The day the lights went out…
If you will allow me 5 minutes of your time to tell you of GOD'S MIGHTY HAND OF PROTECTION, once again, in my life, second only to the Guyana incident.
This occurred Monday. To catch your interest: I really don't know what happened, I have little to no memory of it, and am telling you what I have learned from others… I write these stories now so later in life when memory is not so good, I can remember how God was so gracious… to the story-
I was up on the floats, up on the plane, up on the cart on our floating house taking the cowling off the plane to put on the part that my boss Herman Teachout and my great friend Wilson got/sent to me (and that went through 7 pairs of hands to get to me, never has a part made it so fast from the USA). Needless to say, I was quite excited about getting airborne again after four weeks down. Kim was upstairs cleaning and did not hear a thing. By God's grace my worker had just arrived on the dock.
All I remember is that the cowl was stuck and I pulled harder to get it loose. I vaguely
remember a rope touching the back of my leg, nothing else. The worker said he looked up and I was flying backwards with the cowl in hand, my legs got tangled in the ropes that tie the plane to the dock, went upside down and fell flat on the top of my head, on the dock. He came over and tried to talk to me but my eyes "were up in my head", and I "was shaking" (lightly). To me, my world was spinning, the first thing I remember was the worker's adolescent daughter rubbing my shoulder and asking me how I was. (Kim later told me there was 20 minutes between when she came down and the workers daughter showed up, and that she had been trying to talk to me). I "came to" talking to her, and was holding a bag of ice on my head sitting on the floor by the plane. At this point Kim (having asked me several questions and not gotten 'normal' answers), decided to contact Chip Phillips our doctor and they talked a few minutes on symptoms and what to do. (setting: to do this she had to jump in a boat with the worker and drive half way to town to get a phone signal)…
I ended up with a rope burn behind my knee (apparently the rope I tripped on), a cut right ankle, bruised right hand, bruised left arm including a swollen elbow, three cuts on my face where glasses left their mark, a 'sore back', a goose-egg on the back of my head a very sore "top" of the head, and 20 minutes of total lack of memory.
So, praise God I have a very hard head and that there are no symptoms of any danger… (though the head does remain a tadge tender). We slept in town that night (this happened just before dark) to be close to doctor care and a very fast boat if needed to get to Chip. The next morning we got business done in town and I spent a delicious two days at home low profile.
I DID get the part on the airplane. Thanks to all that made that possible. To keep flying is still a tremendous trial. Now we are so very low on fuel that I probably only have one more trip to the Indians before I am totally out, not counting emergency reserve. We "ordered" fuel months ago.
THANKS especially to you that prayed for me the evening of the incident!! I believe what could have been very serious, turned out as it did because of your prayers, and frankly, I am grateful to God for not being able to remember the ordeal.
Love you all
Thanks for your prayers
Allen and Kimberly
PS
To take advantage of this note and let you know our agenda:
July- we have two visits to the Indians and one more set of classes at SAI to finish
counseling training there.
August, "normal month" at home only. LOW water month, worst month of the year for
just living conditions and travel to and fro house.
September (the end) we travel again to Fortaleza for 3 Biblical Counseling conferences
and one week of the practical training.
October, back to "normal" in our town of SPO
We hope that in December, or January we will be having our FIRST graduation from our little amazon jungle bible seminary. Will keep you posted.
