by D. I. Telbat
"Father in heaven," I prayed aloud.
"Me, too, Father!" Rex said.
"Lord, we come before you at a time of crisis."
"We're crossin' into China right now . . ."
"We need just a little extra fuel, Lord God, and You can drop us into Mongolia."
"Fine by me!" Rex approved.
"You know our hearts. You know our past. We seek Your help in this most desperate of circumstances. Lord, I've spent years preparing for this mission. If it's Your will to take us down in China, then so be it. But Rex here, he could probably use some of Your saving grace, Lord. It seems he's not lived too godly."
"No, Sir, I haven't."
"And if we get shot down in Chinese air space, or fall to the ground from lack of fuel . . ." I glanced at Rex and our eyes met. He swallowed hard and gestured for me to continue, "then we want to die in Your good graces, in Your forgiving arms."
"Yeah." Rex nodded, his face full of worry.
"Your Son died on the cross and brought us near to You by His blood. And You conquered sin by raising Him up on the third day. Rex, do you believe?"
"I do right now!"
"Live or die, five minutes or thirty years left on our lives, do you take Christ Jesus into your heart by the power of His Spirit?"
"I . . . That's a mouthful, Andy!"
"Then say no!"
"Yes! All right, I'll take it. Live or die. Five minutes or thirty years, I'll straighten up."
"There it is, Lord," I said. "Your will be done. Put us where You want us. In Jesus' name, amen."
"Amen. And I'm sorry for cussin', too."
"That's between you and Him," I said. "Now, fly this baby, Rex!"
The engine sputtered. One prop went silent, then the other. A flash of light flew past the windshield. I blinked at the startling silence.
"Tracer fire," Rex whispered. Only the hiss of wind outside reached our ears. "It's the Chinese border. They're—"
Ping-ping-ping!
Bullets the diameter of nickels pierced the cockpit floor and passed clean through the ceiling. Glass shattered and sparks snapped as the windows and electrical circuits were decimated. Between my feet, I saw a new hole in the floor. Rex fought the controls as more ground fire whipped around the cockpit. Behind us in the cabin, bullets tore through my gear and ricocheted off a pulley system Rex had suspended from the cargo hold ceiling.
"We're almost to the Mongol border!" Rex yelled. "I'm losing control!"
"Are we high enough? Will we clear the mountains?"
He answered but I didn't hear him over the fresh volley of bullets. We were dropping in altitude, and I could now hear the thunder of the anti-aircraft weapons below.
"God, help us!" Rex shouted.
I glanced at him then followed his gaze through the broken windshield. The air was icy cold and stung my eyes, but in the darkness I saw the shadowy form of a giant snow-capped peak in front of us. The gunfire ceased below as we glided along. The night was strangely peaceful again. Rex banked our gliding boat to the right just a little to turn away from the looming mountain, but our decent was so rapid, we were falling from the sky more than gliding.
"Hold on!"
The Catalina's left wing scraped through ice and snow on the mountainside and pivoted us sideways. I gripped the edges of my seat. We flew toward a rocky ridge. I felt the belly of the plane tear apart. Rex still fought the controls, but it was no use now. My brow slammed against the side of the cockpit as the rear section of the plane was torn off. Bouncing off a glacier, we soared silently once again.
"This is it!" Rex stated as he braced himself.
We nose-dived into another vast field of white. Snow and rocks peppered my face, stinging me blind. The seat to which I was fastened ripped from its bolts and my head crashed against the ceiling, nearly breaking my neck. After being thrown onto my side, I unbuckled my seat straps and scrambled from the cockpit toward my gear with the thought that it could cushion the collision. We were still going over one hundred miles an hour, bouncing off boulders and snow, airborne for mere seconds, then slamming into the downhill slope once again.
I never reached my gear. The nose of the plane hit solid rock and upended in a front flip. Like a catapult, I felt myself rising through the plane fuselage, then flung through the opening where the tail was once attached. My arms and legs flailed wildly through the air. For a time, I was high above the plane as its own speed crushed itself against the side of a gorge. I was flying, and then I blacked out.
