Village Living would be Impossible without UIM Aviation

Roughly twenty years ago, Vicente, a young Guarajio boy watched a UIMA Cessna airplane land on a short, undulant airstrip on the mountain ridge above his home. The airplane brought missionaries to his village, who quickly set to learning the Guarajio language, translating the Bible into Guarajio and teaching. Young Vicente, hearing the Bible taught for the first time in his native language, finally grasped the significance of this wonderful news. Having witnessed the eternal impact of hearing God’s Word in his own heart language, Vicente set to work helping the missionaries continue the Bible translation.

I first met Vicente fourteen years ago, when he was a teenager. I flew a truck transmission out to the missionary who was working in Vicente’s village. At age sixteen, Vicente’s help on the translation work was already invaluable to the missionaries. As a young adult he attended Bible school and continued to missionary training. There he met his wife, Erendira, a member of the Cora tribe. Erendira was also there because of the missionaries who had come to her village located many miles south.

After marrying, they moved back to Vicente’s village. There, though the missionaries who led him to Christ have long since left, Vicente continues to work on Bible translation and teaching his own people. Erendira has some health issues which make living in such a remote location very challenging. The trip to the doctor is a grueling, thirteen-hour journey in their truck. Further complicating travel by road are the escalating violence and insecurity in the mountain towns between their village and modern medical care. Additionally, the authorities in these towns have severely restricted travel though their areas in an attempt to keep Covid-19 out. With these obstacles, living and serving in Vicente’s home village would be impossible for them, were it not for UIM Aviation.

Last week I had the privilege of flying Vicente and his family to the city. Vicente told me they have a full schedule of doctor visits and lab tests lined up there. Misael, their four-year-old son loves to fly, and as our wheels lifted off the dusty runway on top of the ridge, he let out a shriek of delight. Less than an hour later, as we began our descent to the city, Vicente expressed his gratitude for our service. He said that without the flight, there’d have been no way to safely get to the city at this time. Hearing reports like these strengthens our resolve to continue providing safe and affordable flight services to all the church planters, translators, doctors, dentists and work teams we serve.