flight. Instead of crossing the ocean, we planned to fly making stops in different states, then get to Mexico, and eventually reach our final destination. The plan that day was to land in New Orleans, spend the night, and continue the next day. Although I had already learned how to fly, I hired a pilot to join us on these flights because of his vast experience as a co-pilot for Eastern Airlines.
About two hours in the air after we left Tampa, tragedy struck! Even after carefully planning this trip, the engine broke down, and the weather got bad! I looked out, and we were in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t have many instruments on the plane, so we were flying mostly by sight. I felt concerned. It was a bad feeling, and I started praying. I was recently married, and my wife was pregnant with our first child. The engine kept slowing down more and more. The engine was supposed to be flying at 2300 RPM, but was now flying at 1900 RPM. The plane couldn’t keep up, and we were slowly losing altitude. I looked out and saw a beach and being an island person I thought that if we could make an emergency landing there, everything would be alright. My wife, seated in the back seat, still didn't know what was going on. We didn’t tell her at that moment.
Then, right away the pilot said, ‘What is that?’. I looked in the way he pointed. It was a big abandoned airport strip! During the 2nd World War, the government built a lot of airstrips over the state of Florida. As we approached to land, the wind was as strong as a tornado. It was so intense that upon landing it whipped us around into a tailspin, then one of the wheels broke off, and we stopped.
Thankfully, we made it safely. God directed our paths. The miracle in this is that this landing strip didn’t even show up on the maps. Even the experienced pilot did not know about this airport. The people of the small town of Carabelle, Florida came out to check on us, took us into town, and we spent the night there.
A bit of advice I can give to you is that you need to have a dream, a goal to work towards. Persevere. Work. Go towards it. You might get discouraged sometimes, but you need to get up and go. God directs paths and has a great plan for you.
You are safer not because of the absence of danger, but because of the presence of God.
Isaiah 31:5 "Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect His people; He will protect and deliver them; He will spare and rescue them."
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As for the rest of the story...
I walked away from that little Cessna that day, and I never looked back. After a couple of weeks, I sent money to have the engine repaired, and the same pilot flew it back to Tampa, where I later had it sold.