With a numbing shiver, I awoke. The sun was in my eyes and my skull ached. It took me three tries to sit upright. My whole body hurt. Dried blood caked my brow.
Shakily, I stood up on a glacier slope and acknowledged Tiffany's crumpled mass below me. Its nose was smashed halfway back to the cross-section of the wings—what was left of the wings, anyway.
We were in the bottom of a deep mountain gorge, ridges on two sides. Rocks were exposed through the snow in patches.
Running, I staggered down the glacier toward the plane. Debris was strewn in the Catalina's wake down the opposite glacier slope. My gear was sure to be among it all, but Rex was my first priority. Ducking low, I passed through the squished fuselage and crept into the upside down craft. I knelt before the compacted structure that had once been the cockpit. With a hand I covered my mouth. Rex had been cut nearly in half by the very controls he still gripped, his seatbelt holding him securely to his death. If I would've stayed in the cockpit, I would've also been crushed and killed.
I stumbled back out of the plane and searched the sky for an answer from God. Had I made a mistake? Was I not supposed to be a missionary to Mongolia after all? Angry tears rolled down my cheeks, and I screamed at the silent, blue sky that didn't answer back. My screams echoed up the gorge walls, then all was quiet again.
But I was alive, somehow, and I had to recognize that miracle. Yet, a mess of uncertainties flooded my mind. Had God saved me to send me a message that I wasn't to be here, or was the devil merely making things difficult? These were things I considered as I climbed the southern slope to retrieve items I recognized strewn across the snow. Ignoring the plane insulation and other construction materials, I picked up my duffle bag. The bottom was torn wide open and I shook it to loose a pair of pants and a broken flashlight. Though the flashlight was cracked, I took the batteries, then tossed the rest aside.
It was like this for two hours as I hiked to the south along the path the plane had left. I chased a curious squirrel from a pair of socks and retrieved my thirty-below sleeping bag. Most of my clothes were salvaged, but without the duffle, I was left with only a heaping pile of possessions. My backpack was thankfully without damage, and I found most of my canned food lodged amongst the shale. Discouraged, I shook my head at the sight of my broken uni-haul trailer; I should've had its welds reinforced as I had on the bicycle. The bike was in good shape, apparently sucked out of the tail end along with me.
Back at the plane, I studied the pile of belongings I needed to now fit into my backpack. Even if I found a way to repair my duffle bag, I had no way to transport it across the country since my trailer was a total loss.
The country! I suddenly dashed up the northern glacier. Using my hands, I clawed up the snow where it was steepest at the top of the ridge. As my head crested the top, I sighed through my panting. The most rugged land spanned far away from my elevated position. A formidable landmark was to the northwest, and at that instant, I knew where I was. It was the highest peak in Mongolia—Tavan Bogd Uul—where the borders of Mongolia, Russia, and China met.
Since I was southeast of the peak, I knew I was well inside Mongolia's Altay Mountain Range, specifically the Gobi Altays that tapered off into the Gobi Desert to the east and south. Then, I faced southwest. China. If we would've crashed closer to the border, I would've already been a Chinese prisoner. Thank You, Lord. I was exactly where I asked to be—Mongolia.
So, facing east, I took a deep breath of the air I had longed to bre
athe for many years, and felt a strange comfort at having arrived—even under those circumstances. God had brought me here, I was sure of it now. The crash was possibly for Rex's sake, which was an odd way of looking at it all, but Rex had been as terrified as me the previous night in the sky. I didn't know Rex's heart or how serious his belief was before he died. Five minutes or thirty years, he'd said, then asked for God's saving grace. It was a strange rationalization, but it put the entire crash into perspective for me. Maybe God took Rex home after his urgent prayer, and deposited me on the western edge of Mongolia, exactly as I had prayed for—and that was that.
It wasn't my place to question God, I decided, and stood up straighter and braced myself mentally for whatever might come next. A thousand miles to the east was Randy Erickson. I surely wouldn't reach Ondorhaan any time soon. Between where I stood and Randy were very few towns and plenty of rocky, low-lying mountains, rolling grasslands, sand dunes, and flat barren expanses. If the bitter cold didn't kill me, the land or its wildlife might.
