and are you

servicing all of the island or really just along the river yeah so that as i mentioned the islands uh you know half the size of california the size we're working on 14 000 foot mountains going through the middle of the island so we're working in one area on the north coast right now that has that 300 000 people on a 700 mile river that's been our focus area for the last 17 years And now we're expanding to the south side across the mountains to the Gulf province where it's the same situation.

You've got waters, swamps, rivers, hundreds of thousands of people, and they're literally days away from the only hospital there.

And I was just over there a few months ago going into places that no one's ever landed.

Got people hiding in the bushes, hiding in the jungle because they've never seen an airplane come out of the sky.

And then this white guy opens the door and steps out, you know.

But to be there, and this one story that always sticks with me, I'd gotten there on a Monday, Tuesday morning, we get a call for a mother that had been in labor for several days, and she had paddled, got in a canoe with her husband, paddled a day and a half to the closest aid post.

Do you still have those challenges?

Right

... bigger aircraft.

We're, we're flying a Cessna 206 on amphibious floats.

You know, we have oxygen, we have basic medical supplies, we have a nurse with us, uh, and, uh, we have antivenom if there's a snake bite.

So we're doing the basic things.

And our real- our, our goal is how do we get them to the hospital as quickly as we can, keep 'em stabilized, so then the doctors there at the hospital can take care of them and, uh, give them the treatment they need.

Uh, for us too, we're, we're a Christian organization, so we don't just bring patients in.

It's big