The Smell of Freedom

This past week, I (Travis) had the HUGE privilege of taking a short 2-day trip out to the Gmz area. What? A two day trip? How is that possible when it takes at least one full day to drive there? Well, it is possible in partnership with a Swiss-based helicopter organization that provides helicopter service to remote areas with radically subsidized prices for those doing front-line evangelism. In my conversations with the pilot, Matthew, I found this to be exactly where his heart lies. He told me one morning in his German accent, “my ultimate dream would be that we drop into a village, evangelists share the gospel with the last people group on earth, Jesus comes back and I don’t even have to fly the chopper home. Oh that would be awesome!” Such passion is definitely contagious.

So how did this all get set up? We have built some very good relationships with those working among the Gmz so that when one church planting team hired Matthew and his helicopter for two days, I was invited to join them. So, early Monday morning, I rode my motorbike outside of Addis Ababa to the place where the helicopter would pick us up. The 18 hour car drive out to this particular Gmz area was shortened to 2 hours of flight time and a birds-eye view of Ethiopia’s beautiful mountainous terrain! Upon arrival at our friends’ remote house, we ate a quick lunch, fueled the chopper, and took off again, this time accompanied by three Gmz evangelists. After a 15 minute flight we landed in a VERY remote village, a good TWO DAY’s walk from our friends’ house. We left one evangelist there and brought the other two to a second village in that same valley. These evangelists had been trained in telling stories using the chronological Bible storying method of evangelism which had seen very good responses in other Gmz villages. Two days later, when the chopper dropped in again, it was exciting to hear reports that in each village, over 200 people attended the story telling and showed great interest in learning more.

Shortly before lunch on Wednesday, I climbed aboard the helicopter for the return trip to Addis Ababa, joined by two Gmz teens and two little Gmz boys coming to receive specialized medical treatments in the capital. As we flew home, I couldn’t help but notice the huge smile on Matthew’s face. “Do you smell that?” he would ask several times a day, with reference to the burning jet fuel, “that’s the smell of freedom.” I knew what he meant...helicopters provide the freedom to bring the Gospel to anyone’s backyard!