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Doug Burnham, brother of slain missionary Martin Burnham, served with New Tribes Mission in the Philippines from 1988 to 1998. He now lives with his family in Rose Hill, Kansas.

Could you tell me a little bit about Martin and his faith journey?

I don't remember exactly when it was he was saved. I remember he was baptized the first year we were in the Philippines, which was in 1970, so sometime before that is when he accepted Christ as his savior.

He loved outdoors. We had pellet guns and we'd go out. We didn't ever catch much, but we'd go shoot at stuff. Loved to hike. Loved to go through the woods. Explore. He loved a lot of different things. He excelled a lot in whatever he did. He liked to read, too. Even though he wasn't real good academically, he read a lot.

I do remember when he was in sixth grade, which would have been about 12, that was our first year in the Philippines as a family, and on our first ride in the plane, he said, "I'm going to be a missionary pilot when I grow up." From that point on, anything having to do with airplanes he loved. But I think at that point, it was more the thrill of flying than that he saw this as a ministry. He just immediately had a love for flying.

At that stage, did you know a lot of other missionary pilots?

Well, New Tribes had its own missionary pilots. The Wycliffe Bible Translators flight base was not real far away from the New Tribes flight base. Pilots were our lifeline. It was either go in and out by air or else it was hike in and out. That was the only way. There wasn't a road going in there.

What was the college he went to?

When he first came [back to the U.S.] after high school he went for a year at New Tribes Bible Institute in Jackson, Michigan. And he knew he wanted to be a missionary pilot, so it moved him in the right direction. He then moved back to Wichita, and an uncle helped him get enrolled at the Boeing Tech school to get his A&P mechanics license for planes. So he did that, and he was able to get in to the Cessna air company and work there. Through that, they had a flight program, a flying club where he got flight instruction there and started taking flying lessons.

From '77 to '80 he was in the U.S. while the rest of us were in the Philippines. When I came back in 1980, I'd seen a lot of change in him maturity-wise. He'd gotten involved in the Rose Hill Bible Church, and spent a lot of time with the youth there. It seemed to be having a good influence on him.

At that point some friends had taken him up to Calvary Bible College, and they were looking to start an aviation program. So he was kind of excited about that, and thought maybe this would be the way to go, to finish up his Bible training and to get a degree in missionary aviation. He had written me about his visit there, and it sounded like a good college to go, so we kind of made plans for the two of us to go off to Calvary that fall. Then he decided he would sell the vehicle he was making payments on. He felt he couldn't go off to college yet until he got that sold. So he waited and I went to Calvary.

He joined me the next semester: the Spring of '81. By that time he was pretty well finished up with his flight instructor rating. So in that first semester he went to school at Calvary and he was part-time faculty right off the bat because they needed flight instructors and he was teaching guys to fly, which helped put him through school.

You met Gracia before Martin did, correct?

Yeah. Gracia was in her senior year when I started [at Calvary] in the fall of '80. Everyone knew Gracia at Calvary. She was a very fun-loving, very outgoing gal. She was known for having a good walk with the Lord. I think in her graduating class she received the Christian ministry award. She was generally the life of the party there.

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June (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46