Mongolia's geographic features were pretty simple—mountains to the west and north, desert to the east and south. And there was a vast river valley in the north-central region, where the capital and most of the country's population resided. But I was in the mountains, with forest below me, then came the grassy steppes that rolled east, and very few people, which were mostly herdsmen, nomads, and a few farmers.
In the west and south was where I felt God had wanted me to minister, but not before I stayed with Randy in the distant city for a few months. But here I was. And it was with this understanding that I turned and descended the ridge back to the plane. I was a missionary now—alone, conflicted, haggard, and ill-supplied, but blessed in all relative aspects. Only a true Christian can know this feeling of peace, I believe, when everything else is in disarray. To God, there is no disarray. The devil may run rampant seeking whom he may devour, but this is still God's creation—though the devil's playground. Sometimes all we can do is trust God, and then we realize that's all He wants from us.
With a wary eye, I approached my gear, as if it were an adversary to further discourage me. However, I applied myself and picked out priority items that had to fit in my backpack or on my person. It was mid-morning by the time I had sorted through everything. On the ground, I made two piles—the abandon pile and the packing pile. I rubbed my hands together as I worked. The air was chilly, but warming by the minute as the summer sun rose above me.
After repacking my backpack three times, I finally had it all reduced to a manageable lot—a pocketknife, towel, ten cans of food, and my Bible. I had $200 in American cash, which was gold in Mongolia, and a rubber band around a thin stack of stamped envelopes. Two changes of warm clothes, a sleeping bag, a lighter, and water tablets to help purify the water supply. Only thirty percent of Mongolia's rural citizens have safe drinking water. The most common beverage was fermented mare's milk across the steppes, called airag in Khalkha Mongol.
I had a bag of chewing gum for public relations purposes, binoculars, hair-cutting scissors, and a sewing kit. Also, paperclips and twisty-ties, batteries, and an illustrated version of Pilgrim's Progress. Other things I kept were a single bar of antibacterial soap, a reduced first-aid kit, one roll of toilet paper, a toothbrush, a small tarp, a map of the world, a scarf, and a flare gun with three flares I took from the plane. Inside my coat I would keep my Bible and the journal, and I had a trenching shovel with an adjustable head and a two foot handle. That type of shovel was made famous in several wars, and I had figured it was an essential in this remote land. On my wrist, I wore a simple watch; on my head, a dark ski cap; and on my back, a warm coat. My three shirts were wool; my thermals were cotton and polyester. Army surplus combat boots would protect my feet from terrain and weather.
With almost everything set for my departure, I gorged myself on two cans of cold stew I was otherwise abandoning. Then, inside the plane, I used some of the extra clothes I wasn't taking to wrap around Rex's body. Though he was awkward and heavy, I pulled Rex out and buried him directly behind the plane under a pile of rocks the plane had already knocked free from the frozen ground. For a few moments, I stood before the humble grave, my cap removed.
"Lord, I didn't know Rex too long. I hope he's in Your presence now. Maybe in his panic last night, he spoke from a sincere heart. Please show me how to grow from this event, and give me Your strength to triumph through the next. I praise You for Your protective hand over my life. Guard me against doubting Your hand on everything. Lastly, and maybe I should've thought of this sooner, Lord, but please make my feet swift before a Chinese patrol investigates their target from last night. In Jesus' name, amen."
With a sniff, I donned my cap, and with a permanent marker from the broken cockpit, I dated and wrote in Cyrillic on the outside of the fuselage: "Here lies American base bum Rex. Though he mistook a mountain for a runway, he seemed like an adequate pilot. I will send word to the embassy when able. Scavenge what you please. I can carry no more. Survivor Andrew Foworthy."
I thrust the marker into a pocket, then shouldered my backpack, the sleeping bag attached to the underside. Lastly, I fit the trenching shovel into one shoulder strap and picked up my bike.
"Rest in peace, Tiffany," I mumbled, and started up the slope.
