Collection 325 - Donald Berry. T2 Transcript

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Collection 325 - Donald Berry. T2 Transcript

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This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the second oral history interview of Torrey Maynard Johnson (CN 285, T1) in the Archives of the Billy Graham Center. No spoken words have been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. Foreign terms which are not commonly understood appear in italics. In very few cases words were too unclear to be distinguished. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted after the word or phrase in question. If the speech was inaudible or indistinguishable, "[unclear]" was inserted. Grunts and verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted. The transcribers have not attempted to phonetically replicate English dialects but have instead entered the standard English word the speaker was expressing. Readers should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and rule than written English.

... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence on the part of the speaker.

.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.

( ) Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.

[ ] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.

This transcript, made by Robert Shuster and Timothy Gulsvig, was completed in June 2010.

Collection 325, T2 Interview of Donald Berry by Bob Shuster, February 14, 1986.

SHUSTER: Now, you were...were talking about feasibility studies...

BERRY: Yeah, uh-huh.

SHUSTER: ...that you did in Honduras. And that’s...that’s an estimated three hundred hours a year of flying. What were some of the kinds of flying tasks that were in those three hundred hours?

BERRY: In...in the beginning, practically all of our flying involved the...the missionary and was for him. In fact, our first motto was “MAF, a Servant of Missions.” And...and it really....“A Servant of the Missionary” would have been more accurate. Most of the missionaries that we were serving...the missions we were serving were post-war. And they had very small congregations or few congregations. So they were in the developmental stage as well as MAF. So it would be [pauses] shopping, gathering, having sent to our base supplies, or the missionary coming to that base, getting in our airplane and perhaps being...having hospitilde...hospitality for the night or nights, and then would go out and let off at his station. We then would keep him supplied. Should they have a...an emergency...a medical emergency among the missionary community or anybody in the village and we...and there was money to pay for it, they would call us, and we would go out and do that.

SHUSTER: You would...in other words you would go back and forth to the hospital, fly doctors in?

BERRY: No, fly...fly the sick out.

SHUSTER: Uh-huh.

BERRY: Occasionally, some of these people were...were nurses, and they would want to go to...from village to village and...and evangelize and to do basic medicine. And that pretty much was...was the...the thrust the first ten years. After ten years, the...there was more...more missions. There were more stations. There were more people involved. Now, administrative things were...were needing to happen. Doctors were wanting to visit other doctors, or...a missionary leader would come down and would want to spend a week visiting the different out-stations, and so we’d be flying him. Dr. Night or somebody would come by and want to get out and visit these different places, and so.... Or, Dr. Walter Montano or somebody would come down as a conference speaker, and then you’d get him out to visit. Sometime in the second decade, the first national Christians’ pastors started to be in position to use the airplane to go out to evangelize. Third decade, the...the whole growth of the missionary community, and the...and its development of medical and farm and educational systems...education by extension started involving now much more the use of...of the national. And by this time, the...the first generation of missionaries were starting to get tired or ill or retire, and...so whereas we began, you know, on a ratio of...of ten people...ten missionaries to one national in our airplane, now it’s eight nationals to two missionaries, something like that. The change is so drastic.

SHUSTER: Were...are MAF services pro-rated to the different organizations without charge or how is it...?

BERRY: No, and that is another philosophic difference, I guess, with Wy...with JAARS [Jungle Aviation and Radio Service, Wycliffe’s transportation and communication division]. From the beginning, MAF has looked to the component of offering the airplane to the missionary community at a cost basis, the cost of operating that airplane. We’ve assumed the responsibility of financing that airplane and getting it to the field, of getting the worker there as the pilot, mechanic, and his family. And then, once it’s there, that pilot, with his support and the back-up of MAF then is able to operate the service on funds generated by flights charged...charged for the flights. So, if you look at our...our budget, it’s remained pretty much constant through the...all the years, one third is covered by the services rendered, one third is covered by the support factor for the missionary, and one third is covered, then, by the deputational fund-raising endeavor of the organization in...in the larger sense. And...and we found that we could...could...could basically work that way, and.... But that meant that we...we...we couldn’t...we couldn’t have more planes out there than that were working. Otherwise our whole system would...would have broken down early on. And...so that...that’s how it...how it operates. Should we fly, for example, in Honduras? It was a very unique place.

SHUSTER: In what way?

