Missionaries head into a little more adventure than they had planned.

Missionary pilot, Brian Pruett, was hit with some scary news: Super Typhoon Pablo was coming.

Brian went right to work. He started cutting up an old crate to make control locks that he hoped would help keep the high winds from slamming the flight controls around.

“We live in the mountains toward the center of a large island,” Brian writes. “Consequently we don’t ever deal with typhoons because they are typically forced north of us or they dissipate to almost nothing by the time they cross the east side of the island to get to us.”

So you can imagine the shock that Brian and his wife, Bailey, felt when they learned that their location was predicted to be directly in the path of a “super typhoon” that was the biggest to ever hit that part of the world.

“As reality hit us,” Brian continues, “we began to feel very helpless. Not only were we in the middle of an island with nowhere to run, but our airplane sits under a large metal roof with no walls.”

That’s when Brian decided to drive to the hangar and fabricate battens for the flight controls in an effort to keep them from blowing in the wind. He tied the plane down as best he could with miscellaneous materials from the hangar.

The next morning, winds were peaking at 195 mph where the typhoon made landfall. Brian and Joel Davis, the other pilot in the region, returned to the airplane to add some straps to try to hold the plane.

“Now that the plane was tied so securely,” Brian admits, “I was certain it would be beaten to death by flying debris from the storm.”

So, feeling helpless, Brian prayed for God to protect His airplane. Then he returned home to his family and waited for the storm to pass.

It was intense.

When things began to calm slightly, Brian and Joel returned to check the plane. It was then they could begin to see the storm’s damage. They estimated that the eye of the storm had passed somewhere between their houses and the hangar. Fields were leveled, banana trees in all directions had been snapped in half. Other trees 3’ in diameter had been uprooted or broken in half.

Brian and Joel approached the hanger with apprehension, wondering what devastation they would find there.

To their amazement, “Everything was intact! Even the tin roof on the hanger was undamaged,” writes Brian. He saw with astonishment that the plane hadn’t moved even an inch.

“It was left unscratched,” he shares.

God’s airplane was safe!

And Brian has something to add. “It was encouraging to see firsthand and to remember—that the wind and the waves still obey their Master.”

Missionary pilots are diligently ministering every day to support missionaries in remote locations. You can help by sponsoring missionary flights.