Pubdate: Sat, 12 May 2001
Source: Reading Eagle-Times (PA)
Website: http://www.readingeagle.com/
Address: P.O. Box 582, Reading, PA 19603-0582
Contact:  2001 Reading Eagle Company
Fax: (610) 371-5098
Author: Mary Young
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?172 (Peruvian Aircraft Shooting)

MISSIONARIES YEARN TO BE BACK IN PERU

If today was an ordinary day, children would appear at the iron gate in 
front of Yavari 782 around 6 p.m. and yell, "Senora Bobbi, Senora Bobbi." 
Bobbi Donaldson would open the gate and the children would run into the 
yard of the two-story, concrete block home in Iquitos, Peru.

They would study the Bible, sing songs and play games for about an hour.

Inside the house, her husband, Kevin, would be cooking a light supper.

But this is no ordinary day for the Donaldsons.

Kevin is in Geigertown, recuperating from surgery that repaired the foot he 
nearly lost April 20, when his missionary plane was mistaken for a 
drug-smuggling flight and shot down by a Peruvian fighter pilot.

Bobbi is by his side tending to his needs and worrying about who will trim 
the pink bougainvillea outside the home they have lived in since 1988 with 
their sons Benjamin, 15, and Gregory, 12.

"The neighborhood kids are so curious," she said, homesickness evident in 
her eyes. "They're so happy. They live for the moment. We're needed there. 
Here, we're like everybody else a dime a dozen."

Their friends at High Point Baptist Church, the Donaldsons' home base, are 
treating the Donaldsons well. Still, they are anxious to return to Peru. 
They do not know when that will be. Kevin is facing more surgery and a long 
recovery.

Kevin was returning to Iquitos after flying Jim and Ronnie Bowers and their 
children, 6-year-old son, Cory, and 7-month-old adopted daughter, Charity, 
to the Brazilian border to get a visa for Charity. The flaming plane fell 
into the Amazon River after the bullets hit.

When Kevin escaped the plane he found Jim and Cory unhurt, but Ronnie and 
Charity were dead.

The Peruvian fliers had not checked the plane's registration with the tower 
in Iquitos, where Kevin's flight plan was filed.

 From the time the Donaldsons arrived in Peru, they had struggled to get 
the missionary plane in the air.

They raised the money to buy it. Kevin prepared the hangar. They went 
through a lengthy process to register the plane. They never succumbed to 
bribery, as other Americans had when they got frustrated with the slow pace 
at which the Peruvian government moved.

Bobbi and Kevin watched the plane being raised out of the Amazon on 
television and were dismayed by how poorly it was handled. It is still 
salvageable, but restoration will take longer and cost more.

"We had to go very slowly with all this rigamarole," Bobbi said, recalling 
the process they followed to register the plane. "We wanted to do 
everything correctly. The point seems kind of moot now."

And this weekend Bobbi will be forced to break with another important part 
of her life in Peru.

She will not be able to make her annual Mother's Day visit to baby Ted's 
grave. Their third son died May 12, 1991, of Sudden Infant Death syndrome. 
He is buried in Peru.

"I don't go to the cemetery every day or even every month," Bobbi said. 
"His death anniversary seems to be more important. He died on Mother's Day."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager