Note: This is the third chapter of a book my father, Rev. Matt W. Leach, wrote in 1955 about a miraculous trip to the Holy Land.
-Michael Leach
Nouasseur Air Force Base
Nouasseur was too foggy. Instead we landed at a base about 50 miles inland. It was 1:30 AM when we finally checked in. A snack at the lunch counter and then to bed — but where? We were scheduled to leave for Nouasseur at 6:30. We didn’t think the billets would be worth the effort. So we decided to try the lounge — but the furniture had been moved out.
As far as Ferris and I were concerned it left only one choice: we blew up our air mattresses and slept under the airplane’s tail. It wasn’t bad, but the air kept leaking out of my mattress! Three times I picked my bones out of the hard pavement and reinflated my mattress. Each time I no sooner fell asleep and — WHAM — I hit again!
It was a while before I realized that this was Sunday. We arrived at Nouasseur in time to get assigned a place to sleep and catch a shuttle bus to the chapel for church. It is a very beautiful chapel. (The toilets were labeled “Adam” and “Eve.”)
In the afternoon we went swimming. It is very hot here.
As you know, here in French Morocco, and more especially Casablanca, the town next to the air base, the French and Arabs are having quite a “to-do,” and for that reason we are restricted to the base.
All milk is flown into the base and costs 15¢ a glass. I didn’t know coffee could taste so good!
I have been able to see only a little of the people here. The Arabs are dark skinned.
We were very fortunate this morning to see our first (and possibly only) Arab woman, in her flowing yellow robe with a hood that covered her hair. Over her face, just under her eyes, she wore a black veil.
All the Arab men that we have seen seem to be dressed in what appears to be cast-off clothes: pants cut short at the knee, ragged thin shirts cut short at the elbow or above, and little vari-colored skull caps.
God took good care of us through the Air Force. Free meals, a wiener roast at the service club, and someone to come and tell us when our plane to Tripoli was ready to leave.
It is quite hot here, and mostly sand. Many of the billets were rustic — really-back-to-nature-open-air type.
Riding in the shuttle bus from our “cabin” to the airport we passed many Arab farmers. The farm buildings were nothing more than little huts. It seems a miracle that these people can find enough to eat.
We have enjoyed it here in our fellowship with God, but we are anxious to be off again. This excellent treatment is making us lazy.
Flight from Nouasseur to Tripoli
I am sitting in the lounge waiting for the time to pass until it is time to board the plane. I’ve filled out my baggage check card and turned everything in to be loaded. It is a beautiful day.
I have just entered the plane. You would be very surprised to see the plane. It is as modern as any airline plane you can find. The Air Force runs a special passenger service all over the world. We were very lucky to hit one of these flights.
It is a four-engine C-118.1 The seats are all reversed so that, should we have to crash-land, the whole seat — and not just the safety belt — will support us during the initial shock of landing. There are 60 seats in our plane.
We were just going to take off, but a USO troupe has arrived at the airport and we have to wait for them.
We are moving now, out to the runway. Engine check. We’re off. As the plane’s engines open up I feel like I am trying to fly out of my seat. And there we go — we’re airborne.
The flight attendant (a fellow whose sole job is to attend passengers during flight and who has no other duties at all) just told us we will fly at 17,000 feet — more than three miles high.
There is a lot of fog in the air, giving everything a blue cast — not good for color pictures.
We are above the haze now, and what haze is left is clearing. Just the knowledge that this is Africa gives me a certain feeling of affinity to it. Yet all this land seems so barren now. We are flying along the northern edge of Africa — not close enough to see the Mediterranean. Below is a patchwork of sliced-up fields.
I wonder how these Arabs could possibly eke a living out of this land. I am told that this is the dry season — no rain for well over a month now. The small stone and mud houses and farms look so pitiful on this desert — and it is desert. Below stretch dried-up riverbeds and huge areas that look as though no vegetation had ever existed here.
Africa from the Air
Wherever there is a little stream of water the land is green, breaking the monotony of the desert. Here and there brave trees stubbornly sink their roots deeper and somehow find enough water to grow. I am told that, come the rainy season, the desert will blossom forth in rich vegetation, verily looking like a lush garden.
In the distance I see high mountains — probably the Atlas Mountains, where Atlas is supposed to have held up the world. These mountains must be very high up, for below us the peaks seem close.
There are some of the craziest roads down there too, turning back on themselves and winding every which way. It must take a whole day to advance 50 miles as the crow flies.
Hey!! There is water in the distance — we are moving close to the Mediterranean, and what a beautiful sight it is. The blue water flocked with white and colored many shades of blue and green, bordered by a reddish-tan earth. A beautiful picture. I will try to capture it with my camera.
