Nine years ago, a CIA-supervised Peruvian Air Force fighter fired lethal bullets into an innocent missionary aircraft that was transporting Jim and Veronica “Roni” Bowers and their two young children on a flight to obtain necessary legal papers for their seven-month old daughter, Charity. For fully an hour and a half, American CIA spotters were in contact with the Peruvian pilots discussing the shoot-down of a suspected drug-running plane.
Having filed the necessary flight plans and on the only frequency he knew with the Peruvian control tower, pilot Kevin Donaldson screamed into the radio mic, “They’re killing us!” They did indeed kill Roni Bowers and her beloved baby girl. Although his legs were badly mangled by the same lethal bullet, Donaldson managed an incredible crash landing of the floatplane on the river as flames shot through the cabin and then danced ominously, as gasoline spilled on the water after landing. Jim, his son Cory and Kevin somehow got out of the doomed plane pulling Roni and Charity after them.
Although the CIA denied blame at the time, dogged efforts by Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra, the Bowers’ representative, obtained release of the voice recordings and videos made by the CIA spotter plane crew that tragic April day in 2001 in the Peruvian jungles. It reveals that no positive identification of the missionaries’ plane was made and that the CIA observers said they felt they were making a big mistake but proceeded with the shoot-down regardless. After the past two years of relentless pressure from Hoeskstra, the CIA now admits to numerous procedural errors and has disciplined 16 CIA operatives.
Jim Bowers’ faith shone through the debacle. At a service held in their sending church in Fruitport, Michigan, he a moving testimony to God’s miraculous goodness at the memorial service for his wife and daughter. Jim later sent a Bible to the pilot who shot them down and said that he bore no ill will. Jim remarried, this time to another missionary servant, and son Cory is doing well in his mid-teens. Pilot Kevin Donaldson recovered and flies for missionary causes on another foreign field.
A flood of missionary candidates presented themselves for service after learning about the Bowers’ former ministry to hundreds of villagers along the Amazon River from their 55-foot houseboat. The Bowers’ sending mission organization, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, reported astounding global interest in their outreach for Christ as a result of the shoot-down. Congressman Hoekstra of the Bowers’ Michigan district can rest in the fact that his efforts brought truth to light even after so many years.
The truth will always prevail whether in time or eternity. Christ explained this triumph of accurate exposure in Matthew 10:26. “Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.” After nine years, some CIA agents are deeply shamed while faithful Christian servants are clearly exonerated.
These valiant through misused servants of Christ reflect the amazing virtue of Revelation 12:11. “And they overcame him (the Devil) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” Such is the hazard of Christian service, and Jim and Veronica Bowers knew it on departing for the field. Their deputation picture presentation from 1993 contained a song which they personally adopted:
And if God should choose,
And my life I might lose,
Though my foe may slay me
I will serve the Lord.
Dave Virkler
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