Bill’s Story
My name is Bill Eckert and I am the father of three daughters… ages 19, 16 & 13. I am the husband of …one wife… age……….less! Momma didn’t raise no cantaloupe!
I spent the first 40 years of my life as a godless individual. The few times I came within praying distance of a church each year, it just didn’t rub off. I did not need what they were offering. The people seemed out of touch, their message was boring, counter intuitive and I didn’t know which book nestled in the back of the pew was more illogical… the hymn book or the Bible. To keep from falling asleep during a sermon, I would look around trying to identify the other people who were bored by watching their heads bob and weave. This God, or this Jesus, they talked about seemed to be nothing more than a celestial killjoy. I didn’t need that. I was good at taking care of myself. I believed, as many people do, if you’re a relatively good person, you’re going to heaven…if there is one.
My needs were met. Growing up I had good parents, I ended up with a good job, I had enough money to buy most of the toys I desired and got married at the age of 21 to fill that void. After seven years of a (childless) marriage, we decided that we had both grown in different directions and that divorce was the natural thing to do. The fact that, seven years prior, we stood before a priest in a big fancy church and mumbled a few lines that contained the word God, had no bearing on this decision.
Free to be me again, I re-connected with a passion I had since childhood… “aviation”. I loved everything about flying and virtually everything that flew. My fondest memories of my dad is the time we spent at a little airport just watching airplanes take-off and land. Being my own god, I decided it was time to stop watching and jump into the cockpit. In 1982 I began taking flying lessons and quickly got my pilot’s license in small airplanes. Shortly after that, I met some people who had a hot air balloon business. They took to me and I took to flying hot air balloons. I spent all of my spare time in the sky. Either slicing through it in an airplane for fun or being paid to fly sightseers or student pilots in a hot air balloon.
When you spend this much time flying, you’re bound to have an occasional “interesting” flight. Weather issues, mechanical problems, etc. can make flights “interesting”. I definitely had my share. I purchased a small airplane known as an “ultra light” aircraft that carried two people. One particular flight stood out as “interesting” as I left the runway and reached an altitude of only 250 feet… the engine quit. I was proud of the fact that I did not panic. With all of my training, I new exactly what to do… aviate, navigate & communicate. I didn’t give up. I maintained control of the, now gliding, plane, picked out a place to set it down, kept my passenger informed and landed in someone’s backyard without a scratch. The nose gear of the plane didn’t fair as well, but I walked away from that incident knowing that I had the “right stuff”. A term given to pilot’s who find themselves in difficult situations but have what it takes to maintain their composure and control the situation for a positive outcome.
The scariest moment of my life occurred in a hot air balloon. I was training a student pilot on a late afternoon flight and after launching, I instructed her to climb to 1000 feet, level off, then begin a slow descent to tree top level for several touch and go landings in a variety of fields. After 45 minutes and many failed attempts we began to run out of landing spots as we drifted over a more densely populated residential area. Concerned that we would soon be running out of daylight, I took control of the hot air balloon and brought it down to tree top level in hopes of finding a yard or parking lot large enough for an 8-story bag of nylon. Unfortunately, our line of flight, chosen by the winds, produced nothing suitable. It became a contest to see which we were going to run out of first… daylight or fuel. Darkness won the battle, as we found ourselves drifting over, hard to see, trees, power lines and houses knowing that soon our lack of fuel would cause us to descend on one or all of them.
My intense concentration was occasionally interrupted by the realization that this flight was going to end surrounded by police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, news reporters and possible injuries. The panicky squeal of my student letting me know she couldn’t read the fuel gauges in the dark led me to demand that she “not panic”, and for my sake, telling her that “nobody in this balloon is going to panic. I don’t ever remember feeling more alone or scared as I fought the desire to just curl up in the bottom of the basket and let fate take over the landing. As I looked down at the parade of cars that formed to watch this unusual site I noticed on the ground, just ahead of us, the faint outline of a baseball diamond. We had to make this our landing spot. I waited until we were directly over the field, to avoid any invisible power lines that might surround it and pulled hard on the vent line causing us to descend rapidly. I re-sealed the vent and used, what I new was, the last of our fuel at just the right time in order to slow the descent and gently touch down on the best piece of earth I ever felt. Hundreds of people gathered around, cheering what they thought was intentional. When we re-fueled the propane tanks later that evening, it took 23.7 gallons. They hold 24 gallons! When that “out of body experience” feeling dissipated the following day, my pride, once again, let me know that I did indeed have the “right stuff”.
In 1986 I re-married, started my own hot air balloon business and started a family as well. Our first daughter was, by all accounts, normal. Sleepless nights, spoiled rotten and a gift from a God I still didn’t acknowledge. My wife and I enjoyed parenthood so much that we decided a year and a half later… let’s have another one! That’s when God got my attention.