BERRY: Well, it was...it was open, and we had pretty much a free hand to do...I had a free hand to do what I wanted to do and...and to develop the system. And...so it was easy for me to get permission and authorization, certification, from the air department to have a three-rate structure. The no-cost rate for the missionary. A cost-plus for ambulance flying. And a cost-double-plus for any commercial person who would want to come up. And we just don’t do any commercial flying, but the government would want to send an educator to...La Mosquitia, this area under contest now between Nicaragua and...and Honduras. And we could...we could charge him our cost plus double, which still was cheaper than he could fly commercially any other way. And so we were able to establish that, and...and that system still is in effect today, and it...it’s been very, very effective. Other places, literally you cannot charge, because if you have any sense that you’re charging, you’re in competition with the local commercial operators and so....

SHUSTER: Where are those places?

BERRY: Well, Mexico. Philippines. Or like that. Zaire. Lot...lot of places. So you...you...you...you kind of have to, you know, juggle as to how you...how you...you...you...you do it.

SHUSTER: How do you do it? What kind of [unclear]?

BERRY: Well, in the Philippines, you...you did it just...just by going in and sitting down to the director of aviation and...and frankly telling him what your problem was. And, in fact....

SHUSTER: The government director of aviation?

BERRY: Yeah. Yeah. And...occasion...one occasion, I had a letter to go see the director, and...and he questioned me, you know, that, “You could not charge for any flight.” And I said...I explained to him a second time.... I’d been operating for several years, when he called me in. And in the end, he says, “Okay, just go out there do it, but don’t let anybody see you, you know, ever receive you...receive your pay.” [chuckles] Now, when you’re working the...the missions, it’s...it’s easier, because they all have treasuries and...and transfer of funds between missions is...is no problem, and you don’t have to be handing out money back and forth. And so, you devise ways. In other words, you’ll...we’ll do a flying for a mission for an ambulance patient, and then that...that person somehow, and we charge the mission, and the mission then collects the money from the individual. Dif...different ways. But...you have to be ingenious sometimes.

SHUSTER: What were flying conditions like in Honduras?

BERRY: Well, it...they were difficult. The country’s ninety percent mountainous. And there’s just more little scattered villages down there than...than you could believe. And...and...and just unlimited opportunity. If you could only have a reason to get a missionary out there or a worker out there or get a strip built, you could...you could just...could have all kinds of...of opportunities to serve. But that meant you had to improvise uphill landings, side-hill landings, pastures. I built seventy-five air strips in Honduras in the ten years I was there. And you’d...many times would go in on a mule and get the people to cut and fill [a primitive landing strip]. And...and it was very hard on the...on the airplanes but was a way to get in and getting in, you could minister.

SHUSTER: What did an airstrip consist of fundamentally?

BERRY: Well, a thousand...at an elevation of three thousand feet or...or less, a thousand foot level strip, with a...with at least one clear approach would suffice. That...that would be pretty minimal at three thousand feet. Sea level, that would...you could do quite well, ‘cause the air is thicker and...and...and it helps. We’ve....

SHUSTER: Was somebody always, then, maintaining it, or was it just...?

BERRY: No. You’d...you...we...I appealed to the...to the pastors and the...and the...the congregation. Usually, wherever we’d build our strips, mostly, there was...there was a pastor and there was a church there, and the people would...would be pretty good about keeping it maintained and walking over occasionally just to make sure no rocks had gotten in there. Every time I landed, I would always walk the strip and get somebody with me, just so I...I had that firsthand knowledge of it. Then, we discovered that, if we could find a place where you could land up a slope, for every two percent of slope, the strip could be a hundred feet shorter.

SHUSTER: ‘Cause it’d slow down?

BERRY: Because you’d land going up the hill, so we’ve...you know the Philippines, we’ve got one airstrip there that was only six hundred feet long and, you know, twelve percent slope, you know, from start to finish, and...and that was scary, you know. It took a lot of experience to have the courage to go in and...and to use something like that. But once you’ve done it, you...you can do it. Now, your...your safety margins.... And...and the Lord really blessed us in those early years, because we...we developed these things and operated like this with no real fatalities. Many of times, we’d...would bust the landing gear or go up on our nose and get our propeller and have some minor damage to the airplane, but we had no...no...no fatalities. Then, suddenly, in the late ‘60s, ‘68 through the early ‘70s, we had a...we had a flock of fatalities, and....

