Friday, August 08, 2014

Pastor pilot racks up air miles in Northern Manitoba and Ontario

Some people handle emergencies, death and tragedy better than others. But few do so as well as Rev. Bill Ney, a Lutheran pastor who comes to Thompson every summer to do something important for people living in the north.

He is a humble servant of God who helps people and provides spiritual guidance for people’s souls.

His job sounds easy and safe, but flying into remote northern communities in a small single-engine airplane is not always easy. It sometimes puts him in danger.

Ney said: “We had the engine stop once over northern Ontario. We were getting ready to ditch and it started again. That’s one of the dangers.”

A close friend of Ney, who was a pastor pilot based in Red Lake, Ont, mysteriously died two years ago in an unusual accident.

“He was a very close friend: Steve Dreher,” Ney said. “He was a pastor from Colorado, and that’s where he died.”

Dreher was taking off at a high altitude, when something caused him to crash.

Ney said: “It was a Cessna 337: the ones they use up here for the firespotters. It’s a really good plane. They used it in Vietnam. That plane had two engines.”

The Cessna O-2 Skymaster military version of the Cessna 337 was used by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War.

Ney said his Cessna 182 is more reliable than the Cessna 337.

But why did Rev. Ney decide to take on such an ambitious task?

Rev. Ney grew up in Stratford, Ont. and is a member of the Lutheran Church-Canada. He was a pastor in Waterloo, Ont. and in Ann Arbor and Saginaw, in Michigan. He was the full-time pastor for a large parish, St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Stony Plain, Alberta, and now lives there.

Rev. Ney and his wife, Diane, have been involved with the Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots (LAMP) and the Lutheran Church for decades.

“I’ve been involved with LAMP since 1970,” said Rev. Ney. “I became the pastor pilot four years ago.”

He got his licence when he was 62.

Before that, he was a board member, and then president, before retiring so he could get his private pilot’s licence and fly for LAMP, which owns the Cessna 182 he flies.

Ney said: “I don’t get paid for flying. But I get paid as a missionary pastor. But in order to get to the places that I serve, I have to fly.

“I am flying a Cessna 182 TRG. Its range is just over six hours.”

His four-seat light aircraft is a Cessna 182 turbo Skylane RG II with a 230 hp piston engine. Ney’s aircraft was built in 1979 by Cessna Aircraft Company, a manufacturer based in Wichita, Kan.

Ney and his safety pilot, David Smith, are based in Thompson for the summer. They stay at McCreedy Campground, just like LAMP’s previous pastor-pilots.

Rev. Ney is the only current pastor pilot flying for LAMP. It is a Canadian organization dedicated to spreading the gospel across the north, but has offices in New Haven, Mich.

A total of six pilots are flying for LAMP in Canada, and one of them is an American, Ney’s safety pilot, David Smith, 48. Smith is a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in the United States. He is a former U.S. Air Force pilot who used to fly the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, a military aerial refuelling aircraft.

“I flew a heavy tanker like the Boeing 707,” Smith said.

He is a professor and flight instructor at the University of Nebraska, in Omaha, Neb.

Ney said he needs Smith when flying out of Thompson.

“We’re flying north and east into Ontario, and we’re flying sometimes west over into Saskatchewan,” Ney said. “In those vast areas, it’s nice to have another pilot.”

Ney’s boss, the executive director of LAMP, Ron Ludke and another pilot are ministering the bible schools in Saskatchewan.

“David and I, and my boss, Ron Ludke, he is covering a vast area too, so all together it’s about a million square miles,” Ney said.

LAMP has airport bases in Edmonton, Alta.; Flin Flon; Thompson; Winnipeg; Sioux Lookout, Ont. and Dryden, Ont. LAMP’s 47 mission teams minister to 47 communities in the northern parts of British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

“There are over 600 volunteers coming from all over Canada and from all over the United States,” Ney said.

The 47 LAMP teams and their six pilots visit remote communities by airplane for devotions, Bible readings and discussions with adults, and vacation bible schools for children.

The LAMP pilots sometimes help people with medical emergencies, such as a 32-year-old American member of LAMP ministering in South Indian Lake, who needed to get to a hospital.

“Dave and I flew over there, picked the young lady up, and flew her to Thompson,” Ney said. “It was really good that we did, because she had a severe kidney infection.”

She and her parents were part of the team at South Indian Lake. She recovered a few days later and her parents drove her home to Minnesota.

During a July 20 interview with the Nickel Belt News, Ney said: “She fully recovered. In fact, she came back this year. They were just there last week again.”

Ney said some previous pastor-pilots have flown out residents of native communities, but that is not the pilots’ primary responsibility, and it only happens during emergencies when an air ambulance is not available.

Ney often visits members of aboriginal communities in places like Thompson, Winnipeg, and the University Hospital in Edmonton, Alta.

“I go and will help them out, if they need a place to stay, or if a family member gets hurt and they ask me to stay with them,” Ney said.

Rev. Ney ministers to people in places such as Cross Lake, Norway House, Grand Rapids, Island Lake/Garden Hill and Shamattawa in Manitoba, and Big Trout Lake, Kingfisher Lake, Fort Severn, Weagamow and Sandy Lake in Ontario.

He goes to hospitals to provide moral support and to pray with them. But most of the communities he visits are in remote parts of northern Manitoba and northern Ontario.

“This week coming up there’s a group going into Lac Brochet,” said Ney, “and likely I’ll go and visit them. We’ll be going to Churchill the last week of August.”

Rev. Ney will visit Julie Thorarinson and Wendy Ritchat, two members of LAMP who lead a week-long vacation bible school in Churchill every summer.

Ney said: “We plan to go up and just make sure everything is OK and help them out, if they need it. I usually just spend part of the day with each group, because I have so many to go to.”

Thorarinson said northern communities need people like Rev. Ney, when things go wrong, or if someone or something needs to be found.

“A lot of unexpected things can happen in the north,” said Thorarinson, who used to own a bed and breakfast in Thompson, where LAMP missionaries would stay.

She now lives in Selkirk.

“He’s a fine Christian who serves the Lord 150 per cent,” Thorarinson said. “He is easy to work with. He’s very knowledgeable and willing to learn.”

Rev. Ney often ministers to grieving survivors whose relatives are victims of natural or accidental deaths, such as drownings in the communities he visits.

“A lot of times my ministry is to grieving people who have just lost a child, or a father, or a mother,” Ney said.

For example, he said he visited the grieving family of an 18-year-old who drowned in a canoeing accident in Brochet three years ago.

“We talked about the young man, and I shared scripture with them and prayed with them,” Rev. Ney said.

He helps people deal with tragic or sudden deaths. He once helped a family deal with a son’s tragic death on Mother’s Day in Sandy Lake, Ont.

“A truck fell on top of him when he was working on it…They were having a Mother’s Day celebration for the mom, and the whole family was there, and they were ministered.”

- Source:  http://www.thompsoncitizen.net

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