Answering the Call

Have you ever wondered what God could do through the life of just one person? One person who, like the prophet Isaiah, heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). In 1917, a young William Cameron Townsend was sent to Guatemala to sell Spanish Bibles to the local people. He soon discovered, however, that the villagers did not read Spanish and only spoke it to trade with others. They spoke their own language, Kaqchikel. He realized the need for the Kaqchikel to have the Bible in the language they understood best. For the next 10 years, a determined Cam, along with others, translated the New Testament into Kaqchikel so that the people could know in their hearts the truth of God’s love.

In 1926, while wearily slogging along a mountain trail, Cam first thought about how helpful airplanes would be in missions. Four years later, with the help of a US Navy Commander, he even put together an aviation program proposal. Though it was turned down, he never gave up his belief that airplanes would one day be used to help missionaries.

At the invitation of Mexico’s Minister of Education, Cam moved to Mexico in 1934 and began translation work in the small town of Tetelcingo. After meeting President Cárdenas of Mexico, Cam was encouraged to bring more translators into the country. Seeing lives transformed, Townsend founded the Summer Institute of Linguistics in 1934. What began as a summer training program with just two students grew to become SIL Global, a world leader in the Bible translation movement today with over 4,000 members from nearly 90 countries. In 1942, Townsend founded Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) to support recruiting and equipping missionaries.

Just a few years after the birth of WBT, a small band of committed Christ-followers continued building on the vision of Uncle Cam. Translation work had begun in Guatemala and had expanded to Mexico. Now translators were beginning work in Peru. But reaching every nation, tribe, people and language (Rev. 7:9) hidden deep within the mountains and jungles was proving difficult and dangerous.

Cam spent some weeks surveying the Peruvian jungle by air and riverboat in 1945. Realizing the challenge of the immense, mostly unmapped Amazon forest, he was convinced that a float plane aviation program would play a critical role in carrying out any translation project in the jungle.

Paving the Way for JAARS

God had given Cam a vision to meet the transportation and communication needs of the translators, and he allowed two different crises to thrust Townsend’s vision into the spotlight.

Titus and Florence Nickel were among the first group of SIL translators to arrive in Peru in 1946. They traveled first by land then downriver by canoe to an Aguaruna village to live, with no radio communication to connect them to SIL’s main base. After several months, they awaited a supply plane to arrive, but it never did. With their food supplies running out and Florence expecting her first child, the Nickels finally decided to make their way back to the SIL base.

After two weeks of many difficulties traveling in a Peruvian trader’s boat, Titus and Florence had to switch to walking along a muddy trail. Eventually, they found a mule they could use and rode it for two days. Finally reaching a road, they traveled one more day in a truck. After 21 days of travel, the Nickels finally reached their destination. When they returned to the Aguaruna village months later, along with their newborn son John, SIL pilot Larry Montgomery brought them in the Grumman Duck amphibious biplane. The entire trip took less than two hours.

Uncle Cam was very upset when he heard what had happened to the Nickels. “No more translators should go into the jungles of Peru until they can be assured of adequate transportation service,” he declared¹. Their ordeal compelled Townsend to begin planning how best to meet translators’ needs. But it was slow going to convince investors in the United States to share his vision and provide the money needed to see those needs met.

Months later, in 1947, a second crisis hit much closer to home. Cam, his wife, Elaine, and their six-week-old daughter, Grace, suffered a near-fatal aviation accident in southern Mexico. Though badly injured, Uncle Cam told those helping to take photos of the crash.

In 1948, God answered the prayers of Uncle Cam and those who shared his vision. The Wycliffe Board of Directors approved his request to establish Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS), a new service committee that would provide a safety net of air service and radios for translation workers. God’s provision was immediately apparent: a $10,000 gift for the flying program allowed the purchase of land for the Yarinacocha center in Peru. Little more than a decade later, its hangar housed nine aircraft.

By the late 1950s, logistical problems surrounding training, travel and supplies made it clear that JAARS needed a US-based headquarters. Uncle Cam wrote of this need in a letter in 1959, stating that, “We needed a facility where we could evaluate and orient pilots and mechanics, overhaul aircraft and provide other services the fields couldn’t easily do for themselves.”

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The JAARS Base

In 1961, God laid it on the heart of Christian businessman Henderson Belk of Belk Department stores to give 256 acres of pine forest and empty cotton fields outside Waxhaw, North Carolina, for the international headquarters for JAARS. It perfectly matched Townsend’s dream of a beautiful rural location that was big enough to establish a large community of workers. The dirt airstrip and first hangar were built first. Over the years more buildings sprang up, and paving and more land were added. Today the JAARS Base includes over 630 acres and more than 400 staff.

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As the years passed, the outreach of JAARS grew to expand beyond just aviation and radio services. Land and sea transportation, media and technology, and training services assisted the work of our Bible translation partners all over the globe.

In 2022, newly-elected JAARS President Steve Russell prayerfully asked God for a renewed vision and mission for JAARS that would honor its past and provoke towards the future. He began to refocus JAARS back to its aviation roots. Our name was officially changed to “Jungle Aviation and Relay Service” to signify a change of mission from providing an array of diverse services to focusing on our Air, Land and Sea Operations to relay personnel, equipment, supplies and the Good News to the remote villages and people groups who live in the most hard-to-reach places on the planet.