After our delays with the flat tire, we finally left Guayaramerin
Bolivia one week late. We flew out to Tabatinga Brazil with no problems and
arrived at the airport around mid-afternoon. Tabatinga borders Leitcia, which
is located in southern Colombia. Missionaries from a sister project met us on
arrival in Tabatinga, and took us to where they were staying over in Leticia
for the night. Things seemed to be going smoothly now.
The following day we said our good byes to the girls who had
been traveling with us and the rest of the missionaries and boarded an Airbus
319 out of Leticia. Our flight took us to Bogota and from there a connection to
Cucuta, which would put us at the boarder of Colombia and Venezuela that
evening. Everything happened like clockwork, no problems whatsoever, and soon we forgot about all the delays we had
in getting to this point. Little did we know that we would experience one of
the biggest tests of faith in just a matter of hours.
A little background information; I married my wife in
Venezuela two years ago. The country was on the decline economically then, but
still in somewhat stable condition. The situation has changed dramatically since,
with inflation skyrocketing and food and basic necessities becoming scarce.
Long lines form to buy the most basic of needs as stores quickly run out.
Venezuela has a socialist government which strongly opposes U.S. capitalism.
Anti-American sediment from its government frequently makes the headlines and
suspicion of U.S interfering and even trying to topple the government is
frequent talk from Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.
Arriving in Cucuta that night, we found a taxi and made our
way to the border. We stamped out of Colombia and crossed over to Venezuela to
get our entry stamps on our passports from immigration. On arrival I handed my
American passport to the immigration official. “Its expired”, she exclaimed in
the way only an immigration officer can put it. I quickly responded “It’s still
valid for another four months,” as I knew I had until June. “You need at least
six months validity to enter Venezuela. Your wife and child can enter, but you
can’t.” Imagine my disbelief to find out I could not enter after so many delays
and to finally reach Venezuela and be told you can’t come in! I was not sure
what the Lord wanted me to do. Did we need to turn around and head home after
getting this far?
It was late and we were tired. If we pushed on we would be
at Saray’s sister’s home later that night. So close! Our taxi driver tried to
be helpful, “I’ve taken others in without getting their passport stamped, and
I’m sure they will not ask you any questions.” Well, I’d like to say that I
told him no and went home, but we all make mistakes. With no real alternative
at that moment, I hesitantly agreed for him to take us in praying that things
would work out for us. I’d forgotten about the many checkpoints we needed to
cross going through Venezuela by car. With the countries’ economic problems, the
number of checkpoints had only increased.
As we neared the first checkpoint, we were all uneasy. The
taxi driver was visibly nervous, even more so after hitting a cat on the dark
road. As we neared the armed guards with their automatic weapons, I did not
know what was going to happen. But one thing I did know, I was going to be
completely honest with them. I was not going to try and buy my way in as is so
commonly done. As we pulled up, an immigration officer stopped the car.
“Passports and cedulas (ID cards),” he said. We passed him our passports and I
hesitated passing him mine. He studied my passport for a while and after not
finding the entry stamp, he asked me to step out of the car. “Where are you
coming from and where are you going” he asked. I tried to explain to him the
situation, but it only seemed to confuse him more with my answers. “Follow me”
he said as we headed for an office next to the checkpoint.
Soon we found out we were not going anywhere anytime soon.
My wife and daughter joined me in the small
waiting room. Here I was asked all
kinds of questions. I told them I was a missionary pilot on my way to visit my wife’s family, traveling from
Bolivia to Brazil in a small plane which I had left in Brazil and then made my
way commercially through Colombia. More questions were asked, but every answer
I gave him only seemed to make the situation worse!
“Do you have any other documents?” I handed him my Mexican
passport, pilots license and general declaration papers for the airplane. His
hands started to shake as he left to talk on the phone with someone. “What
could be going on I wondered?” The man came back in the room “keep an eye on
him, and don’t let him move!’ Things
were going south quickly! Lord I prayed, “Please be with us as you know I have
my family here and we are in a country that is not very friendly towards
Americans.”
It got very late, and soon we realized we would be spending
the night in this small waiting room. With the door open and the noise of
traffic coming and going, it was difficult to sleep. With no information given,
we were left is suspense to what would happen next. We soon realized there was
a jail cell behind the waiting room. In there they had four Colombian men who
were being detained. I was thankful that
I had not been put in jail with them, and that they had at least let me be with
my family.