Things didn’t go so well the second time around. The pregnancy was normal. Ultrasounds were normal. The trip to the hospital and labor were normal. The delivery was a nightmare! After many hours of labor “it was time”. We were hurried into the delivery room around 2 o’clock in the morning but no one could find a pair of stirrups for the delivery table. Just prior to birth, the baby’s heart rate began to slow; an oxygen mask was placed on my wife in an effort to help the baby. No one knew at that time that the oxygen tanks had accidentally been bled dry before we got in there. Nicole was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. In a panic to apply suction to her throat, someone tripped over the hose and ripped it out of the wall. It couldn’t be re-attached quick enough. Now, primitive measures, such as CPR, were being used to help her breathe and maintain a heartbeat. Seeing the medical professionals in the room panic and yell to each other for help made me want to wake up from this nightmare or fast forward to the part where the doctor says “everything is OK” or change the channel altogether and watch a different program. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around what was happening. I had absolutely no control over the situation and felt helpless. Where was that “right stuff” when I needed it?
The following six months were a fog infested blur of hospital visits, specialists and medical devices I didn’t even know existed. This birth that was supposed to bring such happiness, instead, created a life of intense misery. I just wanted her to magically get better or be put in one of those institutions or I wanted her to die! This felt like such a major intrusion into my “normal” life. This was not supposed to happen to someone like me. This unfortunate event was right up there with cancer or a home burning down… they were supposed to happen to other people… not me!
The anger I felt over the situation was relentless and it spiked every time someone would say to me “I’ll pray for you”. On the outside I nodded approvingly. On the inside I was screaming “pray to who? A God who saw fit to give me a child like this. Get away from me with that God stuff”. If there was a God, I wanted Him to provide me with an answer… WHY ME??? Why did this happen to me? This was the question that internally played over and over in my mind every day, all day, for more than a year. I found myself wanting to spend less and less time at home. During the day, there was a continuous parade of nurses, case managers, service coordinators, physical therapists, occupational therapists, special ed teachers and teachers of the visually impaired. All with good intentions and every one of them “in my way”. Nights were no better! The baby monitor was always at full volume and Nicole’s needs were endless. Her diapers needed changing Her body position needed changing. Because she could not feed orally, a tube was inserted into her abdomen so that formula and medications could be gravity fed into her stomach. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, she began having seizures. This created more doctor visits and a long experimental period of medications to quiet the seizure activity. I, not only, couldn’t bond with this child, I was losing the bond with my wife. She was mentally and physically exhausted. Her priorities shifted and became annoyed with me for not having the same priorities. My attitude was “Nicole requires full time nursing… I am not a nurse and have no desire to be one”. I was angry with my wife’s attitude, I was angry that I couldn’t play with this child, I was angry with the new demands of my time and the loss of my freedom. And all the while, I kept asking this voiceless God… WHY ME?
Well, God finally responded! I was driving with the family down the NYS Thruway torturing myself with that worn out question… why me, why me, why me. The response came back so fast and furious and with such great intensity that I let out an audible gasp. To my surprise, it wasn’t an answer… it was a gut wrenching question… WHY NOT YOU??? It wasn’t what I was expecting to hear and even worse… I didn’t have an answer.
It was a “mind” opening experience and I believe that was my first step from “stupidity to Christianity”. It’s amazing how much more you can learn when you shut your mouth and open your mind. There were many more steps that followed. A couple of well meaning “churchy type people” showed up at our door one evening. They heard, in a round about way, what we were going through, gave us some banana nut bread and invited us to a church they attended. Many months later, we decided to give it a try. The other churchy type people there seemed to be surprisingly energetic and genuine, the music was actually fun to listen to and this Rex Keener guy was making me think outside my little angry box. I don’t know exactly where or when I accepted the fact that Jesus Christ is the one with the “right stuff”. For me it was more of a process than a point in time. I just know that it’s wonderful not having to be the one in control. There’s freedom in having my Dad handle the good and bad in my life. My heavenly Father!
Nicole is sixteen now, but still functions on the level of a four month old. She can’t walk, talk, sit, can’t see very well or even swallow. We pump more chemicals in her body in one week than the average person takes in one year. But, if it weren’t for her inabilities, I would have never discovered my “a”bilities. My wife and I started a medical equipment business fourteen years ago in an effort to help other families like us. That mom & pop operation now employs a dozen people and helps thousands. That passion has taken me to speaking engagements locally and around the country. I formed a support group for dads who have children with disabilities. In church, I’ve been baptized, played the drums on the worship team for eight years, somehow ended up leading the drama ministry and have been on two mission trips, one of which involved traveling around Nicaragua with a truckload of used wheelchairs, fitting them to kids throughout the country … and none of that would’ve happened to me if it wasn’t for God slamming me in the back of the head with a 2 X 4. Her name is Nicole. She’s the only sixteen-year-old girl I know who has never committed a sin. I look forward to seeing her in heaven with a perfect mind and body.
Being a Christian does not mean that life becomes perfect. But it does give you a better perspective.
That was one of the unique aspects of hot air ballooning. Your perspective up there is much better than that of those on the ground. You could see farther and appreciate how everything is tied together. I have a different kind of “right stuff” now. When I encounter some turbulence, I don’t panic. I still aviate – I don’t give up, I keep on flying, navigate – I pick out a goal, a place to get to & communicate – I pray to God and seek accountability.
It was my flight training that kept me safe in the sky. It’s been my ongoing Christian training that has saved me from a life apart from God. I don’t know if He’s going to say… “well done good and faithful servant” or “good enough, get in here before I change my mind”. But… “better saved, than sorry”.
