Scary Rainbow

Article written by Kodiak pilot Jamin Peck

“We couldn’t keep going,” he said.

Yunus was next to me in the cockpit as we drew close to his village, flying between mountains through a light morning drizzle. In front of and below us a brilliant double rainbow united one side of the horizon with the other. Yunus explained that before the gospel entered his village, rainbows had been evil omens eliciting fear instead of awe. When a Saluan person saw a rainbow they “couldn’t keep going”: They would have cut their journey short wherever they were for fear of something dreadful.

Yunus was born and grew up in the Saluan tribe, nestled in the rugged mountains of central Sulawesi. Missionaries first presented the Good News to this animistic tribe in 1991. One of the first Saluan believers shared the gospel with Yunus after his father passed away. Today, Yunus is a strong believer and a leader not only in his own tribe but increasingly in other tribal areas as well.

Yunus is an answer to prayer. Our aviation program in Indonesia has been swamped with requests to begin flight service for multiple missionary outreaches. Having found good locations for airstrips, with land usage and rights settled – and even with the donation of a mini-excavator for airstrip construction – the biggest holdup has been personnel.

The Lord already knew what we needed before we even asked and had been preparing Yunus with experience and skills to help us! He first gained experience overseeing construction of an airstrip in 2021 near his home village. Then came the Kolakolamon airstrip in 2024 at the outreach location just over the 8000-foot mountain next to his village. A 12-hour hike can now be done in 10 minutes by plane, filled with a month’s-worth of supplies.

Work on Kolakolamon was all with hand tools until the mini excavator was airlifted in and assembled at the site. 

 As the time came to relocate the mini excavator, Yunus volunteered to use it on an old airstrip in the Wana tribe that had fallen into disrepair.

Once our R66 helicopter finally plows through all the red tape in Indonesia and arrives [may have arrived October 30], we hope to use it to move the mini excavator to other potential airstrip locations. Having seen how effective aviation is in speeding the spread of the Gospel, Yunus has expressed an eagerness to help with even more airstrip construction in the future, because even though there are millions unreached … .

Jamin with Yunus (r.) and an aviation teammate Stiven (l.) above the first airstrip they built.

Yunus knows the power of the gospel to bring people from fear — even of rainbows — to a sure and certain faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ. When you donate to Missionary Flight Sponsorship, you are working together with Yunus to bring more of his people from fear to faith. Thank you for giving what God has blessed you with to provide indigenous outreach missionaries with affordable aviation so that … none are unreachable.