Around midnight the guards came in, it was their turn to ask
questions. They thoroughly searched all our stuff and asked if we were carrying
dollars. I thought it was strange they would ask that, but told them I did not
have any. One of the guards then searched me from head to toe. Finding my Spot
tracker, they asked what it was for. I told them it was used in case of an
emergency while flying the airplane. They asked for my cellphone and took it
away to be examined.
During this whole time I was praying that things would work
out. Naturally fear was setting in. What were they going to do with me? When
would all this end? Would I be put in some jail cell somewhere and be kept away
from my family? Should I try and contact the American Embassy? Could I even
contact someone of what was happening? So many questions. I was afraid for my
family, and my four month old daughter. It was one thing to be in this situation,
but to have them in danger was my real fear. I then remembered a bible text “
all things work out for good for those who love the Lord.” I prayed for
strength, “Lord, help me to be faithful and strong during this time. Whatever
happens, I know you will be looking out for us.” I kept praying though out the
night until I would feel at peace.
Unpronounced to me, the immigration officer had contacted the
Venezuelan intelligence and anti-spy agency. They were on their way that night
to pick me up for an interrogation. Somehow, they failed to locate me, thinking
I was somewhere else with the military police, and not with my wife and child
in an immigration waiting room.
After a long night, late the next morning two men and a
woman walked in with automatic weapons and went straight to the immigration
office. I kept praying and repeating the Lord’s promise. After some time they
came out and told me I was to accompany them. My wife and daughter were to
follow in a taxi. We got in a four door pickup truck with blacked out windows. I
was told to sit in the back seat while I had a guard with his hand on what
looked like an M-16 sitting next to me. The woman sat up front in the passenger
seat with her riffle. The guards’ gun next to me was pointed precariously close
to me and I was afraid to look at it for fear that they might think I would try
something. “Handcuff him,” the woman ordered. Never in my life had I been
handcuffed. The mood in the truck was serious. They were treating me like a
real threat!
“This was it,” I thought. “They are taking me to jail for
sure. Who knows when I’ll be released now?” I prayed once again while the
driver took off through the winding road through the mountains. As we drove,
the driver started asking questions. I sensed a need to speak with honesty and
firmness. Through my answers I began witnessing as to who I was and what I did.
The guards just listened as I told them of how I was a missionary, serving the
Lord. Slowly the atmosphere in the cabin began to change. The guards seemed to
be more relaxed as we neared the city where they were taking me.
We reached our destination and I saw my wife and daughter
waiting for me. I was relived to be near them again. The handcuffs were taken off
and was told I was to be interviewed by the director of intelligence. I headed
for a room upstairs where I met the director. I sat in a chair in front of him.
“Now he said, you are going to be completely honest with me as to what
happened.” “Sure,” I replied, sounding as
confidant as I could. Up to this point my story had been the same and I felt no
reason why he shouldn’t believe me.
“Why do you have two
names, it says one name on your Mexican passport and another on your American
passport?” “In the U.S you don’t use your maiden name and in Latin
American countries you do," I replied. My maiden name not being present in my American
passport had made them doubt who I was. “Why do you have an airplane and why is
it in Brazil?” I gave him the whole story of what I was doing, transporting
volunteers and coming to visit my wife’s’ family. I told him what I did with
the airplane in Bolivia, how we used it in support of our schools and fly
medical evacuations. By volunteering more information than he sought, he
quickly realized that I was telling the truth.
“You know, the activity of a missionary pilot and that of
drug traffickers are similar. Both use airplanes in remote regions. We were not
sure of who we had on our hands and that is why you were detained.” I told him
we missionary pilots were always very transparent in what we did and avoided
flying with people we did not know. It now became clear why they had thoroughly
searched me and asked if I was carrying dollars.
“You are carrying a Mexican
passport, flying a small plane, and then coming through Colombia the way you
did gave us suspicions. And to top it off, you being an American with strained relations between Venezuela and the
United States, you need to be careful!”
I agreed with him and quickly realized that I was being set
free. “We need to write up a report of what you told us and then you can go.”
