A French officer greeted Betty with a tip of his hat. “Welcome to Niamey, Mademoiselle. I am surprised to see you here on a day like today.”
“Yes,” Betty replied grimly. “The weather is very poor. I would have stayed on the ground in Sokoto if I had known.”
“I have never seen the weather so poor this time of year,” the French officer said, shaking his head. “A harmattan in this season, it is unheard of.”
Twenty minutes later the Cessna had been secured for the night, and some local missionaries were on their way to pick up Betty, Mrs. Ruten, and her baby to house them for the night.
A young man who introduced himself as Don grinned from behind the wheel of an old Model A Ford sedan. “Come on in,” he said. “Let’s get you in out of this storm.”
As Betty climbed in she marveled at the near perfect condition of the old car. On the drive to the mission station, Don told her the secret to the car’s rust-free condition was the hot, dry air of the Sahara.
At the mission station a bowl of hot soup and a loaf of fresh baked bread awaited them. After dinner Betty, exhausted from the flight, excused herself and headed for the guest bedroom.
All night and through the next day the harmattan roared. It was not until the following day that the weather cleared and Betty felt confident to continue on with the last leg of the flight.
This time the trip went without a hitch, and four hours after takeoff from Niamey, Betty spotted the town of Diapaga. As they flew low over a group of houses, Mrs. Ruten pointed out her home, a single-story structure surrounded by scraggly trees. A man came running out of the house followed by two small children. The three of them climbed into an old pickup truck and headed off down the single-lane dirt road in the direction of the airfield. By the time the Cessna was circling the airport and preparing to land, the pickup had arrived at the airfield. But the passengers in the pickup weren’t the only ones there. About three hundred people were gathered on the airfield waiting to welcome Mrs. Ruten and her new baby.
“You must be a popular lady!” Betty exclaimed. “We’ll have to wait until someone on the ground clears everyone off the runway.”
As she spoke, an official strolled out, blew a whistle, and moved the crowd to the side of the runway.
When Betty was convinced it was safe, she began her final approach for landing. The Cessna’s wheels touched down together, and the plane rolled to an easy stop. Soon the cockpit was surrounded by eager faces, and it was not until Mrs. Ruten had stepped out and shown everyone the new baby that things began to return to normal.
Betty climbed out of the cockpit and set about unloading Mrs. Ruten’s luggage. Mrs. Ruten’s husband came over to help. “Thank you so much,” he said, glowing. “You don’t know what it means to have my wife and new baby back safely.”
Betty smiled and glanced over at Mrs. Ruten, who was holding the baby in the center of a crush of admiring Africans while her two other children clung to her legs.
“Would you like to spend the rest of the day with us and fly back tomorrow?” Mr. Ruten asked, lifting a box of supplies from the plane.
“I appreciate the offer, but I have work to do in Kano, and I’m already two days behind schedule,” Betty replied.
As she flew the three legs of the trip back to Kano, Betty thought about the missionary work that remained to be done in Nigeria and about the friends she’d made and the ways she had served missionaries across the region. But time was running short for her now. In just three more months her time of service in Nigeria would be over, and she would be heading back to MAF headquarters in California.
Chapter 13
Permission Is Granted
Christmas 1952 was everything Betty imagined it would be. The Greene family gathered at her parents’ home in Seattle. Betty’s twin brother, Bill, and his family had traveled there from Chicago, where he worked for the Inland Steel Company. Her older brothers Joe and Al and their families were also in Seattle, where they now lived. After returning from China, Al had joined forces with Joe, and in 1950, they opened a private school called Bellevue Christian School. Al served as principal while Joe continued his duties as a Baptist pastor and helped out with school administration whenever he could. Betty had a wonderful time catching up on all of the news from her brothers, their wives, and her nieces and nephews.
As they sat around the dining table talking and devouring a delicious and plentiful Christmas feast, Ann, Betty’s four-year-old niece, asked, “Aunt Betty, are you going off to fly airplanes somewhere else, or are you going to stay here with us?”
Betty smiled down at her dimple-cheeked niece. “I’m not going to be flying for a while, at least not my own airplane. In the new year I’m going to be working in the MAF office again, and later in the year I’ll be going on a speaking tour of the United States. I’m going to tell people about missionaries and what they do and how airplanes can help them do their work better and faster. I might even meet some pilots who want to join us.”
The eyes of her eleven-year-old nephew Norman lit up. “Tell us about the Sahara Desert, Aunt Betty. Is it true it takes a camel a month to trek across it?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Betty replied.
“Have you ridden on a camel? We studied them in Sunday school,” interrupted Ann.
Betty spent the rest of the day answering questions and telling her nieces and nephews all about life in Nigeria and the southern Sahara Desert.
At the end of January 1953, Betty packed up her belongings and once again headed for Los Angeles. In early fall, after several months of working in the office, she set out on a goodwill tour of the United States. She spoke at missions conferences in churches, on university campuses, and in Sunday schools. Many people were interested in the work of MAF, and before she returned to MAF headquarters, Betty had recruited several men who would become strong members of MAF in the years to come. One of them was Bob Lehnhart, who worked with MAF in Brazil and then served as MAF’s personnel director.
