Overhauling the Aviation Project in Bolivia.

A medevac to the city of Trinidad Bolivia.

The aviation project is flying in Bolivia, and is helping people in some towns and cities that are difficult to travel to during the rainy season due to bad roads. Medivacs are being made, missionaries being transported, and supplies are being hauled.
 However, the aviation project is still limited. The airplanes that the aviation project has in Bolivia are still U.S. registered. This means that they are currently limited to airports with control towers. Bolivia actually has quite a few control towered airports in remote towns. The control tower may just be a wooden shed with a solar panel, battery, and radio next to a grass strip at the town. But, this still limits the aviation project because there are vast areas of jungle that do not have control towered airports. The planes are not able to help the people who live in extremely remote areas who would benefit the most from the airplanes. It is the very remote, and hard to get to by land places, that we want to go and serve. 

This is the Rio Beni in northern Bolivia. People live in communities along rivers like this, often with no road access.

In the past, the airplanes were allowed to fly freely anywhere in Bolivia with their U.S. registrations. They helped many people in the very remote parts of Bolivia. Once, when the planes still had permission to fly anywhere in Bolivia, I returned to a community that I had previously flown to which was five days by boat up river from the closest medical care.  There are no roads to that community. The planes had been not flying due to maintenance and customs temporary importation paperwork. When I landed in that community I found fresh graves there, some large, and some small. Without the help of an airplane some of the sick people had died in the village before they could be transported to medical help. Things that are easily treatable become life threatening when treatment is five or more days travel on the river. It took me only half an hour to fly there.

An example of the type of graves along the runway in a community.

When someone is going to die from something that is easily treatable and you spend one hour taking them to the hospital where they receive the help needed, they are very grateful and open to you. Opened hearts mean beautiful opportunities to share about the God who rescues us in more than just a physical sense.
 We also took doctors out to the communities, saving the doctors many weeks in travel time. . Another example of how the planes have helped was once we were camping out in a warehouse at an ADRA building in northern Bolivia. They received a call that a woman had been bit by a venomous snake and she had six hours before she would die. They said it would take seven hours for an ambulance to take her to the closest hospital where there was anti venom. She would die in the ambulance. We rushed to the airport in an ambulance and after a 20 minute flight we were picking up the snake bitten woman. She was at the hospital within an hour being treated. If we had not been ready to jump in the plane, she would have been dead. It only took an hour of our time, and she was a life saved.

The airplane that is designated for the jungles of northern Bolivia.

In order to return to this kind of operation there are some things that need to happen. This is what we are praying about.

1.       I need to become a Bolivian pilot.

a.       People have been very generous and we currently have enough to cover the cost of obtaining a Bolivian pilot certificate. I will have to go back to flight school here to learn how airplanes fly in Bolivia.

2.       The plane needs to become a Bolivian registered and certified plane.

a.       $1,500 Paper work for registering and certifying the plane.

b.      $6,500 to $7,000 Engine overhaul will be required.

c.       $2,000 Propeller overhaul will be required.

d.      $600 Emergency Locator Transmitter

e.      Inspection for Bolivian airworthiness certificate. Cost undetermined at this time.

f.        Undetermined costs.

g.       If you are impressed to help fund this process include a note that says “N3538F Bolivian registration and certification”

3.       Helen and I are planning on moving to the jungles of northern Bolivia.

a.       We currently have enough to cover the cost of moving.

We plan to push the plane through this process, get a Bolivian pilot certificate, and then move up to northern Bolivia. At the Richard Gates Technical School in northern Bolivia where we will be based, they recently built a new church, and we are planning on moving into the old church.

God Bless,

Steven Wilson