Excerpts

There marches through the centuries the martyrs of the cross ... They're killing us! They're killing us!" The voice yelling in Spanish over the radio sounded Peruvian, but it belonged to an American missionary pilot. He was trying to contact the control tower in Iquitos, Peru, to alert someone-anyone-to the grave danger he and his passengers faced. Missionaries Jim and Veronica "Roni" Bowers, their young son, Cory, and infant daughter, Charity, were flying back to Iquitos with pilot and coworker Kevin Donaldson. All of them belonged to the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, Inc. (ABWE), an independent Baptist mission organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The group had flown the day before to the border Peru shares with Brazil to conduct business, and were less than an hour from home and lunch when tragedy struck the single-engine Cessna floatplane in which they traveled. It struck in a hailstorm of bullets from a Peruvian air force jet. The A-37 fighter appeared briefly behind and off to one side of the Cessna and then the other. Before the missionaries could find out from Iquitos what the air force was doing or what it might want with them, bullets slammed into the missionary plane. As Kevin plummeted toward the rain forest, he prayed that he could glide to water and land the floatplane. He shut off the engine and fuel lines to prevent the awful possibility of fire. At least one of the A-37's machine-gun bullets already had pierced a fuel line, and Kevin's safety measures were too late to prevent the billowing smoke and flames that eventually engulfed the cabin. Why are the pilots shooting at us? Jim Bowers wondered. Why would they shoot us down over trees when this plane is equipped with floats? Are they trying to kill us? Why would they be concerned about missionaries anyway? Because the Bowers family was committed to following God, whatever He asked them to do, it was hard to make sense of the nightmarish events taking place in the sky over the Amazon jungle. * * * James Alan Bowers was born two weeks into the new year of 1963. At ten months of age, he left the United States with his parents and two-year-old brother, Phil, for Brazil, where Terry and Wilma had been assigned as missionaries with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE). Terry was appointed to the work in Brazil where Hank Scheltema, a college friend, had inaugurated the mission's aviation ministry two years earlier. ABWE's president, Dr. Harold T. Commons, had asked another young pilot to open the Baptist mission's aviation work in South America, but Nate Saint was already headed to a South American country with a different mission board and politely declined. Nate was killed in 1956 with four other colleagues while attempting to reach the fierce Waorani tribe (commonly called Aucas by outsiders) with the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. God used Nate's martyrdom in Ecuador to influence Terry Bowers to become a missionary pilot. Terry met Wilma Herman at Calvary Baptist Church in Muskegon, Michigan. Wilma had practically grown up in the church. Her father was a deacon, and the Hermans often invited missionaries to eat with them and stay in their home. She attended a camp every year in Lake Ann, Michigan, where missionary speakers were a regular feature. During the summer before her senior year of high school, Wilma sat under a tree and prayed, "Dear God, if You want me to be a missionary, I will go." She didn't know if that was what God wanted her to do, but she wanted Him to know that she would do whatever He asked of her, including foreign missionary service. When Terry and Wilma met, he had just been discharged from active duty in the U.S. Navy. He had observed missionaries at work while serving in the Far East, and it seemed to Terry that God might want him to be a missionary someday. Terry trained in missionary aviation at Moody Bible Institute, the school where he and Wilma met Hank and Ruth Scheltema. Terry and Wilma married in 1959 and began looking around at evangelical mission boards. They settled on ABWE, the same organization Hank and Ruth Scheltema had joined. ABWE not only permitted its pilots to be involved in evangelism and church planting; it was one of the founding principles of the mission that all missionaries, no matter what their training or background, actively disciple individuals and help start churches. The Association of Baptists for Evangelism in the Orient (as ABWE was first known) had its genesis in 1927 when missionaries working at a hospital in the Philippines refused to follow their denomination's instructions to quit preaching and focus only on the Filipinos' social needs. Recognizing that the social ills of any society would never change apart from lives being placed under God's control, the missionaries decided to leave their denomination. Dr. and Mrs. Rafael and Norma Thomas, two of those missionaries, were related