The Surprising Ways of God — Otto Koning

War, Fear, and the Search for God

In this message, The Surprising Ways of God, I'd like to include my testimony of the early years that I spent in Holland. We were during the Second World War. Bombs were falling all around us. We lived too close to this railroad, which the Germans were transporting all their artillery.

The Allies were bombing, and we'd have to go to bed at night, and just scared, unsaved, and the whole family is unsaved. And we were just fear, trembling, because these blasts. In the morning, us four boys, we'd go and see who'd been hit, and there'd be a crater where a house had been.

The ambulances were going up and down the street, and this kind of thing. Then you've got to go to bed again at night. But this city was resistant, so they gave us a lot of attention. But towards the end of the war, in 1944, D-Day came in France, and the Allies were coming through France, through Belgium, right to Arnhem.

The Rhine River, which was southwest, that's where they were defeated, and they had to go back, retreated. We could hear the bombing and the fighting in Arnhem. We gave the last of our food to the people of Arnhem as they came carrying knapsacks and somewhat wheelbarrows, whatever they could carry down to our city.

And then we had to make it through that winter of 1944 and 1945, which was very, very difficult because the food was pretty well gone. There was no heat, no electricity. And so that was a time of great heart-searching and a great crying out to God.

Finally, we were freed in May 1945. But in that very end of the war, when the Allies, it was the Canadians that set us free, they came in from Germany, from the east side. Can you imagine? They freed part of West Germany and came in from that side.

And when they finally came to our city, they blew out all the bridges. So we were on this river, and so they couldn't get across. And the fighting was incredible. This town, the whole city was burning on the east side.

And we were in this bomb shelter my father had made with his men. And it was underground with thick dirt on top. And so we were huddled together there. We had very little food. We couldn't last much more than just a couple of days and nights.

We were in there with three other families. The neighbors from next door to us were a Roman Catholic family, large family. They were wooden shoemakers. And so they were there with us. The other family from next door was a mechanic, a man and a wife and his daughter.

And he was an atheist. So we had an interesting group. And then there was another newlyweds, a young couple who were also Protestants like us. So we sit there in this bomb shelter praying. Can you imagine?

We couldn't withstand a direct hit. And nobody was saved, okay? Three families had religion. One didn't, but nobody was saved. And now you hear them all pray. And I remember the Catholics praying. Those of you that have been Catholics know how they had the rosaries.

And we had great respect as they went bead by bead and prayed. I mean, there's long nights when we didn't sleep in that bomb shelter. And they prayed to Mary and prayed to God and went around the rosary.

And we all, you know what my father shouted out? He said, Oh, God, if the Catholics are right, hear their prayer. And then when they were finished, he would pray. And then the Catholics said the same thing.

Oh, God, if the Protestants are right, hear their prayer. And then the atheist starts to pray. And he says, God, if any of them are right, hear them. You can't be an atheist in a foxhole. But, you know, after the war, when it was all over, they became atheists again.

And we lived in that house between those two families. But I remember I asked my mother, sitting beside her one night, I said, Mother, if we die tonight, will I go to heaven? And she says, Otto, nobody knows that.

Only God knows that. And that's up to him. And I'm thinking, and I asked her that several times. And she could not say to me, we're going to heaven, because she didn't know herself. Nobody in our large state church knew that.

And so nobody in the bombshelter knew that. And I'm thinking, if this is the night we die, I hope God is in a good mood. If it's up to him, he's going to make that decision. And I'm trying so hard to be good.

But, you know, all little boys, especially when you've got an ornery brother like I had, you know, he's just perpetual orneriness. He's just made that way, I guess. But we got to the end of the war. Well, it was only a couple of days, and then the Canadians had laid bridges across the canal while they're shooting at them.

Many lives were lost. They came down the streets, rolled their tanks and their artillery in. The Dutch came out of their bombshelters and danced in the streets with their wooden shoes. They called them klompen dansen.

And they danced with the soldiers. But we were all so thin, and they gave us whatever food. And it was very stale stuff. But anyway, I remember dancing up and down for joy. Now I won't have to worry about dying.

You know, I'm just a little boy. It'll be a long time until I get to be an old man, and I can maybe find out then. So I tried to forget this miserable experience, because it was. But, you know, my father felt it was better for us to emigrate to Canada, because he had four sons, and he's a businessman.

