Parental Guidance

There's something about plane crashes that society finds horrifyingly fascinating. We know about celebrities who lost their lives in these air accidents; Knute Rockne, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Thurman Munson as well as musicians Otis Redding, Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, Patsy Cline, Jim Croce, etc. Sometimes, we may have a personal connection. One of my high school basketball teammates perished in a small plane crash and I remember the night as a little boy my folks got a phone call about two young Nebraska preachers were killed flying to a Gospel meeting. Last week, I spotted something on YouTube that looked interesting and it turned out, at least to me, to be fascinating. It was the story of 17 year old Juliane Koepcke and how in 1971, she survived a plane crash in Peru that killed all of the other 91 passengers and crew. But the crash was just the beginning.

Juliane Koepcke was a German girl  whose family lived in Peru. She had graduated high school in Lima the day before and was traveling home with her mother on December 24th to reunite with her father in another part of Peru to spend Christmas together. Tragedy erupted when lightning struck the Lansa Airliner, ejecting Juliane, still in her seat, 10,000 feet from the ground and spinning her into the dense foliage below. She awoke some twenty hours later, injured but alive. She'd lost one of her shoes and her glasses and she was clad in a miniskirt with no food save a small bag of candy she found. For eleven days, she made her way through the rain forest, navigating crocodiles and poisonous snakes, not to mention maggots which  infested her gashed arm. On Day 11, she met three Peruvian fisherman who thought she was a ghost or  water fairy. Fortunately, she spoke Spanish and the men took her down river, completing the rescue. My guess is that all hope for anyone on Flight 508 was long gone.

The elation of Juliane's rescue was tempered by the fact that her mother,  sitting beside her when the plane broke up, had been one of the victims. Forty years later, Juliane, now a mammologist, recounted the ordeal in her book, When I Fell From The Sky. (There was also a documentary movie made about her, entitled Wings Of Hope. Both the book and the movie are linked below  with the short documentary I referenced at the top.) Here is a bizarre fact that is almost too unreal to be true. The movie was directed by famed filmmaker Werner Herzog who was supposed to be on that ill fated flight. He changed at the very last moment and even reminisced with the adult Juliane he might have elbowed her out of the way at the ticket counter in the crowded airport. Maybe that haunting thought  led him to his project to memorialize her journey.

The takeaway I had from this story  was not what you might think. My initial thought was  she was an incredibly brave girl and no doubt, she had courage. But what I gleaned came in the short documentary. She knew how to survive because of her parents. You see, the jungle didn't scare her because her parents had raised her in the rain forest. Her father, a biologist, and her mother, an ornithologist, had founded a research station in another part of the jungle three years before. So, even though her physical and emotional state were battered, she was in a sense, on familiar ground. She didn't panic. Her father had taught her that streams lead to larger tributaries which often lead to communities. Juliane walked in the crocodile infested waters because she had been taught that crocodiles rarely attack humans so she was safer than if she had stayed on the banks. When she found some gasoline, she doused her infected wound to clean out the maggots because...... you guessed it, she had seen her dad do the same with an animal. And so, she was able to navigate circumstances we might have seen on Fear Factor. My guess is not one in a million youngsters could have done the same, especially injured and starving with impaired vision and inadequate clothing. But she did.

 No one would ever say Mr. and Mrs. Koepcke deliberately sat down to prepare Juliane for surviving a plane crash with the worst case scenario. They just were good parents and she obviously watched and listened. When the unthinkable happened, she was ready even though she might not have known it. I think that's simply what the Word of God teaches about parenting in a spiritual sense and it permeates both Testaments. How will a child navigate the treacherous pathways of a sinful world? We all can cite the passages. You know, Train up a child...... And we all know that even with great parenting, every child has the will to go to the right or to the left. Many  heroes of the Bible had train wrecks for offspring and we all know faithful believers whose kids struggle. But parents should make every effort to ground their sons and daughters in Scripture and  model it themselves. My parents were not perfect and I never just think, "What would Mom and Dad have done?" I do think it becomes much more natural when it's all you know. It was all Juliane knew. And she emerged through the nightmare, not unscathed, but with many more decades to live a worthy life. I pray our children do as well.


To watch the short documentary, click or copy/paste link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDyTyszVyCM&t=158s

To watch the 66 minute documentary Wings Of Hope, shot 27 years later with Juliane retracing her steps, click or copy/paste link below:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlJVIcCPIl8&t=1891s

Here is the link to the book Juliane wrote 40 years after the accident:
https://www.amazon.com/When-Fell-Sky-Juliane-Koepcke/dp/0983754705

Applicable quote of the day:
“When we have really resolved to achieve something,” my father once said, “we succeed. We only have to want it, Juliane.” 
Juliane Koepcke

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org