SHUSTER: Why was that then?

BERRY: Well, nobody has really been able to...to say. Certainly, we were moving to...to aircraft that were heavier. [pauses] But, you know, all I can say is, you know, “It never happened to me.” [chuckles] But, you know, only by God’s grace that it didn’t. I know so many times that I, you know, got in bed at night and before I could go to sleep, you know, you’d...you’d shut the light off, and say, “Lord, do I dare go back out there and try that again?” And, ‘cause it’s just one thing. A sudden gust. A...a miscalculation. A strip being wetter than you knew about. And things that you couldn’t really determine. I always kinda had in my mind that I could have at least one unknown factor. You know, it could...the strip could be wet or the wind could be blowing that I didn’t know it about, but I couldn’t have two things. You couldn’t have the wrong wind and...and the wet strip.

SHUSTER: If you were in the air, and you had the wrong wind and the wet strip, what did you do?

BERRY: Not land, not land.

SHUSTER: Did you usually have sufficient reserves so that you could...?

BERRY: Well, Honduras was located...our center of operation was pretty much in the center of the country, and so our...our average flight was no more than twenty minutes. So, we would keep in one tank, routinely, always would have one hour’s fuel. And then would have all the fuel that we needed to get out there and back. So, we...we kind of judged it that way and were endeavoring always to land as lightly as possible. And you wanted to land as lightly as possible, so you could take off with as much weight as possible. So, fuel management is...is a problem. People’s expectations. One of the reasons for MAF...rationale for the MAF is the fact that...the pilot is less involved with the performance of the mission or the reason for the mission. In other words, he’s more objective. When he goes out there, and he’s ready to land, but he has a question, he’ll say, “No, we shouldn’t land, because it’s not safe.” Where if the missionary were the pilot, he’d say, “But, they’re carrying on needing there. I’ve got to perform a wedding. I’ve got to do a baptism,” you see. And, so we’ve had some tough time with our passengers sometime when we go back when they think they should be there. But, when our programs...probably, the accidents happened because our programs were getting busier and busier and busier, and the pilot was thinking if I don’t make this flight, it’s another flight I have to make tomorrow, and tomorrow’s already loaded up. And he just...he gets out there. He’s got to go through today, so tomorrow will be acceptable.

SHUSTER: Has that changed now or has that been...?

BERRY: We, we....

SHUSTER: ...a little more distributed or...?

BERRY: Yeah, well, we’re...we’re...we’re cutting back. We no longer allow our pilots to fly as much as we did in those early days, and in the 70s. You know, there were times I was flying a thousand hours a year and building a hanger and, you know, developing ten airstrips in the country, you know, and also doing the shopping and doing the bookkeeping and all the correspondence and...and the mission relationships, as well as trying to be wife and a...a father and a...and a husband. In one occasion, I flew over a year never having a day off. You know, that wasn’t because I had...I wanted to...I was, you know, I was really in it. And that probably was not wise to do that, but.... So, we have more people...we’re better staffed now. And we can approach it more...more rationally.

SHUSTER: Any particular flying experience in Honduras that stands out in your mind as the most memorable or most dangerous or...?