So we emigrated. We were on the Atlantic on this large Dutch boat, which was in New Amsterdam. There was 2 ,000 people on this boat. It was a huge ship. And we were in March of 1948 crossing the ocean.

March was a terrible month for being on the Atlantic. It was a huge storm the whole way. That thing bounced. It was a huge boat, but we were like a matchstick, you know, on that ocean. The waves were like mountains.

And so, well, at first we enjoyed that good food, which we hadn't had. But, oh, we couldn't eat anymore. After the second day, we stopped at France Le Havre and then Southampton, and then on. But, oh, the storm was terrible.

We were so sick. It was so bad that all the sailors were sick. They closed all the dance halls, and then they let the water out of the swim pool. Well, they couldn't keep the water in anyway the way the thing was going.

And so the only times you weren't sick were you were flat on your back on your bunk or in the fresh air on deck. That's where you—and there was seven stories in between. We were immigrants, so we were in the lowest person deck.

And way back, we didn't even have portholes. We couldn't have seen out of them anyway. We were probably below the waterline. And we were in the middle of this big boat. And so we'd rush down those corridors, and you don't ride the elevator when you're seasick.

Well, the elevator, it's strange how that thing goes when the boat's going up and down. You can imagine you either really go or you don't go at all. But if one person gets sick on those elevators, I mean, the whole place, it is a terrible thing.

So we would run the stairs, all four of us, and try to get down to lay on our bunk before we were in trouble. And so—oh, I remember my brother made me go to the top bunk. My father and my mother and my little sister were in the next cabin.

The four of us were in this cabin. So he made me—I was up on this top bunk riding this thing out, holding on. You can only hold on so long. And that was such a storm. Then the life—the steward came and threw these life jackets down on the floor.

And they said, you boys practice putting these on because you never know. Well, the way the thing was going, they were handing them out. You know things were bad. Nobody was eating anymore. And I looked down and saw those life jackets.

Now, I had no God to trust in. I had—we had religion, but no salvation. And I was full of fear. I had been so fearful as a boy during the war. My parents were so fearful of thunder and lightning. And that came down to us.

When parents are afraid, the children are afraid. And then the war and the bombings and so on. So my life was one—started one of great fear. And so I see these life jackets, and that didn't help me any.

And I remember trying to stay awake at night. Now, we were out there 10 days. Can you imagine? They couldn't move very fast because of this storm. And we were out there 10 days. And you can't stay awake that long.

But, man, in the middle of the night, I remember what first happened. Somehow the ship, the tail end of the ship, came out of the water. And these huge screws that churn through the water came free of the water.

And they vibrate. I don't know. Any of you ever been on a trip like this? They vibrate like crazy. You all want to be right with God. I mean, I wish I could tell everybody in my audience, take everybody on a trip like this.

They'd all want to be right with God. You know, but they stay clear of the water. And then they—no water resistance, and they vibrate. That whole ship vibrated, just shook. When that happened the first time in the middle of the night, I mean, we thought she was coming apart, you know.

And we all jumped out of our beds, grabbed our life jackets, down the corridors we went in our pajamas. And, well, we wore our clothes to bed later on. And we were—I don't know where we're going. I mean, you're seven decks down.

You don't want to be caught in the middle of this. We could almost, you know, think the water was coming under the door. And the steward told us, get back in bed. He asked us where we're going. Well, she's sinking.

Well, he says, get back to bed. So we got back to bed. But that happened about twice a night for 10 days, two or three times. Friends, you—I confess sin I never had committed. I wanted to—I wondered if God could hear me down there.

You know what I mean? Way down in the big black ocean in this huge ship. Then I thought of Jonah. He was further down than I was, so God heard him, so I took courage. But I—my grandmother—see, our Dutch pastors had told us never to read the Bible because we commoners could not understand it.

And they would interpret it for us, you see. So we were told not to read the Bible. Well, they were so educated that we couldn't understand them neither. So I didn't do it. But my grandmother had given me a little Dutch New Testament.

I don't know why she gave that to me. She didn't give it to my brothers, but she gave me to me. And I was named after her husband, so—after my grandfather. But I thought maybe it's time for me to read this Bible because I was so scared.

And I didn't know where to start. I didn't know anything about it. I started at the back in Revelation. I shouldn't have started in Revelation. I was—it didn't help me at all. I was scared enough before I started reading, so I put that aside.

