Chapter 80

     Some of the company sales and marketing staff were to fly to New York the next day for a technology convention.  I had flown a lot and had never felt nervous about flying, but this time I was just miserable.  I got up to leave early that morning and my son Christopher was awake too.  He looked up at me and with the motion of a plane taking off going up and then coming down crashing he said, “Da da, whishhhh, crash.” I said, “No, No!”

     I made it to the Kansas City airport okay but was still nervous.  We boarded the plane with my nerves still intact and feeling okay. Our layover was in Chicago, and we got off our plane to switch to our next flight.  At the gate I looked out at the plane and knew one thing instantly, this plane was in trouble.  No way did I want to board this flight, but I didn’t know what to do.  So, I started praying.

     We got on the flight and my prayers continued.  The plane was stuck at the gate so long they had to de-ice the wings three times before we pulled away. Headed to the tar mat, my prayers intensified, and I was pleading with God for the right prayer to pray.

     Finally, after being lined up to take off for thirty plus minutes and starting to wonder if we should go back and de-ice again, we lined up with the runway. 

     Then this prayer hit me, “Lord, if this plane is in trouble, please do not let it leave the ground.”

     I instantly relaxed.  I had done the right thing persevering in prayer and the Lord had given me the right prayer; I could relax.  The plane headed down the runway and it was right at the point when the plane was to leave the runway when we heard a loud explosion and the whole plane shook like a tin can.

     I looked over at the engine and it was on fire.  The plane came to as fast a stop as I am sure was possible and pulled off the runway.  We just sat there as fire trucks and other emergency equipment came within about twenty yards of us, just sitting there and watching us.

     The fire went out and the captain came on the speaker letting us know we would be towed to the gate to change planes.  Getting off the plane at the gate,  I looked at the airline steward and said to him, “We just about had to pick up our luggage off the runway.”

     The steward replied, “No sir, we would have done that for you.”

     We boarded the new plane, and I was feeling fine.  I saw the crew though; they were all still very pale.  I was sure they knew how serious the situation had been but here they were, doing their job helping to get us to our destination when I am sure they wanted to just go somewhere and take a break.

     Marshall and I were working on a lawnmower tractor out in front of his airplane hangar, getting ready to mow the grass-strip planes used to come and go from his airport.  He had bought into a partnership with a friend of his to own the airport on Turkey Mountain by Table Rock Lake just a few miles from Shell Knob, Missouri.

     I looked over and saw a Beechcraft Bonanza plane sitting in a hanger and got a really bad feeling about it.  I asked him about it, and he replied telling me he had just bought it recently but was spooked by it and was planning on selling it.

     When we were done with the mower, I went over to the plane and laid my hands on it and prayed asking the Lord, “What’s up with this plane?”  Instantly I went into a vision.  I saw the plane crashing and both the wings being knocked off and when it came to a rest, the propeller was all bent up and there was blood on the windshield.  Not good at all.  But I thought, this doesn’t seem to be that anyone got killed or anything like that.

     I did not say anything to Marshal about the vision as I had never talked to him about such things and he did not have much good to say about religion.

     Marshall had a friend of his just south of the border in Arkansas who offered to store and try to sell it for him.  However, Marshall heard the plane was being tied down outside and not in a hanger like they had agreed.  He had a friend of his take him down to pick up the plane.  

     Upon takeoff, he had neglected to adjust the flaps correctly and the plane went down on take-off, just like I had seen in the vision.  He was ok but had to walk back to the airport, as no one had seen him go down.  He ended up with just a bleeding head wound from hitting his head on the windshield.