04/13/02
LARISSA PFEIFER
CONCRETE — Lonnie Good, a certified pilot and airplane wing repairman, spent his childhood watching his father fly missions with the Civil Air Patrol — and dreaming of going on missions of his own.

Now, Good is a 44-year-old man with a strong faith in God and a plan.

He envisions using his mechanical skills to rebuild wings, ideally with other people if anyone’s interested, although he’ll do it on his own if he has to. Then he plans to use some of the profits and his own plane to fly missions to remote areas around the Pacific Northwest. He’d love to enlist other pilots for this as well.

Good hopes to transport doctors and dentists, haul donated supplies such as blankets and clothing, and use the missions as a way to share his faith.

“My faith in God is simple; it’s very childlike. That’s the beginning,” Good said. “Meeting their spiritual needs, that needs to be a focus. Sharing the gospel, just the simple gospel, not just meeting people’s physical needs. I think it will be a natural progression.”

He’s calling his group Wings For Christ. He borrowed the title from a nonprofit organization in Texas with the same name. But that group is somewhat different. It simply trains pilots for missions; it doesn’t do missions itself.

Good traveled to Texas in his 20s and trained with Wings For Christ — surviving a serious plane crash — and later talked to its organizers about using the name for a separate venture in Skagit County.

The group agreed and Michael Majors, director of operations for the Texas group, has been advising Good. Majors said Good’s project will take commitment and hard work.

“It takes a lot of patience to put an organization together and it takes a lot of sacrifice. And from talking to Lonnie, I think he’s got both of those things,” Majors said. “And he should continuously seek God’s guidance in doing this.”

Good has been moving forward bit by bit on his plan for years, buying and repairing a hangar at the Concrete airport, where he wants to base the group. He has gathered the equipment he needs to repair wings. And he does bring experience. He worked as an airplane rebuilder for years and also had a small repair business of his own, Concrete Aircraft. Now he owns a four-seat Cessna he’d like to use for missions. 

Lonnie Good is studying for a paralegal degree at Skagit Valley College, and he’s using his knowledge to create a business structure for Wings For Christ, probably in a limited liability corporation. He will graduate in the fall and hopes to devote more time to his missionary efforts. If he needs to, he said, he’ll do paralegal work as well.

Locally, Good is not alone in his idea of pairing aviation with mission work. In Arlington, the Mission Aviation Academy began training missionary pilots and mechanics two years ago. A longtime missionary pilot, Gordon Bakke, is part of the Arlington group.

He has worked with Good in the past and is intrigued by his efforts. Based on his own experience, Bakke said he thinks Good’s project likely will need some more funding and could still take a few years to finalize. But he said it could happen.

“I think that, yes, I feel he will find a niche and meet a need like the group that I’m working with right now, and I will be working with Lonnie as well,” Bakke said.

Whatever happens, Good says he’s doing what he loves.

“I love flying; I love airplanes. It’s my whole life,” he said. “My desire, my drive, goes so far beyond what I can describe. This is what I have to do.”