There was no answer there. So now I'm—there's no answer in the Bible. There's—and I'm laying there, and I'm confessing sin, and I'm praying, asking God to get us safely to New York. And I made all kinds of promises.

The first promise I made said, God, I promise you, if you get us to New York, I'll never cross the ocean again. I promise you. Well, now, that wasn't an important thing to him. But another one I made, which was a couple of nights later, I said, God, if you get us to New York, I will serve you the rest of my life.

I'll do whatever you want me to do. And I, at that point, really believed that that was going to be in a monastery or something like that. You know, if you give yourself totally to God, doesn't he make it as miserable for you as he can?

I mean, doesn't he demand everything? You'd be surprised how many people in the world believe exactly that. That is not true. If you give yourself wholly to God, he will bless you for it and help you and guide you.

But that's a demonic deception by Satan. Anyway, I believed that, and so I made those promises to God, and I didn't know what would happen if we got to New York, where I would end up. And that's why I got to the cannibals and headhunters of New Guinea.

You say, why did you ever choose to go there? Well, it wasn't as bad as a monastery, I thought. But I had told him anywhere, and when he showed me that, I couldn't say no. But we got to New York. After all, we were thin as a rail again, hungry.

We had been sick the whole trip. I stood looking at that big boat. I couldn't believe how big it was now on the shore. And I said, God, if there's anybody here in the new country that knows how to get to heaven, let me meet him because I don't want to go through another storm.

I don't want to go through another famine or war. Next time I'm facing death, I want to know where I'm going. And so, as a boy of 12, stood there in New York on the harbor and said, God, if there's anybody.

And nobody in Holland knew. The Catholics didn't know. We asked the pastors. They didn't know if they were going to heaven. My parents didn't know. So we wondered, is anybody in the new world here? No.

Immigration to Canada and the Search for Assurance

So we got on this train, went by Buffalo and into Hamilton, Ontario, and that's where we lived. Now we were an immigrant family. We had next to nothing. My father didn't talk the language. He couldn't start a business.

He couldn't take any money with us from Holland, so we had nothing. He worked in a factory. We had this little rented house, a little wood stove in there. We cut the firewood as boys, and we had very, very little, very poor.

And my parents, after a year or two of this, wanted to go back to Holland so bad, but they didn't have the money to go, so that's where we stayed. And I praise God for that because in Canada we got saved.

But I remember this pastor lived three doors from us, and he was kind to us. And he was so kind that we went to his church, but it was the most liberal church in Canada. And they didn't know anything about being saved neither, but I was hoping, and I'm going to church every, every, I never miss a service.

I'm listening. I'm trying to learn English. My whole motivation to learn English was to find out how to die right, to find out how I could go to heaven. And so that's the first question I'm going to ask him when I can talk to him.

So I'm learning English and listening, and I'm sitting still in church, and my brother's with me, and I couldn't understand anything for a long, for quite a while. But finally I'm starting to learn, and then when I joined the choir, I thought all choir members go to heaven.

I mean, they sing for the Lord. And I'm sorry to say, choir members, that I don't believe that anymore. I believe there's a lot of them that don't go to heaven. Anyway, I sang loud. I did everything right.

Only thing I didn't do that bothered me, I didn't have much money to give to the church, but I wondered if God would let me into heaven even without that. And so went on. Finally, I learned enough English, and I went to the pastor one day, and my heart was beating, and I said, Pastor, am I going to heaven when I die?

How do I know? And he says, Oh, Otto, you're the best member I got. If anybody's going to make it to heaven, it'll be you. Well, I knew I was the best member. I tried harder to be a good member, but I said, Well, can't I know for sure?

He says, Nobody knows for sure, but just keep doing good works like you are, and you'll likely make it. I walked home from that meeting with that pastor, and I was so dejected I was down. I thought, He doesn't know.

And what went through my mind is nobody in the new world knows they're going to heaven. You can't know for sure. It's obvious. The one man that should have known, I only asked one man, but he was a pastor.

And so I was discouraged, and I said, God, I don't want to go through another war. And then this thunder would roll into Hamilton. There's a mountain brow, comes in over Lake Ontario, and it hangs there.

That storm hangs in there. And all the lightning and the thunder, I'd be so scared. You know, I thought, God, if I'm going to die, my mother would wake me up in the middle of the night. I'd still be on my knees next to my bed praying to God for forgiveness, fall asleep there.