BERRY: Oh, you know, the probably most rewarding is the...the...one of the very first flights that I made, I....1952. We had just been in and gotten our permission and got the airplane and were checked out. [pauses] And were ready now to make our first flight to the La Mosquita, which was three hundred miles away, twho hundred fifty...three hundred miles away. And they knew that we were coming. We had sent ahead letters months ahead, which went by boat, generally advising them when we would come. And in our coming, we were bringing some old radios that we hoped to install so we could have some kind of communication with them. But on this occasion, we landed at Alwis [?] at about 4:30 in the afternoon, only to find that the doctor’s baby, twelve...ten-month old baby or something, was...was gastro dysentery. And was very very weak. And the doctor had just started on him his last bottle of [unclear] liquid, whatever you call it. And I was pressed to, you know, put the baby in the airplane right that minute and make that long flight back, which I just couldn’t do because of darkness, so I said, “No, we’ll...we’ll have to make the flight first thing in the morning, and let’s pray.” So, we...we prayed through that evening, took off before dawn, flew the three hours back to the hospital, mission hospital, and ran [unclear] up to the hospital and just in time to...to save his life. Now, he is back as...carrying on the medical work in Honduras for his father. And, another occasion, just before I left. Now, in...in doing the flying in Honduras, part of our reason was to fly with the Central American Mission Hospital. Fly for them, and help them in outreach. They had hoped to establish clinics around the hospital and have them established [pauses] with nurses. And the doctor then periodically would go out and...and spend concentrated time working with the nurses. Well, the doctor...we did this and we got a couple of nurses started, established, only to find out that it wasn’t a very...it was a very poor use of the doctor’s time because the...the people are slow in coming. You say, “You...the doctor will be there on Tuesday.” Well, people don’t really start coming ‘til they hear the airplane. So they start arriving at 2:30 in the afternoon when the doctor’s getting ready to go home. And he said, “Well, look, why should I leave tending to forty people in my hospital to come out here to tend to two people. So, they...they started shutting that program down. At this point, I...I saw the opportunity for dental clinics, and I encouraged a...a dentist friend to come and to do a survey. And out of that, we started a dental ministry and actually got a dentist to come be a member of MAF and to go and do dentistry for us in...in outreaches. And in one little villages [sic], I encouraged the people. I went in by mule and told them if they would build me a simple little airstrip, I would come back, and I could bring a dentist to do the dental care. And that really...that really excited them. And almost overnight, they...they created this little airstrip. So, we brought a dentist in, and with the dentist, brought a nurse. And she did some evangelism in the evenings, and we all shared our faith as best we could. Okay, that happened. I left. Went to the Philippines and Laos and New Guinea and got involved in my administrative personnel things. I guess I left there...this would have happened in 1961, ‘62. Last year, a delegation of our Honduran board members, now that we have formed a Honduran MAF, as we have in Brazil and several other places...but one of these men came to an international meeting that was held in Canada, and on the way back, stopped off at our headquarters to visit and asked to see me. And so I met with him, and he said, “You probably don’t remember me,” he says, “but when you first came to our little village, Concepción del Norte, I was just a boy. I was one of those kids that bothered you because I always insisted on getting behind the airplane in the prop wash when you wanted to take off,” and you know, of course, you always worried about little kids around the airplane. He said, “But your coming with the airplane and the...the nurses and the doctor you brought, the dentist, encouraged me, and I became the first believer in that village. And later on, after many difficult years, my...my parents became Christians likewise, a church was formed, and there’s a strong church in that town. I went on to school and went...and learned dentistry and am a registered dentist, and now I’m setting aside my dentistry to pastor one of the largest churches in Tegucigalpa.” And he said, “You know, if...if you hadn’t....” And his question of me was a question his father asked him. “Will you ever, when you go to the States, see Donaldo and ask him why, why he came to Concepción del Norte?” And I said, “Well, the reason I went to Concepción del Norte was that in flying over all these little villages, so many of them that the missionary could never get to, you know, I...I had real...real burdens for them, and it was...it was that burden and the fact that there was an airstrip only a day away ride by mule that...and I thought I...was there a p...place where we could build an airstrip, but I just felt led of the Lord to...to send a telegram to the mayor saying, “I’m coming.” and, “Would you welcome me?” And they said, “Come.” So, you know, those...those...those sorts of things.

SHUSTER: You mentioned that one year you were working a thousand hours, you flew a thousand hours, that you’re working every day. How did this effect your family?

BERRY: Well, [pauses] in...in that situation, I was in and out. You know, the flights were so short that I probably, even though I was gone so much, I had more time with my family than...than lot of people do. I think both...at the time, and much of our career, my wife has felt put upon...has felt, you know, has felt abused by them being second to...to the work. Yet now, as we look back in perspective, we both recognize, and my wife recognizes and...and will testify, that our goals that we had for ourselves as Christians and as our...for our children were probably better attained in the...the missionary experience and life that we lived as MAF pilot family than had we stayed and I had been a pilot here or a doctor or an educator or a coach.

SHUSTER: Why do you think that is?

BERRY: Well, just the fact that...that we were doing what we felt God wanted us to do. We...we had...we loved each other. We were concerned...for each other. We loved our kids. We had good communications with them. And today, they all love the Lord, you know, and are...are vitally interested. I could send telegrams to all my family, say, “Meet me Friday in San Francisco. We’re going overseas,” and they’d all want to do that. You know, they’d...they’d...that would be the...the...the thing they’d rather do. They’ve all benefitted by...by their cross-cultural experience.