to an influential member of the mission society, who also happened to be Norma Thomas's mother. Mrs. Peabody, a retired missionary from India and a driving force in the denomination's mission efforts, also withdrew from the organization. With her close friend, Mrs. Marguerite Doane, Lucy Peabody formed the Association of Baptists for Evangelism in the Orient. As president and financier of the fledgling organization, the two widows with their extensive business experience and personal fortunes supported ABEO's handful of missionaries in the Philippines. Within twelve years, ABEO had added missionaries in non-Asian countries (the first being Peru in 1939), changed its name to the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and had a new president in Harold T. Commons. By the time Terry and Wilma joined ABWE in 1962, the mission agency had more than 200 missionaries in over a dozen countries. The Bowers family was headed to Brazil, where mission stations had been established in São Paulo, the state capital, and in the far northern and southern parts of the country. Aviation was still brand-new. Terry would operate a second floatplane for ABWE in the Amazon region of Brazil. Amazonas, Brazil, was known as one of the world's last frontiers, and rightly so. The hundreds of thousands of acres of towering rain forest were bisected by the winding Amazon River and its many tributaries. The jungle sheltered settlements where Brazilians farmed small plantations of manioc, plantains, and rice to supplement their hunting and fishing. The jungle canopy also sheltered a diversity of wildlife from capybara (the world's largest rodent) and poisonous snakes to wild pigs, exotic birds, monkeys, and lizards. The region's unfriendly climate-with temperatures hovering near 100 degrees year-round and humidity near 100 percent-bred malaria-bearing mosquitoes, tuberculosis, and cholera, among other diseases. Most of the people lived in rough-hewn wood structures set up on stilts, with thatched roofs to keep off the rain. Some were enclosed and could rightly be called houses; the rest looked more like shelters since they were open on all sides or had only half walls. The wooden slat floors eliminated the need for indoor plumbing. Sewage collected beneath the homes until annual floods washed it all away. Settlements weren't hacked out of the jungle at the water's edge for nothing; the river served as communal bathhouse, Laundromat, and highway to the towns up and down the river. For those willing to brave the outwardly harsh conditions, however, the typical friendliness of the Brazilian people more than compensated for any difficulties. The poorest of river dwellers willingly shared what they had with unexpected visitors, even offering lodging to stranded travelers. The Bowers family discovered that the poverty of the people to whom they came to minister wasn't simply material; it was also spiritual. Superstitions abounded. Fear of evil spirits believed to inhabit the jungle was endemic, and the influence of early Jesuit priests merely overlaid existing animism with Catholic ritual. Overcoming these barriers to accepting the truth of Scripture was every bit as hard as figuring out where the missionaries' limited funds could do the most good. Terry and Wilma settled into their new home in the town of Benjamin Constant on the banks of the Amazon River. Although they had shipped household goods and foodstuffs from the United States, they often had to fashion what they needed from materials at hand. Terry and several local helpers built a hangar that floated on massaranduba trees, used by Brazilians to craft their canoes. The huge logs made an ideal buoyant base for the structure that would house a single-engine floatplane. While Terry flew up and down the Amazon, ferrying people and supplies to remote spots, Wilma kept house, no small feat in the jungle. Cooking was all done from scratch; there were no mixes or prepared items to speed up the task. Any foods that couldn't be peeled or thoroughly cooked first had to be soaked in an iodine solution to clean off the germs spread by ubiquitous bugs or human feces used to fertilize produce. All drinking water and dishwater had to be boiled to prevent transmission of disease. Shopping, too, was a complicated business. Open-air markets where flies swarmed over the raw meat (calling it "fresh" might have been a stretch) and produce served as Wilma's local supermarket. Sometimes she could find enough sugar and flour, sometimes not. At least the river provided an unending supply of fresh fish, including the delectable 300-pound specialty: pirarucú . Terry told local fishermen, "If you ever catch a pirarucú near us, we'll buy a quarter or a half of it." Wilma nearly always had some of that. It was a laborious job, but Wilma viewed her main task as facilitating Terry's work and making her home a haven for her family. She learned from the other missionaries and from the local women how