It was cold winters in Canada. And she said, Otto, get in bed. And I thought, oh. And see, I was always praying, Oh, God, save me. You know, and any one of you could have led me to Christ real quick, I would have accepted.

I was searching and seeking. And then I saw in the Hamilton newspaper, Youth for Christ. And I thought, Youth for Christ. I'm a youth, and I'm for Christ. Certainly not against him. So that's where I must belong.

So I found out where this was. And this small town, I hitchhiked in a town that's about seven miles into the city. And there in this huge, huge church, about 3 ,000 people. And I sat at the back row. You know, as Dutch, we don't just walk into a church and sit in the front.

We just barely make it to church anyway. So I got a seat on the back row. And I'm so glad. And I would encourage all of you, especially you Baptists, leave the back row empty for us Dutch people. And then put the biggest guys you've got on the row before so we can hide behind them.

Because we do good to get into an evangelical church. We really do. So give us a chance. But I remember them singing, Since Jesus came into my heart, floods of joy fill my soul like the sea billows row.

And these guys weren't even using books. I mean, we in the Dutch church, we had these psalters, you know. And we say, oh man, those hymns were 19 verses long. It seemed like they were that long. And I don't mean to make fun of the Dutch state church.

But it seemed to me as a little boy that way. But these were quick choruses. And, oh, you people don't know how lucky you are. You sing these nice little hymns here in America, you know, and only four verses.

And you usually skip verse two and three. And if I were a songwriter, I wouldn't even write verse two and three. I just, what a waste. But, you know, we sang. We didn't dare skip a verse, lest God see come thundering at us.

Now, in Youth for Christ, oh, they sang those choruses. They had them memorized. You're not supposed to enjoy singing like that. You don't enjoy singing in church. But these people seemed to enjoy it.

I thought, what a strange church this is. And then the guy got up to preach and says, you can know you're going to heaven. He said it over and over. You can be absolutely sure you're going to heaven. I sat there, can you imagine, after five years of searching.

I was 17 now. I sat there and I couldn't believe the guy. I thought, I've got to talk to this man. And he had this green suit on. And these Youth for Christ speakers were, they were rotating. They were different ones from out of town.

And I never met the guy with the green suit again. I just thought I missed him. You know why I missed him? Well, he preached and I sat there listening. And then he gave this invitation. Us Dutch, we don't know what to do with invitations.

So, but these people apparently went to join the church. I was already a member of one church, so I didn't need to join another one, I didn't think. So, I just watched and watched. And they were going up there and the man with the green suits talking to them.

And it was getting late and I had a hitchhike back home. And so, I was so excited to tell my dad I found a man that knows he's going to heaven. And I said to my dad, he's got a green suit. Now, I didn't know they had more than one suit in Canada.

But I said, I'm going to talk to him next week. He told us all to come back. Well, I came back the following Saturday, greatly excited. Waited all week to meet this man who's going to heaven. I didn't know all these 3 ,000 people were.

And never met him again. Oh, did I feel dejected. Can you imagine you search for five years for a man, tell you for longer than that. A man tell you how to get to heaven and you don't meet him one time.

But the singing started again and I got sitting down. And I mean the same thing again. And this preacher, he seemed to know two of them in eight days. I'd been searching all my life for a man that knew how to go to heaven.

And they were joining this church again. I came home, told my father again. And I said, there was another one. And so, I talked my father into coming. And he said, well, that's strange. They seem to be happy people.

And my three brothers came and I got everybody to go. But sometimes they didn't go. But I would go every Saturday night. I finally caught on. These guys were getting saved up here. They were. And I thought, oh.

So, I went home and said to my dad, can I do that? Can I go up there like that and shake his hand and know for sure and get saved? And he says, no, no, no, no. Otto, that's not for you. That's for sinners.

Now, the reason he said that, by now I'd gone to a summer camp. The camp director had talked me into becoming a minister. My pastor had said he's the most serious kid in my church. He ought to become a minister of the church.

So, they came to my house. And my father wanted all of us to go to work. I mean, income, money was scarce in our house. And he says, so, I was the only one out of four boys got the chance to go to high school.

And I was going to be a minister. But I dreaded that thought because what would I tell him? I don't like poetry like those guys used. And so, I'm wondering about that. But now, so, my father said, no, you're a ministerial student.

