Just off the eastern shore of Lake Victoria is a beautiful mountain island called Mfangano. Its been years since I had been there, and the little dirt airstrip hidden in the trees was just as bad as it always was – maybe even worse. I flew the Caravan low southward down the coast to let my passengers do some filming. They were a film crew after all. We then swooped close over the strip and curled back around to land. One huge tree stood at the south end and I maneuvered around it at and angle to the runway, watching my left wing carefully as we zoomed past. The landing was not smooth.. but neither was the runway. My manifest of ten passengers were there for just one day, visiting a Bible translation project which has been going on for more than a decade now. The Suba translation has come a long way since I first saw it six years ago. In fact, they tell me it will soon be finished, in a year or two. I imagine we will be flying for that occasion – Bible dedications are always a coveted assignment for us pilots. The majority of my passengers today were here to visit and report on the work, as they represented some of the donors for the project. And a handful of them were a film crew that we had flown before – neat guys with really neat cameras. At the start of their filming day, I could tell they were needing an extra hand. “You guys need a grip?” I asked. Their eyes lit up. “If you know what a grip is… yeah!” And so, I followed the camera crew around, hauling some of their equipment, and holding the diffuser for each interview. When I’m not occupied with an airplane, playing with cameras is a close second best. And despite the lowly job on this shoot, it was a great opportunity to see how the pros work – frame their shots, conduct the interviews, and talk the talk of super-cool film makers… “Better get a safety on that shot Joe.” I flew my airplane well today, helping these folks get the most out of their day, and giving them safe transit over rough country and around some pretty menacing weather. It was a short trip and not much work really, but I knew that I had helped move the Suba Bible a little bit further along, and with it, the growing church on Mfangano. On top of that I had the small joy of knowing that this particular video documentary was going to look real nice, thanks in small (very small) part to those unsung heroes of film… the grips.