When I crested the ridge again, the sun was directly overhead. Below me lay more rocky terrain where it ended in a thick stand of cedar timber far away. I would have to carry my bike until I was through the forest that girdled the mountain range like a mile-wide belt. Beyond the belt, I memorized the terrain. The mountains faded into green and brown rolling hills as far as my eyes could see. In survivalist training, I'd read that survivors were to remain with the downed aircraft until rescuers came onto the scene. But I wasn't lost. And I wasn't waiting for the Chinese military to find me. The Mongolian armed forces and border patrol was so limited in number that I didn't expect them to happen upon the crash site before winter.
Mongolia is called the Land of Blue Sky with an average of 257 blue-sky days a year, yet the cold was still deadly, especially at higher elevations. I needed to get down into the steppes where livestock and game had made trails across the land on which I could use my bike. On a smooth trail or road, I calculated I could make nearly one hundred miles a day with the bike, and that was taking it easy when a normal mountain bike could cruise along at seventeen miles per hour on a good path.
I started down the mountain in a south-eastern direction. If I would've known how many eyes were watching me as I approached the forest, I may have stopped before ever reaching the trees. But ignorance is bliss, and in my ignorance, God watched over me as I trekked directly into danger.
*~*
Chapter 4
When it came to living in the outdoors, I had experienced much less than what I actually knew. Book smarts can take a fella only so far, so I was trusting God to transfer my head knowledge of Mongolia to the center of my survival instincts. Eventually, I wanted to live naturally in this land, with my labors focused on sharing the Word of God. When I was growing up in New York, I'd spent many nights in the city's one-thousand-plus city parks, like Pelham Bay Park and Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. Though the parks have their wild sides, they're still set in urban surroundings. In Mongolia, winter temperatures range from five to twenty below—average. In New York City, the Atlantic Ocean tends to moderate weather extremes, and there's always an all-night laundry or donut shop to escape to under the most dire of circumstances. In Mongolia, outside of the few and far-between towns, there's simply . . . wasteland. Yet, I had a strange peace as I hiked down the mountain range into the cedar forest. With a determined smile on my face, I conversed with my Lord on this beautiful day, though perhaps my last, and saw no obstacle too great for my God.
As I stepped into the forest belt along the mountain range, I paused in the choking darkness and listened to the sounds around me. Here, I was familiar with the sounds of wind blowing through the branches and the constant chatt
er of squirrels. Pine, spruce, and white birch were before me, all but dwarfed by cedar trees with bases nine feet in diameter. Nine feet! This was virgin timber, never touched by man, though surely managed by God's system, including wildfire from time to time. There was an eeriness to it all, though, and I sensed I was being watched even then. I'd read that in the dense dampness under the boughs there were moose, giant brown bears, wolves, lynx, sable, and even reindeer. Many other species of animals were indigenous to the steppes where the rangeland endlessly spanned on the other side of the forest.
Creeping between the massive trunks, I felt truly small among the monsters of wood that reached from frozen ground to crisp sky. Patches of glacier and shale were nonexistent in the forest, but the air was still chilled. My breath vaporized in front of my face, though every step brought me to lower elevations where it would be more comfortable on this beautiful summer day.
Suddenly, I stopped and peered into the shadows on my left. Something large had moved twenty yards away, beyond a giant shrub that looked like solid fungus. There were endangered plants in this land of indefinite cold, but I wasn't interested in rare vegetation. I continued, my feet and heart both pacing a little faster.
Five steps later, I heard a whisper of movement behind me and to my right, then again to my left. Though I wanted to turn around and run back up the mountain to the wide open elevation where I could see what lurked around me, I had to travel through the tiaga forest sooner or later. It may as well be now. Stopping or running would've been a mistake, because I had a suspicion of what was out there. In prison, there were riots and frightening moments when my life had been in peril. At those times, I had simply put my back to the wall and begun to pray. There was no wall in the forest, but I could still pray.
"'Make me know Your ways, O Lord,'" I shouted in English at the trees. "'Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation! For You I wait all the day!"'