You're going to be a minister of the church. You don't need those people. That's for sinners. I said, oh, man. And I was so envious of those sinners. I wish I, you know, I could. And finally, I faked it.

I acted like one. I studied how they walked and hung my head. And I got up here and this preacher shook my hand. And God so convicted me for my deception that I said, preacher, I'm sorry I shouldn't be here.

I'm faking it. I'm acting like one of these sinners. I'm a ministerial student. He said, no, anybody can get saved here. And so, he led me to the Lord. I couldn't believe it. And so, I told my father.

I said, you've got to come and get saved too. And he says, man, I put a great pressure on him because, you know, he didn't want to really give up some of the things he was doing. But finally, I got all my brothers saved.

And my father, well, no, my older brother, he didn't get saved. But my younger sister and my parents got the assurance of salvation. Well, it was a fantastic thing in that Youth for Christ rally. But I remember that singing and the contrast between it and a hope, a church where there's hopelessness, you know what I mean?

And a war where they thrown those hymns in a major and a minor key, you know, and on and on. This was a big church. That organ would thunder out, you know. I mean, it was like the thunder on Mount Sinai, you know what I mean, where everybody's afraid.

That's how it hit us, you know. These stained glass windows would rattle when that organ played. I mean, they did it loud. And they sang long. And us four boys, there was no children's church. I mean, we had to sit still.

The ushers had little sticks. They'd tap you on the head if you got up. And, you know, we would play with the books. And especially when my mom and dad went up to the table to take communion, only about 10 did.

The rest were so afraid of God, they thought he'd slay them right at the table. My mother and father went up there. I don't think they drank any of the wine. Some of them just put that silver chalice to their mouth, and that's about it because of fear of God in that place.

But, oh, it was a... But the services were long. Those hymns are, I mean, 19 verses, and then they'd announce the next hymn, you know. And, oh, brother, it was torture. It was penance we were doing, see.

And so I'd ask my brother what verse are they on, and he'd say verse 11. Oh, man, how can we make it? So, you know, it was good. The Queen Wilhelmina was in our city and went to our church. It was the biggest church in the city.

She had a special throne there. And so we could always watch the Queen. We had to do something during those long services. We counted the... We didn't have cheap lights like this. We had chandeliers. I mean, huge things.

I mean, and we count the lights that have been burned out, and we count the tracks in the stained glass windows and the pipes on the organ. We had contests going, which candles would go. We had to do it, folks.

We just had to do it to stay sane. And we weren't bad boys, but, you know, they... Oh, I don't know if any of you have been in the old country where they take the offerings with these black sacks, you know, this velvet.

You know about them? Now, the ones we had, they were on long poles. Where it is? Have you seen those? Well, some of them now have the ones with the two handles, but they had long poles. My father was one of these men that took up the offering, and they'd have to...

They'd have to... They wore gloves, and they'd fork out that long pole and stop in front of each one. They didn't move it until you put something in. It wasn't as easy. You people here in the church, I mean, you're, you know, past that plate long, but we are.

And so, and they get to the end of the row, and that stick would bend because a Dutch would put a lot of coins in. And so, they'd get heavy, and then they'd have to lift that over the first row and bring it back in, reel it back in the second row, bring it back in the third row, back out.

But they'd have to lift that bag over the tops of the people at the end of the row. And many a hat came off with those kind of things. And people mercifully would help lift it over. But there was a plume on the bottom of the bag.

That was a great temptation for us boys that were, you know, so bored. And my brother, oh, that brother of mine, my older brother, he was, he's just always thinking. He went to Niagara Falls with his parents, and he couldn't find a place to park, and there was a sign there, no parking beyond this point.

So, he pulls up. My father says, you can't park. He says, oh, who says I can't? He goes out the car, picks up the sign, puts it on that side of the car. He says, no, no, I mean, I'm not saying that that's the right thing to do, but he would always carry a bag in his car.

And he'd stop at a parking meter, and he'd have this little brown sack, and it said on there, out of order. Slip it over the meter, and he'd always park. He's just always thinking about things. Now, can you imagine him in a Dutch church with that plume?

You know, so one time he talked us into all bringing it. We walked to church. We had these rocks. So, you know, little hands. We had our rocks. And so, we all, you put your hand deep in the sack. That's what the adults do, so nobody sees what you put in.

