This Week's Story
click here to play audioWith stunning skill and judgment, Dwayne King serves as a missionary bush pilot and instructor in Alaska.
This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.
Dwayne King - From Plane Innards to Human Hearts,
part four
Dwayne King still vibrates at age 81 and directs Kingdom Air Corps in Alaska. He’s high-energy and loves adventure. He’s never stopped being curious. He can quickly give his attention to a person. Simultaneously, he may be working and sharing witness as a Christian.
His humor often pops through unexpectedly. It is never far from the skills and judgment he has from years of experience as a missionary pilot and aviation mechanic.
Leander Rempel, a close friend, shares an account of Dwayne’s humor.
“Dwayne loved to take visitors for sight-seeing rides and would inevitably lead them to his bush plane, just to watch the looks of alarm as he started loading them into this airplane, which looked like it would fall apart before it got to the end of the runway. Really, the plane was in excellent mechanical condition. It just looked ragged because of all the different paint jobs that came from taking a wing from one plane, the fuselage from another, and the other wing from a third aircraft. After
the visitors had registered shocked expressions, he would inform them with a roar of laughter that the plane they would be taking was parked nearby.”
Before Dwayne’s years in Alaska and Siberia he graduated from LeTourneau in 1965 in Texas with his FAA airframe and powerplant mechanic ratings, and private pilot’s license. He and his wife Carolyn moved to Soldotna, Alaska where Dwayne worked at the Missionary Aviation Repair Center.
Their first home in Alaska was a two-room log cabin on the Kenai Peninsula with water from a hand-operated pump. Though Dwayne at work had been concentrating on plane repair, his love for planes became second place. His first love became serving God. Aviation could be the means.
Dwayne knew the impact Vince and Becky Joy had had in the Copper River Valley of Alaska. The Joys had gone as missionaries there in 1937 and found spiritual deadness. They became friends with native Indian people and whites. They shared who Jesus is and how His love and salvation can change lives.
Several native people started meeting in Bible study and church services and became Christians. Emergency medical services developed. A Christian radio station began, basic infrastructure for electricity came, and the local public school system developed.
Now Dwayne a generation later was flying to village missions with natives and was part of SEND mission organization. He wrote, “I fell in love with the native people, and came to realize we needed to go to the villages.” He and Carolyn moved to Tok, Alaska. Their emphasis was Indian villages and supporting missionaries in Canada’s Yukon Territory.
The King’s next move with their four children plunged them into winter temperatures often 60 to 70 degrees below zero. This was Bettles, thirty-five miles above the Arctic Circle.
Here we stop until part five. This is Todd Warren, Nathan Thomas, and Barbara Steiner. Check out the website: thisweeksstory.com.
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