Why Herb Wants to Fly a Kit
When you meet him, Herb Cook suggests a farm-bred halfback a dozen years out of Michigan State—a solid, 37-year-old outdoorsman with a fresh-air expression, full of a keen-edged zest for life. But Herb was born in Zaire, the son of missionary parents.
Leaving a legacy of service, and writings that would become classics in Christian literature, Edwards plainly fulfilled his old college resolution to “live with all my might.”
Why Herb Wants to Fly a Kit
his was published in the spring of 1977 in the Yale Standard.
When you meet him, Herb Cook suggests a farm-bred halfback a dozen years out of Michigan State—a solid, 37-year-old outdoorsman with a fresh-air expression, full of a keen-edged zest for life. But Herb was born in Zaire, the son of missionary parents.
During college in the States, he felt that God was calling him to return to Zaire, to return to the people. He knew two of the country’s major tribal languages—Lingala and Congo Swahili. After three years in Zaire working with the people to set up much-needed youth programs, the number of locations that sought his help had increased so that travel by Land Rover proved ineffective and nearly impossible. Roads were often washed out and bridges impassable.
He figured that the answer to his transportation dilemma was a helicopter. He could not shake off the conviction that he had to have it, so he prayed. He had no money. The mission board was against it. He did not know anything about flying and he certainly did not know anything about welding. And yet in spite of all these lacks the answer came.
The answer to his transportation dilemma was a helicopter. He could not shake off the conviction that he had to have it, so he prayed.
After returning to the States, Herb looked across the table at a dinner one night and told an acquaintance that he needed a helicopter for his work in Africa. It was just a remark, but what he did not know was that the man sitting next to the man to whom he spoke was in the business—helicopter sales. He invited Herb to come over and look at his choppers.
It turned out that the man did not really deal in helicopters, which cost up to $40,000 for a used one, but in build-it-yourself helicopter kits. But Herb still did not have any money. The kit cost close to $8,000.
While speaking at a missionary conference in Bermuda, he met another man who had just come back from a vacation in Africa. As a result of what he saw there, the man himself had already reached the conclusion that land travel was not meeting the need in Africa and that the answer was air travel. While talking with the man, Herb mentioned his interest in a helicopter. Before the conference ended the man handed Herb a white envelope. When Herb looked inside he found a gift of $3,000.
Thus armed, the youthful missionary went back to his board and convinced them that a helicopter was the right thing for him. As a result, he found himself looking one morning at a helicopter kit deposited on the lawn of the mission headquarters in Pearl River, N.Y.
A helicopter kit bears just about as much resemblance to a helicopter as a felled tree does to a two-masted schooner. What Herb saw spread out before him were long tubes of steel, boxes of engine parts, uncut sheets of heavy gauge steel, and a big crate containing the plastic bubble. His task was to cut and weld and shape every major structural part of the flying machine and put them together—from scratch.
It took him more than a year to construct it and another year to learn to fly it. By June, he hopes to be back with his wife and three daughters in his outpost in the northeast corner of Zaire, near the Ugandan border. Now overland trips that used to take six hours will be skimmed off in 30 minutes.
“When God calls you into His service He provides in a real fabulous way,” Herb beamed as he told the story of his two-seater Scorpion helicopter. “I had always heard how God provided for other people, but I never imagined this kind of thing happening to me.”
Jesus’ great commission to His disciples was: “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, go the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).