And so, we put those rocks in there. He could hardly get that thing over. And then, can you imagine as he reels it back in, the people across the aisle, and that stick is just coming over your head? Can you imagine the temptation in church just to yank on that stick, and that bag would bounce?

And we had to do it, folks. We had to do it just to stay sane. We couldn't get up. Oh, those. And so, but now I'm in youth for Christ. Can you imagine the difference coming into an evangelical service where people enjoyed the gospel, and that's where I was saved?

And not long after my salvation, missionary spoke. He spoke to us young people. He said, can you imagine what it would be like to live in a place and to not know anything about God? Can you imagine how hopeless it would get?

Can you imagine facing death and not knowing God and not knowing how to die? Man, I sat there, and the whole thing was going back through my mind, that war, that ship, that storm, that famine. And I said, oh, man, I just, that's the way.

He says, that's the way people are. That's the way people die. They scream when they're dying. They die in trembling and fear. He says, if you were in a situation like that, wouldn't you want somebody to tell, come and tell you about Jesus Christ, a better way to die, the joy of the Lord?

Why, I thought, man, I had made that promise on the boat. So he gave an invitation, who will, willing to go as a missionary? I stood up. I stood up so fast I beat the gun. He told me, sit back down. He explained it more fully, better, because he couldn't have gotten a recruit that quick.

I was the easiest recruit he'd ever recruited. I came up. He explained it more fully, and I finally said, oh, I was in the war. I know what it is like to have faced death. And he says, well, son, told me to be a missionary.

And so I finished high school and went off to Bob Jones to college to study, to be a missionary. And that's where I met my wife after we both graduated. She was called to be a missionary before, even before I was, I think, for that same country.

So when I found that out, I thought, well, this must be the one I should marry. And we accepted by this, we end up, accepted by this mission board, we end up in this, in the Auyu tribe of New Guinea, right in the middle of nowhere, the end of the world.

God’s Unexpected Protection in the Jungle

I mean, there was a missionary there before, and his wife got so sick and left. And now we were to take their place. But this missionary was at the wrong place. Some natives wanted him to come, but they didn't get the right spot.

So they got in a place of terrific resistance and it was miserable going. Now, if you listen to the tape and tape number three, you'll hear those first two years. It describes what happened there those first two years.

But finally, we there was another village, Abhoy, that wanted us to come there. So these people showed up and they seemed friendlier. And so my wife was so fed up with this place. Well, we both were. And she says, why don't we build a house?

I said, you're going to have to live in a native house. We won't have this house, a wood house. And she says, I don't care. We were here to minister. And so I went. Well, I told those natives, I said, build an airstrip.

Because where we were, the float plane would come in right on the big river. We had a lifeline. But Abhoy, that was the end of the world. It was four hours in from the river, right in the middle of a huge swamp.

How would they ever find us in there? And I said, all right, if you want us to come, we've got to build a house. You've got to build an airstrip. So they came back two weeks later. We got it done. And they had a helicopter around circles.

One of the guys saw a helicopter land at some government post somewhere. And so I said, no, no, the bird we've got is a different one. It's a long run. They said, well, get another bird. I said, I'm not in control.

Make this airstrip. So finally, they made this long airstrip about a thousand feet. And they had this huge, huge tree. It was a tree connected with witchcraft and the occult and demonists. And they had this huge tree sitting right in the middle.

They cut everything down but this tree. It has huge roots coming out. I mean, it was so big. And I said, well, what's that big tree sitting there? Oh, we can't cut that. He'll have to go around that one.

We had a time getting that out of there. But anyway, I came there to build a house. So we had this house partly started. And I had a corner, a roof on the corner of it so I could have a place to stay.

Their homes are so full of smoke, you just choke. They make smoke to take care of mosquitoes. But they get the smoke instead. And so I have a mosquito net, so I had this house. But on about the third day, I told my wife, well, I'll go and fix the house, get it half decent.

Their houses aren't much good. I'll make them get a good pitch on the roof. So I went and I said I might be a week. I don't know how long I'll be. And so about the third morning, we were just starting to work with the outboy guys, about half a dozen guys helping me.

And there came this war party down the airstrip. Well, no, it wasn't the airstrip yet. Down the clearing. And they were weapons and spares. And I thought, whoa, it didn't look good at all. They were running towards us, not making a sound.

Man, it shakes you up. I've come into villages sometimes, you know, where you walk in and they have all these sticks on the path on the way in and they have a skull on every stick, you know what I mean?