Our beautiful day just disappeared — we ran into a cloud.
Lunch time — and a good one it was. I am stuffed!!
People who stay on the ground miss one of nature’s very pretty sights: the top of the clouds. There are all sorts of mountains, pinnacles and odd shapes. They look so soft I want to reach out and touch them, to play on them and in them, to stretch out and lie on their softness.
At different times of the day they reflect different colors in a breathtaking pageant. Below me they stretch out like little mounds of stepping stones where a little boy or little girl could go skipping and dancing along.
We have been flying over the water for quite a few minutes now. The flight attendant tells me that we have started our descent, and in the distance I can just see Tripoli. We are over the airfield now and circling. The “fasten safety belts” sign is on. As the plane turns sharply the earth appears to be falling away.
Below is a very interesting array of reddish-tinted desert sand, palm trees and Arab houses. Each house is of white cement or plaster, built around a courtyard or garden in the center.
The plane has straightened out and we are settling on the runway.
Wheelus Air Force Base, Tripoli
Unfortunately, here too we have been restricted to the base — but this time because two airmen molested a Muslim girl in town. A review of the Muslim religion will tell you how sacred their women are. They will not even allow one to take a picture of them; men have been murdered for less.
I have just returned from a swim in the Mediterranean. The blue salt water is warm and fun to swim in, and a sandy beach all the way out as far as we are allowed to swim. There are two slides in the water, and we had a lot of fun going feet first, head first, etc., into the water.
The climate is very nice. Quite hot in the daytime but pleasant for working, with breezes coming in from the sea. At night there are nice breezes too, and it is cool enough to use a blanket.
The jet planes make quite a racket as they cruise around; worse than thunder, they jar the buildings.
I saw a USO show. It stunk, except for the magician.
On the Way to Egypt
The desert: a vast area of space, reddish brown, no trees, no grass, just sand and more sand. I wonder how many lives it has claimed. I wonder what secrets lie in its depths. I wonder what life it once knew — back when “and there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”2
As far as you can see it is desert, lifeless, calm, speaking nothing of the danger, the heat, the thirst, the wind and sandstorms, only sleeping now. Above is a blue sky and even the whispers of clouds.
Here in the plane we sit safe and secure, moving onward over the trackless sand. Long after you and I leave this earth the desert will still remain — unchanged, as it has remained unchanged these millions of years.
And so all nature. We fight, we destroy, we build and we tear down, we go on about our daily life in blissful ignorance. Strangers we, each one of us, here for such a pittance of time out of all the years this earth has been and will be.
A Standing Offer
If the greatest man in the world were to say to you, about the greatest thing in the world, “How would you like to become a part of this and share in all the returns with me?”” you would say “Yes,” and probably go home dreaming about it — but all the while saying to yourself, “It would be nice, but it could never be.
I don’t even begin to have the resources to try to become a part.””
But what if the greatest man should add, “All you have to do is say ‘yes.’ There are no catches. I want you to share this with me”?
With an offer like that there isn’t one of us who wouldn’t say “yes,” and with all the enthusiasm we could muster.
God has made you and me a standing offer, and it is as simple as that.
Scientists say that there is a certain “rhythm” that circles and impregnates the earth and goes on to include the whole Universe. It cannot be detected, seen or measured. Only the results of it can be seen.
How do you explain the rhythm? Scientists call it God. They tell us it is the order in the Universe. It is a power that makes even the whispered-of cobalt bomb3 less than a child’s toy.
How can we become a part of this power? How can we share in it — a power that will “move mountains”? What resources must we bring? The oldest book in the world gives the answer, an answer that Christ came to fulfill. Yourself.
Christ said, “Whosoever believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.” “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and never doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea’ it will be done. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”4
God is offering you Salvation, a chance to live forever with Him — the greatest thing in the world and the Heavens.
Notes
The C-118 was the military version of the Douglas DC-6, the Air Force’s long-range passenger transport. The rearward-facing seats he describes were standard on military passenger aircraft for exactly the reason he gives. ↩
Genesis 1:5. My father’s wording does not exactly match the Revised Standard Version he uses elsewhere. The RSV ends the verse “and there was evening and there was morning, one day”; the King James has “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” He has taken the RSV’s sentence and the King James’s ending, so the translation is not identified here. ↩
The cobalt bomb was a hypothetical weapon discussed in the early 1950s involving cobalt to increase radioactive fallout. It was never built. ↩
The three quotations are John 11:25, John 14:6, and Matthew 21:21–22. My father does not give the references, and the wording combines quotations from different Bible translations. The references have been added for this edition. ↩