to make do, or she did without; it was that simple. When she wasn't looking after the house or teaching her children, Wilma helped Brazilian women teach Bible lessons, and she dispensed basic first-aid medicine in the absence of a local doctor. The Bowers parents expected their boys to obey immediately, respect adults, and generally behave with good manners whether they were among missionaries or Brazilians. They attended the local Baptist church which had been started some years before. The service, although different in format from services back in the United States and conducted in Portuguese, still involved worshiping God. The boys were expected to show proper reverence whether it was their dad preaching or a Brazilian pastor. As children, Jim and Phil didn't have any heavier responsibilities than most kids. They were home-schooled up to third grade by Wilma, thanks to the Calvert Correspondence School in Baltimore, Maryland. And in their spare time, the boys were free to enjoy their jungle and river playgrounds. They played soccer, swam with their Brazilian friends, or went fishing. Terry often tied a canoe to one of the plane's floats, flew off to a secluded lake, and treated the boys to fishing in uncharted waters. In some places, the fish literally jumped into the airplane as they landed. Every so often they'd spend the night in the airplane and fly home the following day. Jim grew up in this child's paradise. But like every human paradise, this one, too, had its serpent. After third grade, the boys went away to boarding school. It was all Wilma could do to take care of the house and Dan, born four years after Jim. She couldn't teach, too. Jim was only eight when he started at the school for missionary kids (MKs) upriver in Iquitos, Peru. It helped to have Phil there and the Schlener kids, whose parents also were ABWE missionaries in Brazil and lived fairly close to the Bowers family. Tim, Cindi, Leanne, and Rena could commiserate with Jim and Phil, and speak Portuguese among themselves at the school in Spanish-speaking Peru. It wasn't unusual for newcomers to cry themselves to sleep at night, and teenaged Rena took special care of little Jim. The separation was miserable for parents and children alike. ABWE doesn't require its missionaries to send their children away; each family is allowed to make that decision on their own. In the Amazon region there weren't many schools, and like the people among whom they resided, the foreigners found that daily existence took almost all their time and effort. With toddlers in tow, teaching became impossible for the missionary mothers. So the Bowers children went across the border to school. They flew home for holidays and summer vacations, where they returned to bedrooms that were exactly as they had left them. Wilma wanted the boys to realize that even though they weren't living at home, they were still part of the family. During their breaks, Phil and Jim accompanied their dad on his speedboat or airplane jaunts to hold church services in the villages where groups of Christians were being formed into new churches. They also joined in the youth activities at the local church and played with their Brazilian friends. When the boys were at home and their dad had to go somewhere in the plane, they could go along and fish in secluded lakes. On the shorter trips to villages near Benjamin Constant where churches were being started, Terry let the boys fuel up the speedboat and drive to their destination. It was one such occasion that alerted Terry to the fact that Jim's eyesight wasn't quite right. "Just keep us headed toward that white tree," Terry said, pointing out the distinctive landmark in the distance. When the speedboat did not maintain course, Terry wanted to know what the problem was. Jim finally admitted, "I don't see what white tree you're talking about!" On the family's next trip to Lima, Peru, Jim's eye exam revealed-surprise!- that the eight-year-old boy needed glasses. Jim attended the MK school in Iquitos for one year. After a one-year furlough in Muskegon, Michigan, the Bowers family returned to Brazil in 1973. They were starting their third term of missionary service. Phil and Jim went back to boarding school, but this time to a school in Brazil. New Tribes Mission ran a boarding school for MKs in Puraquequara, named for the electric eels found in the waters around the property. Jim really enjoyed many aspects of this school. There were more than 100 other MKs, giving ample opportunity for activities that weren't available in their homeschool setting, such as organized sports and friendships with other American kids. Discipline matters at Puraquequara were helped by a system known as gratis. Because the grounds required extensive upkeep, all the children were required to do manual labor. Continues... Excerpted from IF GOD SHOULD CHOOSE by KRISTEN STAGG Copyright © 2002 by Kristen E. H. Stagg Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.