Nate Saint was discharged from the Army in February of 1946, and, since it was too late to enter the spring semester of college, he returned home to Pennsylvania. Nate did not spend these months idly waiting to enter Bible college in the fall. Rather, he purchased a second-hand plane and built up flying hours at a nearby airport. As a result, he obtained both his commercial pilot and...
Through their eyes: Nate Saint — Surrender
During Army Air Cadet training, Nate had a childhood leg injury (osteomyelitis) flare up, dashing his hopes and dreams of becoming an Army pilot. He tersely recorded his sentiments about the medical checkup and ensuing hospitalization. “The doc says I can’t fly for the Army and that’s that!” 1 “In the following days pending hospitalization,” he told a friend several years later, “I fought...
Through their eyes: Nate Saint — The Centrality of the Gospel
In 1943, at the height of World War II, a nineteen-year-old Nate Saint enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps both out of a sense of duty and a desire for pilot training. In his diary he stated, “The fact that fathers were being drafted and that I had no dependents made the idea make sense to me.” 1 He would go on to spend a total of three years in the Army Air Corps before being discharged in...
Through Their Eyes: Nate Saint — Obedience or a Call?
Shortly after his salvation at age 13, Nate Saint gave this testimony at a young people’s meeting at his church, using the following notes: Paul said in Acts, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” I believe, therefore I am saved and heaven-bound. Being saved, I have a purpose because Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature...
Through Their Eyes: Nate Saint — Use every Available Tool
Nate was a pilot and a mechanic, but he was a missionary too, one in mind and spirit with the missionary families of the jungle. Some time before he had written of his feeling for the pioneering missionaries he loved to serve: “Their call of God is to the regions behind the ends of civilization’s roads — where there is no other form of transportation. They have probed the frontiers to the...