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March Issue |
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Resources |
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Pilot Roger Shea braves a frozen frontier to deliver food, compassion, and a message
of hope to the people of Russia's far north.
 oger Shea, a bearded man with blue eyes, looks through a frozen windshield, maneuvering his small airplane through spiteful winds and daunting ice storms above the Bering Sea. Except for the space he and a copilot occupy, the ten-seat Cessna Caravan is filled with 1,500 pounds of relief items. While braving the unpredictable weather, he anticipates their landing on the frozen runway of
Provideniya, Russia, about two hundred nautical miles away from Nome, Alaska, and just off the tip of the Aleutians. Once on the ground in
Provideniya, they will be carried by snowmobiles and old Soviet personnel carriers called vezdehodi (which means "goes everywhere") along the icy paths that serve as roads.
Shea is a program manager for Samaritan's Purse, a worldwide humanitarian relief group. He heads up the office in Soldotna, Alaska, organizing mission flights in the face of Mother Nature's punishment. Samaritan's Purse was established in 1970 by Robert Pierce, also cofounder of World Vision, the world's largest Christian relief organization. It is currently run by Franklin Graham, son of Christian evangelist Billy Graham. The organization is known for rebuilding homes in Central America after the disastrous Hurricane Mitch and treating hundreds of thousands of people  |  Volunteers unload boxes of relief items from the plane in Provideniya.
in Sudan during a devastating civil war.
In Afghanistan, Samaritan's Purse has set up hospitals and refugee camps, among other projects. After the September 11 attacks, New Yorkers filled 100,000 shoeboxes with art supplies and toys, which were sent to Afghanistan in December 2001. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has sent more than 18.5 million gift boxes, put together by almost eighty thousand volunteers, to children in 120 countries.
Although Shea has assisted with Operation Christmas Child, his primary focus is lending a hand to a vulnerable population in Russia's Far East. Samaritan's Purse has faced criticism from those who question charity groups that push a Christian ethic. "If we find people who are hurting and help their physical needs, we earn the right to tell them about Christianity," says
Shea.
Looking for an experienced pilot to fly from Alaska to Russia, Samaritan's Purse asked
Shea, a lifelong private pilot and semiretired businessman, to come aboard the project in 1999. For a couple years, he and his family relocated from Wyoming to Soldotna, a small city in southwestern Alaska. They recently returned to Wyoming, and he runs the program from his home via the Internet.
Almost every month Shea returns to Alaska, fills his plane with fuel, and flies toward
Provideniya--purchasing fuel in Russia for the return flight. Provideniya lies in the Chukotka Autonomous Region. Located | Since 1989, Operation Christmas Child has put together and delivered more than 1.8 million gift boxes.
in Russia's northeasternmost state, it is the size of the United States east of the Mississippi. The seventy thousand inhabitants of this frozen land are native Eskimos,
Chukchi, and European Russians. All three groups have to cope with the rigors of life in the Arctic tundra.
"The European Russians are surviving, but I met a doctor last week who makes a salary of $200 a month, and that seems to be average. The natives are much worse off," Shea observes. The life expectancy in the area is about fifty, and infant mortality is that of a Third World nation.
Although communism and the Berlin Wall have crumbled, a metaphorical wall remains in
Chukotka. The ice-filled villages and cities were left with little government assistance after the fall of the Soviet Union. Having known communism as the only way of life, people came to rely on fishing and expected little support. Charity groups like Samaritan's Purse have attempted to ease the burden, bringing in items like medical and dental supplies, baby formula, dried fruit, Christmas shoeboxes, and even snowmobiles.
Shea knows a little Russian and most of the Russian kids take English in school, so they can communicate. Occasionally, he brings a translator. He frequently has to wait out the temperamental weather conditions and government bureaucracy. "Sometimes it can take six weeks to get a visa from the Russian government. And then we might have to wait two weeks on the ground in Alaska for the weather to clear up," he says. "It can be very frustrating." Shea also flies into the port cities of Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski via commercial airplane to meet containers of relief supplies | Children in Provideniya receive their Christmas boxes.
that have been shipped over. He stays to help the local churches distribute the goods.
Shea attempts to provide food, clothing, and anything the government will permit. "Russia will not allow us to bring in medications unless they are translated word-for-word into Russian," he says. "The local governments have been very helpful. All our difficulties seem to come from the federal side. It's not that the government officials are mean, they're just used to how things have been done in the past," he explains.
Shea describes the harrowing journeys that groups such as his must undertake. Following a path previously gouged in the ice, one group of relief personnel transporting goods to an interior town encountered temperatures of forty below. Trapped for ten days in their
vezdehodi, they ate the rations they had planned to deliver. Although conditions are hazardous and unpredictable, Shea has not lost hope.
Today, there are two churches in
Provideniya, one Baptist and the other Full Gospel. "Many Russians have been living in an atheistic society. As a result, they have no clue about Christianity or any religion at all," Shea says. "I believe we have really made an impact. We bring aid to those churches, and they deliver it to the people."
As he tells his story, Shea radiates kindness and tenderness. "When you meet the Russian people, it's not in their culture to smile like we do," he says, "but they are truly the most giving people I've ever met. They will have nothing in the refrigerator but will show you true hospitality. That has really struck me."
Shea is known as a man who walks his talk--snowshoes and all. Ice storms will not deter him from his mission. "As a ministry, I hope to do it several more years," he says. His weapon: a tiny airplane--and plenty of spirit to challenge his frigid foe.
Alissa Anderson is a senior at the University of California at Santa Barbara, majoring in film studies.
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