Praise the Lord! “We need to have you legally in the country so I will ask
immigration to stamp you in. I can’t believe they did not stamp you in, I mean
you are married to a Venezuelan!” I thanked him. Soon I was done with the
report. Downstairs I was asked if I wanted anything to eat by the same lady
that had come to get me in the truck. The whole mood had changed; everybody was
all of a sudden friendly and asking me if I wanted this or that. Realizing that
this was all a big mistake and that the director had left made it clear I was
no longer a threat to national security, the same people that were against me
where now in my favor. The Lord had turned things around completely! I could
not stop repeating the bible text, “all things work out for good to those who
love the Lord.”
My wife and I were fed lunch, and then loaded on the same
truck I had come in. The same guard sat with us in the back, but this time he
seemed to be there more for our protection. No hand cuffs this time either! Everybody
was relaxed and talking away. My wife and I were exhausted and relived that the
ordeal was over and we were getting somewhere. They drove us all the way back
to where we had been that morning, set on getting immigration to let me stamp
into the country.
After much waiting, it became clear that there was a problem
with my stamp. Apparently they could not stamp me in for whatever reason. I was
not spending another night in that waiting room with my family. Finally I was
told I had to leave the country. Two immigration officers drove us to Colombia in
their own vehicle. We crossed the border and found a place to stay. We were
tired and we needed to think. The Lord had gotten us out of the jam we were in,
but now we were back to me not having a stamp to travel.
After some much needed rest and food, I had formulated my
new plan. Saray’s brother would meet us at the border and take Saray and the
baby in, while I would head to Bogota on my own and renew my Mexican passport
which was on the verge of expiring. I would then try and reenter Venezuela as a
Mexican. It was a risk going back in again, but I had just witnessed how the
Lord took care of us, and I knew that if I could get my passport renewed on the
spot in Bogota, which seemed almost impossible, then that would mean the Lord
was giving me a way into Venezuela.
Fifteen hours on a bus and I was in Bogota. I headed
straight for the Mexican embassy praying for the right outcome. I met the
Mexican consul, “Why should I give you a renewal, you don’t even have a
appointment” he said. “Please help me” I pleaded, “I have my family in
Venezuela and I can’t travel with out this passport.” He took my passport and
left it on the desk and told me to wait. Soon his assistant was asking for my
information! Praise the Lord! In a few hours I had my new passport in hand.
While I was waiting at the embassy, news of Venezuela
flashed across the TV in the lobby. It said, “President Nicolas Maduro is now
requiring Americans to get a visa to enter Venezuela.” The news also said
President Maduro was kicking out staff from the American embassy in Caracas.
Wow! Things were getting worse by the hour. My four month old had entered into
Venezuela with her American passport just the day before! One day late and we
would have surely not have gotten into Venezuela. Now my wife and baby were
safely at her sister’s house. The Lord sure knows how to time things right!
New passport in hand I traveled fifteen hours back to the
border. Now that Americans were not allowed into the country without a visa,
would they even let me in even as a Mexican? I prayed, “Lord, please don’t let
anybody recognize me, I don’t want to be detained again!” I stamped out of
Colombia, and headed for the Venezuelan immigration office. I was so nervous
approaching the office I spent fifteen minutes looking for the place. As I
entered and neared the counter, the immigration officials started talking among
themselves. Not recognizing any off them, I stepped forward. They pointed to me
and said something to the officer at the window but that was all. I handed him
my Mexican passport, got a stamp without too much fanfare, and I was out of
there praising the Lord for his goodness! Finally, I was in Venezuela!
Little did I know of what was happening on the news as I
boarded the first bus that would take me to my family! I kept praying that no
one would stop me and find my American passport. I did not want to be held and
go through the same process all over again! We cleared the first checkpoint;
the officer there looked at my passport and gave it back. At the second check
point a couple hours later, I was taken off the bus and searched. They asked
questions, and I gave them the most basic of answers. I wished I did not have
my American passport on me; if they found it I knew I would be held for sure.
The guard pulled out my blue covered American passport out of my coat pocket
along with some other documents, and for some reason did not even see it!
Back on the bus, I thanked the Lord that the guard had not
seen the American passport. Either he was color blind or my guardian angel had
distracted him at just the right moment! In a few hours I was with my family,
praising the Lord for his watch care over us and that finally after so many
delays and trials, we were now safely with family, deep in Venezuela.
