The circle began on September 9, 2019

It started with a shudder. A muffled bang. Then silence.

Three feet in front of me, the crankshaft had snapped in two. The propeller spun freely—no power. Oil pressure dropped to zero. A red light flashed. We were gliding.

To our left, volcanic ridges and valleys. To the right, a flat, sandy expanse—deceptively calm, but deadly. We banked right, toward what we hoped was salvation.

What we didn’t know then was that our Cessna was descending into a place sparsely inhabited, a place caught in a cycle of isolation, violence, and revenge. No churches for miles. But that was about to change.

Sarah, the other pilot flying N827DG, walks towards the helicopter that flew us out of the valley.

We touched down hard, swerving to avoid bushes and dunes. No fire. We were upright. We were alive.
Three hours later, we locked up the plane and climbed into a rescue helicopter. Two pilots, our patient on a stretcher, and two of her relatives—all squeezed in. As we lifted off, church leaders were already calling relatives in the valley below, asking, “Is the airplane okay?” “Yes,” they were told. “Let’s check.”

The next day, pastors arrived. The Cessna was intact. But the real discovery was the people. No longer just warriors and herders—there were families, children, entire villages. But no churches.

“We think the airplane came down to show us all the people who live here,” one pastor said. “They need a church!”

A pastor named John and two other pastors began the journey—riding down into the valley every Sunday to teach about Jesus. A year later, we returned. An elder greeted us:

“I remember when your airplane came down. We couldn’t believe what we saw. People had come out of the plane and was walking around. They were not injured. There’s no place here for a plane to land. We said, ‘They must have a big God.’”

In 2023, AIM AIR hosted a missions conference in our hangar. Thirty-five churches came. One elder from a large church asked us to hold a similar event in Eldoret. We didn’t know how to organize it easily—but they did it themselves and invited us.

That event brought together leaders from the same dangerous Suguta Valley. As we talked, my friend, Pastor David asked me, “Why can’t these church leaders come to Korr and see what’s happening here?”

The drive from the Pokot tribal area to Rendille tribal area takes two days—backtracking almost to Nairobi, then turning north again. But by air Just 70 minutes.

May 31, 2025: A milestone for Tirrim Trust – 204 graduates. The adult literacy program started ten years ago, and continues to grow – with a new literacy program starting with each new church that is planted.

On May 31, 2025, David’s ministry, Tirrim Trust, celebrated a milestone: 204 Rendille adults graduated from the adult literacy program. Many had spent years learning under the training trees. Some took weeks just to learn how to hold a pencil. Most were women—mothers and daughters who had missed school to care for family.

Now, they could read. They could help their children. They could read God’s Word.

“When I started to read Mark,” shared Nareyo, a Tirrim literacy alumnus, “I saw—this God is not like the Rendille god. This God is kind. This God loves His people.”

Usually, we fly representatives from Nairobi churches to Korr for the ceremony. This year, we changed it up. David invited a friend from the Kenyan government—Josphat, a cabinet member responsible for marginalized communities. He’s also from a nomadic tribe – the Turkana.

We sent a second airplane to pick up the bishop from Pokot and his wife. “Nomads helping nomads,” David said. “It’s nice when southern Kenyans help, but they don’t know what it’s like to be a nomad. If nomads can learn from each other, that’s best.”

Josphat agreed:
“Today, I’ve seen a model that works. We can replicate this in many areas.”

The Pokot bishop brought someone else: Pastor John—the same John who rode two and a half hours every Sunday to the site where we crash-landed. Now, for the first time, he saw nomadic churches transforming communities through literacy and faith.

This was not a path I would have charted. An engine failure. A missions conference. A literacy program. All connecting people across vast distances.

But God doesn’t follow our paths. Much like an airplane flying across the Atlantic, the route may seem curved and indirect. Yet it’s the shortest way—the great circle.
And when we look back, we see how the dots connect.

I like to think Pastor John flew home with a full heart and a head spinning with new ideas—ready to continue the journey.

In the cockpit of a Cessna 208 Caravan, AIM AIR pilot Joe Batchelder glanced at the GPS display on the dashboard. Nearly three-quarters of an hour into the flight from Nairobi, the screen revealed that he was around forty miles from his destination- a region in Eastern Kenya.

It was time to begin descending. Pulling back at the lever that decreased the plane’s power, the Cessna 208 Caravan responded effortlessly, descending through the blanket of clouds.

From the plane, what had usually looked completely desolate and brown was now teeming with rich-green plant life, masking the tale of desperation on the ground.

Due to the rains, the roads had been destroyed, rendering them inaccessible for a number of weeks now, which had meant that the trucks couldn’t deliver food to the villages anymore. In their state of need, the villages had reached out to the missionaries, who in turn had reached out to AIM AIR.

This flight was the third of seven trips made over a period of two weeks. In the first two flights, Joe had flown to both the north and south airstrips in an empty, lighter plane in order to check the runway conditions. A few days later, Joe and a fellow pilot would start the process of delivering over five thousand kilos of nutrient-rich food supplies.

Down at the sides of the north airstrip, a young boy stared intently into the clouded skies. Him, his family and several other members of the village lined the runway, waiting to witness the landing.

Then, they all heard it. The low hum of an aircraft’s engine. The young boy suddenly exclaimed, tugging at mama’s shuka and pointing at the skies.

“Mama look!”

A single white speck streaked towards them, contrasting sharply against the graying clouds. The plane was coming!

Everybody shifted their attention to the Cessna as it neared the landing strip.

Meanwhile, a thousand feet in the air, Joe was lining up the Caravan with the sandy runway in readiness for landing. Beginning the final descent, he was confident that the runway was suitable for landing, having checked it a few days ago.

The aircraft finally touched down, braked and came to a halt as the cheers and claps of the villagers filled the air. After the engine had finally come to a stop, everyone who could help offload the boxes gathered around the plane. Within no time, the plane had been emptied, sparing some time for Joe to pull out his Bible and share a message from John 6. Eager to hear, a small crowd gathered around him.

“I shared from John 6:25-35,” recollected Joe. “I shared that Jesus was the bread of life and that they (the villagers) needed the bread that God gives. The one whom God sent.”

When asked if they knew who the bread was, one of the village elders replied that he knew it was Jesus. “They believe in a supreme provider, but not the true God. They understood that the food came from the people who follow Jesus. They wanted me to thank the people of Jesus for the food.”

He then continued to add that his favorite part of the trip was sharing the gospel message from John 6. “Getting to share the Gospel with people that are so fundamentally opposed to its truth is not something we often get to do as pilots. It was a joy to teach them about the food that will never perish, about the bread of life whose body was broken to make a way for us to the Father, and to get to pray for them that they would know God and would not labor for the food that perishes but would hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

Since the deliveries, the Lord has enabled Joe to make a couple of visits to the villages for other reasons. The Chief and people remember him and have endearingly nicknamed him “Biscotti Joe.” They are so thankful for the help that they received at that time. “They have heard the gospel many times, but most still reject it. They have a great respect for Christians (The people of Jesus) and want to hear more…the missionaries who live there have been and are still sharing the gospel for years. They say these acts of kindness (from AIM AIR and donors) opened up a new reception from the people.”