By the time Betty finally got back to Los Angeles, MAF had moved its headquarters to a new location next to Fullerton Airport. It was a six-acre site that had previously been an orange grove. On it MAF had built an office, a maintenance facility, and a large hangar. As Betty toured the new facility, she marveled at how spacious it was, especially when compared to the tiny office she had started in eight years before in downtown Los Angeles.
Betty threw herself back into her work at the new office. She was busy and happy, and before long it was time for her to head back to Seattle for another family Christmas.
It was not until 1956, three years after returning from Nigeria, that Betty finally took up another overseas assignment with MAF. In late 1955, Betty had been hosting Stuart King and his American wife, Phyllis. Stuart was the director of Missionary Aviation Fellowship in the United Kingdom (MAF-UK), the sister organization of MAF in the United States. The Kings were on their way back to the Sudan in northern Africa after a furlough in England. As Betty told them about her flying experiences in Nigeria, Stuart King came up with an idea. “How would you like to come to the Sudan next year? One of our pilots is due to go on furlough, and we desperately need someone with experience to replace him. Would you consider coming and taking his place?” he asked.
Betty’s heart raced. She was always ready to consider a flying assignment.
“But what about the regulations?” Phyllis asked her husband.
“I hadn’t considered them. Yes, they could be a problem,” he replied in a serious tone. He turned to Betty and in his clipped English accent explained the problem. “As you know, the Sudan has an Islamic government, and it prohibits women from all sorts of careers and work. One of their laws states that no woman is to fly an airplane in Sudanese airspace.”
“Do you think they might make an exception for me?” Betty asked. “They do support the work of MAF, don’t they?”
“You’re right,” Stuart agreed. “We have made many humanitarian flights for the Sudanese, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by the government. I could apply for special permission for you to fly in the Sudan. Give me a copy of your resume, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Betty discussed the new opportunity for service with her old friend and MAF leader Grady Parrott. Both of them agreed that if the government in the Sudan gave Betty permission to fly in their airspace, she should go and do it.
It wasn’t long before Betty had her answer. Six weeks later, Stuart King wrote back to Betty. As soon as he had returned to the Sudan, he had begun talking to government officials about the best way to get Betty into the Sudan as a pilot. One official had told him to apply to the Civil Aviation Department for a pilot’s license for her and enclose a special letter with the application explaining Betty’s qualifications and flying achievements. That’s exactly what he did. When Stuart went back to check on the status of the application three weeks later, a beaming official announced, “Permission is granted for the lady pilot to come.” Stuart wasn’t sure whether it was Betty’s being the first woman to fly over the Andes, her wartime flying record, or the eighteen months she’d spent flying in Nigeria that had impressed the officials the most and swayed their decision in her favor.
Betty was delighted with the outcome. She had prayed that if God wanted her to go to the Sudan, He would show it by opening the door for her to fly there. That’s just what He had done. Now it was time for her to start thinking about preparing for the Sudan. What to take with her was no problem, but as a pilot, Betty was concerned that she would be ready to fly the particular airplanes flown by MAF in the Sudan.
Stuart King had told Betty she would start out flying a twin-engine De Havilland Rapide, but MAF-UK was in the process of buying the latest model Cessna 180 with a single 230-horsepower engine. Betty wasn’t familiar with the Rapide, and since it was a new airplane, she had no experience with the Cessna 180. Before she could feel confident going to the Sudan, she needed some experience flying both aircraft.
Hobey Lowrance, a pilot working at MAF headquarters in Fullerton, had access to a twin-engine Cessna, which he assured Betty handled very much like a Rapide. He took her up flying for several hours until she felt comfortable at the controls. An opportunity also arose for Betty to ferry a new Cessna 180 from the Wichita, Kansas, factory where the plane was manufactured to Colorado Springs. Betty loved the feel of the Cessna in the air and looked forward to flying one in the Sudan.
In Colorado Springs, she visited Dawson and Lila Trotman, who had moved there from Los Angeles. They all had a wonderful reunion, whiling away the hours reliving old times. Betty still appreciated how kind and supportive Dawson had been to MAF ten years earlier when the organization was comprised of just herself, Jim Truxton, and Grady Parrott, with nothing more than a dream and an old typewriter. Betty filled the Trotmans in on her new flying assignment in the Sudan. As she told them that she would be leaving in six weeks—right after the new year, 1956—she had no idea of the tragedy about to strike MAF.
It was Monday, January 8, 1956. As Betty was pouring herself a cup of morning coffee at the MAF office, she glanced out the window to see Grady Parrott walking grimly around the corner of the building. She knew Grady well enough to know something was very wrong.
The office door swung open, and Grady strode in. “Sit down, Betty,” he said. “It’s bad news.”
“What is it?” Betty asked, her mind racing with possibilities.
“It’s Nate Saint in Ecuador. I got a phone call in the middle of the night from a ham radio operator in Los Angeles. He had picked up a message for us from Quito. Apparently Nate flew four missionaries into Auca territory, and now all of them are missing.” He stopped a moment to clear his throat. Betty noticed large tears collecting at the edge of his eyelids. Grady brushed the tears with the back of his hand and then said in a husky voice, “They’ve spotted the Piper Cruiser from the air, but it’s been stripped of its outer skin. I’m going down there to see what I can do to help.”