SHUSTER: What are some of those benefits besides the ones you’ve mentioned?

BERRY: Well, their view of the world. Their understanding and appreciation of...of third-nation people. Their...their best friends, you know, are...are those kinds of people. I have a daughter who gave twelve years to inter-city work with her husband in Philadelphia, and in fact, they’re back there now. Another daughter who, you know, is caring for and...a Honduran family that...little girl that, when we left there, said to Lauri, “Someday, I’m going to find you in the [United] States.” She did. She was here illegally. But...well, they’ve just...they’ve just gotten their permissions, in fact. But....but their view of the world, their...their application and understanding of Scripture is...is...is more that of a...a world Christian than an American.

SHUSTER: From your experience in many different fields, would you do anything different as far as your family was concerned if you did it over?

BERRY: No. I don’t think so.

SHUSTER: What was your relationships with the Honduras government like?

BERRY: It...it was...no, it’s...probably unique in all the annals of MAF history. Their...the years of the ‘50s and of the ‘60s where we’re just so totally favorable. The country was just wide open for...for evangelism. There was no...they didn’t kowtow to you as an American, but they didn’t discriminate against you. They...they...they were open. This had something to do with how the country developed. It was a banana republic. Most of the...of the people that were involved in the developing of Honduras in the ‘50s and ‘60s are young people that trained in the States, had an appreciation for education...their educational opportunity, what they were learning about aviation or communications or engineering or...or whatever. And...they just didn’t have some of the political religious biases that, you know, are in fact obviously in other countries. And...and they were open to development from America, though it didn’t develop that fast. Honduras always said they’re seventy-five years behind, seventy-five percent illegitimate...illegitimate, seventy-five percent illiterate, and seventy-five years behind everybody else. And they were wanting to...to...to move ahead.

SHUSTER: What were your relations with other missions like?

BERRY: Oh, it was excellent. Because MAF was the facilitator for them. Missions, when they go, whether they like it or not, they go with a theological distinctive, whether its baptism or the...the Eucharist, or not Eucharist, or whatever. They’ve got some theological distinctive. And so when they go down there, they might interact with another mission but...but they still have to prot...kind of protect their own theological distinctive. So for MAF to come in and to be serving all of these people, and they respected us for doing it, because we were a technical communication arm of the church. We weren’t out there preaching or teaching, you see. But then, as they cooperated together in using the airplane, then they found themselves relating to one another as brethers [sic]...brothers, and then out of that had to begin to look at their theological distinctive a little bit different, so they had a little more grace in...in...in the application of it.

SHUSTER: Can you think of some examples of that happening.

BERRY: Oh yeah. On one occasion, flying a Brethren missionary from the north coast, La Cebia....[pauses] Well no, I was...I was flying a Moravian missionary back to La Mosquitia, and the Moravian is liturgical and historical and...and creedal and, very different, when you come to...to the other kinds of missionaries that we were serving, basically, in Honduras. And we overflew La Cebia going out, but couldn’t get out, because the weather, so came back and landed, and so, for housing, it’s a simple thing for me to call up the Brethren that I had been flying and welcomed into his home and say, “Hey, we’re here overnight. A chance you can put us up?” “Yeah, come on over.” So, sitting around the table eating, they met the Moravian missionary, and very cordial and polite, you know, and most of the conversation going through me. And then afterwards, sitting talking and the missionary in La Cebia said, “Well, I got this building project.” You know, I said, “I really need some...some mahogany wood. I just...just can’t get the wood I need.” And the Moravian missionary said, “Well hey, out here, you know, the...the people are cutting it down and burning it, you know. And if you want, I can make arrangements for so many feet to be shipped to you.” The guy said, “Could you?” You know. So he did something that was very easy for him to do, and in respe...in talking, the guy from La Mosquitia said, “Boy, we’re really having some problems. You know, we’re out...so far out there. We’re dependent on this boat Siyapa [?], Captain Cooper [?] to come and bring us our stuff. But, boy, sometimes things get sent to the post office, and they’re waiting there in a bin, you know, for...to come, but they get lost and get stolen, and we don’t know whatever happens to them.” And the guy said, “Well hey, that’s no problem. Just have them send it to our address, and we’ve got this extra space, and when the Siyapa [?] goes, we’ll put it on...we’ll take the wood off the boat and put your things on, you see.” So, they became friends and interdependent on one another, and so then, when they started talking about their theologies, well hey, this brother is a brother in Christ. That’s obvious. They...they have come to experience that. I can’t understand how they baptize children, you see.