The following day while visiting friends, the gravity of the
situation I had been hit me. My friends informed me that I had been on the
news! What I cried, “what do you mean?” Yes, President Maduro says they
captured and American pilot.
He is a spy and is being held.” I could not believe what I was hearing. “You
are all over the news, and the president says you were sent by the U.S
government to help knock him out of power!” I was stunned, was he really
talking about me?!!”
I quickly checked the news online, if this was true it will
be on CNN I thought. This has got to be some sort if mistake! Soon I found what
I had dreaded. It was true! Right there on CNN it said what I had been told. I
was stunned! Me, a spy! A fear crept over me; I did not feel safe or trust
anyone. If the government really wanted me, they knew where to find me. I felt
like a sitting duck in the middle of the lion’s den! There was nothing I could
do, but lay low until things quieted down, or so I hoped.
Ten days went by and our time was up in Venezuela, time to
head home. Things had escalated even further while there between the two
countries. I was informed of President Maduro retaliating against the U.S for
sanctions imposed on members of his staff. And to top it off, he was preparing
his military for a possible attack by the U.S. Bad time to be an American, I
felt like throwing my passport away! But my daughter was an American, and I
could not for her sake. I was the lone parent with and American passport,
nothing else to do but hide it and pray it was not found!
We left late one night, praying that we would not be
searched though the many checkpoints we needed to cross. Saray’s brother would
be traveling back to Bolivia with us, and it was comforting to know that he had
my back. But really, God had all of our backs as we crossed checkpoint after
checkpoint. We were searched a couple times, but no one came up with the
passport or did I need to present my documents. Finally near the end of our
journey, my Mexican passport was inspected for what seemed a very long time by
an official. He finally gave it back and waved us through.
One more hurdle to cross, make it to the immigration office
where we all needed to stamp out of the country! We made it as the sun was
rising. I handed the officer our passports. He promptly informed us that our
daughter could not enter Venezuela again without a visa. I was thinking to
myself, “like I want to come back!” But we thanked him and left with our
passports stamped. Crossing over into Colombia we were stopped one more time,
my heart raced as I could see Colombia in the distance. We were quickly
searched and waived though. Never in my life did I feel so much relief as when
I crossed over into Colombia. The ordeal was now finally over! Praise the Lord!
A final word:
What a faith building experience we went though. To trust in
the Lord with all your heart in the
darkest hour. I knew that I had been put to the fire. I had been tested to see
if I was truly dependent on God. And because I had passed believing in him, I
was rewarded. It really seemed to me like a test run of what I and maybe you
reading this story will probably experience someday. As we near the end of
time, those who profess to be the God’s people will be required to put all
their faith in Him to sustain us through periods of indescribable anguish. We
may be hauled to jail, asked to testify in front of captors, and even give our
lives for Him if the Lord wills it. But Jesus is faithful to give us what each
can bare and no more. He won’t ask for more than we can take, and we won’t be
alone either!
My friends, now is the time to prepare. Don’t wait until it’s
too late! Training for the believer is now. Giving up the world’s pleasures,
focusing on changing our characters, living a pure life while focusing all our
energy into spreading the Gospel, all this must happen now. It will be too late
when laws to restrict our freedom are passed. God’s people will be divided, and
only those who keep the commandments of God will be called His.
This testimony of what God did for me, I share in hopes that
you can see the power of God, and that if you surrender all you have, He will
be faithful to provide and carry you through any difficulty. Movies have desensitized
many to what it really is like to be in a situation where there is no one to
turn to but the Lord. When you are in real danger, your whole body becomes
weak, and if your faith is not there, you will be crushed. This was real, and
it reaffirmed of how much more I need to prepare for what is coming. Daily we
must seek Him and become more like Him.
If you made it this far, I’d like to share with you the CNN
report I read while in Venezuela:
May the Lord watch over each of us,
Herman
Gonzalez
Chief
Pilot-Bolivian Lowlands
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
011-591-7-738-6139
http://hermanbolivia.blogspot.com
Herman Gonzalez
Gospel
Ministries International
Project
Name: Bolivia Mission Aviation
874 South
McDonald, TN 37353
1 (423)
473-1841 or 1 (423) 473-1842
