My day started with grasshoppers. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands perhaps. When it rains in the desert, the earth comes alive. And it did last night. A short burst of gentle rain just hours before my pre-dawn preflight brought a small plague of critters with it. The aircraft parking area at Lokichoggio was peppered with them and I walked with care to my plane. A massive halogen lamp illuminated the mine-field of grasshoppers as they cast unnatural shadows on the slick black pavement. It seemed a shame to step on any of them, but it could hardly be avoided. I cringed with each crackle and pop under my boots, and whispered a few quick apologies as if it made any difference.

I might have looked ridiculous goose-stepping around the plane in the darkness, but I was the only one there. I had been determined to be the first one "off" that morning, ahead of all the other pilots. All the other planes, (and there are many at Loki, northern Kenya's gateway into Sudan) sat silently waiting for their crews while I startled the morning air with my engine start, sending a hundred bugs hurtling backward.

Some of the beauty of an early departure, especially on a cloudy morning, is in being among the first to see a new sun rise. It does not rise so much as you rise to meet it, breaking out above an overcast to find a golden world of cloud and light. The sky is crisp, yellow fading into blue, and you can take refuge in knowing that there are twelve more hours of light ahead until the earth spins the sun out of sight again. And with light there is hope. Always. It somehow seems important here on the "dark continent."

I engaged the autopilot to finish the climb while enjoying the view outside. It was then that I noticed my stowaway. A single brown grasshopper, no doubt hopped aboard unintentionally in a spastic leap away from my shoe, sat atop the instrument panel, facing forward, looking out the window. It seemed awestruck, lost in the moment and (dare-say) the beauty of our sunrise, even as I poked at it. If he had a jaw, I imagined it agape as he tried to comprehend how he ended up here above the cloud, thrust forward at a 180 miles an hour. Jonathan Livingston Grasshopper. We shared a brief moment together, admiring the glory of a new day, absurd as it may sound. He captured my curiosity enough to write about at least. But I had a big day ahead of me, and after turning my attention to it, I never saw the little critter again.

My day was a mission, and it progressed quickly. The challenge was simple: Pick up four people from three different locations in the bush and bring them back to catch a connecting flight at 4pm. It was a busy day, and much too long to write about in detail. Some of my passengers were with an organization called Servants Heart. I recognized some of them from flights in and out of these same places over the years. I have always liked the name they gave to their ministry. It is the sort of thing you would like to be a part of just because of the name. These are some of the tougher missionaries I know - kind of like the "special forces" of the missionary endeavor. On our way out of the last airstrip I leveled off for a long leg to our next stop and listened to their conversation. It was a long and animated string of stories, of hardships both physical and spiritual. The accounts of spiritual warfare, the stuff of fiction novels and raised eyebrows among western Christians, seemed far too real to be anything else... about missionaries who had done "battle" with the local witchdoctor, and about witchdoctors who had lost. The shadowy miracles, and even less perceptible mighty hand of God, wove throughout the stories and lives of these folks. As I listened, I was reminded of another world, right there in front of us, but beyond our sight. The world apart from my aluminum airplane and the smell of Sudan. A world of spirits and souls, where a battle rages, and those who dare run to the fight come back with tales of war.

Peering into that reality for a moment made me feel small. Like a grasshopper looking above the clouds for the first time, realizing that the world was way bigger than he ever knew.

“He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.” Isaiah 40:22

My back made a familiar popping sensation as I tried to pull the 50 kilo sack of sugar from the pod. My first flight back. My very first bit of cargo, and my back dutifully gives out on me. Great. I try to hide the pain as not to worry the passengers and stiffly take to my seat in the cockpit. (Who wants to fly with a crippled pilot?) Especially over Sudan. The land is so tortured and pained itself, it almost seems fitting that I should be in agony as I fly over it. So I flew today, for seven hours, moving twenty people to and from various locations. At some point I arrive at Juba, the new capitol of Southern Sudan, a surreal port city on the west bank of the river Nile, with its huge runway and odd mixture of air traffic - a UN 707 right out of the seventies, a UN chopper of dubious size, a Russian Antinov A26 with bright blue propellors slowly winding down as the back door falls open to spill out some hundred Sudanese troops. I walk by the windmilling propellor, through a small army of tall, black men in green fatigues. They are singing what seems like a victorious song of war in their native tongue. As we walk through the slurry of troops arriving mixed with those departing, my passenger overhears a passing comment about what a young-looking "captain" I am. I'm probably twice their age, but they don't know it. I smile. How could anyone mistake me as young as I hobble by, slightly hunched over from the morning injury?

On the last leg home that day I agree to take two freeloading passengers to the Kenya border town of Lokichoggio, and in the gesture make friends with a "security" official at the airport who was probably looking long and hard for a ride for his two friends. I had an empty plane going back, and, well, he asked nicely. After a half dozen handshakes, multiple thanks, and a little uneasy feeling that I had just contributed in some small way to the corruption of New Sudan, I was off; Through a haze of smoke lifting off the burning fields below, over a hundred and eighty miles of bumpy terrain skirting the border of northern Uganda, back "home" to the corner where these two countries meet up with mine.

Two Advil later my back feels better. Maybe the day's pain was a small reminder at the onset of this term that I am here by the grace of God, and that I live and breathe and fly by His strength. I can't imagine it has anything to do with my age.

I'm thirty-one again. Its my birthday, and I have decided to stop at thirty-one (four years ago.) The kids think its hilarious that I'm getting old, jumping on any opportunity to remind me of my delusional state of being in the "early" thirties. I think they like the idea that Dad is human too. Sometimes. There are those moments saying goodnight at Amelia's bedside when she has thought it out a little too far and realizes that being human means being mortal. She'll cry a little while I console her with antics of my living to a hundred and miscellaneous thoughts on heaven. Somehow 100 seems old enough. Anything less is just not fair to an eight year old. The triple-digits make it seem far enough off I guess. Such nights tend to end with an extra big hug, and I think I got one today. A good birthday present.

Renee made me a cake. Nine years ago when we were amateurs at this missionary stuff, she assembled the very same cake as she did today, a German Chocolate. Its a tricky recipe anywhere, but toss in the altitude and questionable ingredients available in our part of the world, and its a real challenge. The first one ended up rather lopsided, fitting in very well with our new Kenyan home. I think that after nine years of culinary experience, Renee had higher hopes for this one. But alas, it ended up lopsided too. She was frustrated but I think the whole thing can just be chalked up to the "Africa Factor" - a Bermuda Triangle type phenomenon with angles that add up to something other than 180 degrees... a spacial convergence of crooked lines and traffic jams that defy the imagination, a strange but undeniable force that plays havoc with every area of life. Even birthday cakes. I gave Renee a hug and told her it would be OK. Her imperfect cake was better than OK though. It was a signature creation... from the kitchen (and hands) of Renee... the woman I love, who will give half her day to make a cake for me. Because she loves me. And it was delicious too.

A good start to mid-life despite the lack of an Audi TT in the driveway.