SHUSTER: Was...did you have any contact with the U.S. government in Honduras?

BERRY: A little bit. In those days, you know, we were proud to be Americans, and we still are, but...[pauses] you know, if...if...if we were asked by the embassy to...to gather information, we naively would...would...would have done that. Today, you know, we would not do that sort of thing. But Honduras was...then, was a very...very good place to be an American, you know. It was very, very easy.

SHUSTER: What kind of information would the embassy ask you to gather?

BERRY: Oh, well, [pauses] you know, I...that’s...that’s kind of a hypothetical question. I was never asked, personally, but I do know, you know, that missionaries have been involved. And...and we’re seeing now that...that these elements within a country...one of the first things that they...they...they accuse the missionary of is being an agent of the CIA. So, it’s just...you just need to...to guard against that. I think we all would run to the embassy and, in case of evacuation, as we, you know, did in...in Zaire [Congo] when...during the...the...not the Mau Mau. What was it? The Simbas of Zaire?

SHUSTER: Do you mean before, when it was the Congo and they had the Congo civil war?

BERRY: Yep. Want to be...yeah. And...and....

SHUSTER: [Patrice] Lumumba?

BERRY: Yeah. Yeah.

SHUSTER: So then, you didn’t actually have any contacts with the U.S. government when you were in Honduras.

BERRY: Only to go to get...get our visas and register when we come in the country. We flew for the U.S. government. U.S. Army had a corp of pilots and aircraft helicopters there assisting in geo...the geo...geodetic surveying of the country. But there were no implications or outfall of that...that was difficult, more or less. I...I’ve...I’ve had no...I’ve had no good or bad...just, you know, in...in my experience, the embassy could have been there or not have been there. It didn’t...didn’t affect....

SHUSTER: Is there anything about your...you want to add about your years in Honduras?

BERRY: No. Well, I...I guess the only other significant thing, and that’s...that’s personal, is...is my own pilgrimage as a Christian, you know, and that kind of ties in to where I was at...the meaning of Wheaton to me. And I can’t attribute directly to the fact that I...I attended Wheaton as compared to having gone ahead to another college or university and getting my B.S. degree. Certainly, I...I had the benefit of the Christian fellowship and encouragement. And a devotional life. But, MAF started very much fundamental, middle-of-the-road Evangelical in its theology. That’s where...where all of the people came from. And that’s what Wheaton was. So we went out to serve those like us. We didn’t go to serve the old-line denominational churches, and...and though we did that in the Presbyterians in Mexico, it happened that the ones involved in asking for the airplane were the Evangelical Presbyterians, the ones, you know, became the USA Presbyterian Church. But...so, when we were flying, it was a question then, do we fly for the Moravians, which are liturgical and...and...and not Evangelical? Do we fly for the Evangelical Reformed, which was...had been quite Evangelical historically but was very fast changing?

SHUSTER: These were groups that would come in to you, and asking yopu...?

BERRY: For service, yeah, you see. The...these were the missions in the country. The question was do you fly for the Pentecostals? Well, we...we decided, yes,we would fly for the Pentecostals, even though the Central American Mission didn’t want to have anything to do [coughs] with the Pentecostals. But again, we could get away with that because we weren’t in...in...in church work. But as I flew for the Moravians, I come to find a real exchange. [coughs] We were their first real contact with...with evangelical fundamental people, Christians, faith. And [coughs] and we [coughs] and they benefitted by that, as we shared with them in prayer and...and in other ways. And I personally and I’m sure other pilots benefitted by...by their sense of devotion, by their...their sense of worship, by their sense of, you know, of awe of God. The holiness of God. The...the...the symbols that were important to them, which had, you know, no importance to me. I was impoverished, you see. I...they...the symbols of the church, as a Wheatonite, Wheaton grad, should have had a whole lot more meaning to me than they did. And I just can’t say that was Wheaton’s fault. But you don’t...didn’t see much of it, and....

SHUSTER: Symbols you mean...?

BERRY: Well, the...the cross. [pauses] The Lord’s Supper. The...the...the church year. The...the sacraments. The...the...the accouterants...accouterments, you know, that...that you find and you experience, and that are part of worship and...and living in a...in a liturgical group. So, when I left Honduras in 1962 and asked to go the Philippines and to direct all our work in the Pacific, my...my...my...my greatest meaning of my years in Honduras related to the Moravian mission, more than the Central American Mission that I lived with and worked with and fought with. [pauses] And...then, when I got to the Phillippines, and I was asked primarily to...to begin service there for the Missouri Lutheran Church [Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod], and these guys smoked cigars....

SHUSTER: [laughs]

BERRY: ...and drank beer. And I...I...I said, “Okay, I’ll...I...I can do that, you know, without, you know, being offended. I don’t like it, and I’ll...I’ll do it temporary until somebody else can kind of come online to tactfully take over.” But as I got involved, I found these people with a whole dimension of worship that I had not experienced before. And none of the missionaries...I had only found a...a...a likeness in the Moravians. So I....

SHUSTER: Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

BERRY: Missouri Synod Lutheran. And I can never forget the surprise when the first night I was with two of these guys out in a village, and we were sleeping on the bamboo floor, uncomfortable. They had gone in there just.... A lot like my Christian and Missionary Alliance missionaries and other of that ilk would have slept on the same kind of floors and put up with the same kind of hardship. But well, we we’re out there, never before had I had anybody engage in conversations as to, “Well, how are we going to be more effective in communicating worship to these mountain people, these tribal people?” And we would spend hours discussing things like this. The first flight I made, I...before we took of in the airplane, I...we’re all belted in, and before I started the airplane, I said, “I would like to just commit this flight to the Lord in prayer.” You know, when I got out the airplane, and those guys said, “Hey, we want to see you this afternoon. Would you come up and visit with us?” “Yeah.” And they were all there, and they said, “Well, sit down and look. The reason we want so see you. Why did you pray?” You know. And they were satisfied with my answer, that it wasn’t something mystical, that...that I was feeling that that prayer was going to be the difference in the flight being accomplished or not, you know, but that I...I really wanted to hold...trust that to the Lord. Well, but those kinds of things. You know, they were reasoning. They...they...they were...they’re biblical. They...they reflective. They meditated. They discussed. They taught in a...in a dimension that...that I had not experienced before. So, coming back to the States and getting back in my Free Church. ( I was a member of the...founder of...charter member of the Evangelical Free Church there in...in the Fullerton [California], one of the biggest ones) and couldn’t take that. Because my family just couldn’t fit. They...they just wouldn’t...my kids would not go there.

SHUSTER: Because...?

BERRY: Well, it was too...too...too ritzy. It...it...their feelings were...were Honduran feelings...were Filipino feelings, and they just felt out of place there.

SHUSTER: When you say too ritzy, you mean....

BERRY: Well, yeah, the way that the kids’ lifestyle and their interests and concerns. And they were...to...to my kids, it was so inconsistent. Can these people be concerned about these things when here is the real wo...real world? And...and they just said, “Well, hey, this church is...is missing what...what the gospel is all about,” you know, to them.

SHUSTER: In other words, they thought the church was too material or...?

BERRY: Too material, yeah. Too...too...too...too upper level. Too much for themselves. It wasn’t...wasn’t...they really weren’t meaning it [when they said] that they’re trying to reach the world or other people. And...so, anyway, I was finally, and...and I...I would say all of my life, I’ve been looking for that fellowship, for that way of worship, where my...my whole spirit and...and...is at rest. And I could say I never really found it until ten years ago, we were told about a Episcopal Church, and we went over there, that little church, and we’ve been there ever since. And...it has all of the...it’s not high...high church at all. It’s renewed [an evangelical Episcopal group]. It’s very much open to the Spirit of the Lord, but - the...the...the...the meaning of...of the order of worship, the...the prayer book, the...the confessions, the...the prayers, when you stop and let them get into your mind and into your heart, they’re just so glorious, along with the singing, along with the...the...the...the preaching and everything just climaxes in that Eucharist for me, and in the “Wow!’. [sighs]

SHUSTER: Maybe this would be a good point to stop the tape.

BERRY: [laughs] Yeah. Probably would.

SHUSTER: We didn’t get to lay out the Phillippines and your work in the administrative MAF, but perhaps at some future date, we could....

BERRY: Yeah, right.

SHUSTER: ...speak more.

END OF TAPE

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