Flying by faith
J’can missionary pilot making a difference one flight at a time in the Philippines
Hospitalised after a traffic accident that left three adults dead and 18 teenagers including himself seriously injured, davin Bennett made a deal with God. twenty years later, he is still keeping his end of the bargain. Now a missionary pilot in the philippines, the 35-year-old transports medical supplies and patients whose lives are in his hands each time he takes to the air.
“I go beyond the call of duty and get very involved. If I am transporting a dead body and people are crying, I cry too. And when a patient is happy that their baby lived I am happy too,” Bennett told the Jamaica observer last Wednesday.
His work with the Philippines Adventist Medical Aviation Services (PAMAS) has ranged from transporting life-saving medical supplies to flying accident victims, expectant mothers experiencing complications, as well as infant victims of rape who need to see an obstetrician-gynaecologist to get medical records for court.
According to its website, PAMAS is the only air medical evacuation service of its kind in the Philippines that supports the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Bennett has lived in the Southeast Asian country for the last seven years. He did not know it then, but his journey there began when he struck a deal with God while lying on his hospital bed.
He and his Spanish Town High School classmates had been on their way to a popular beach in Montego Bay when the driver lost control of the vehicle. The driver and two teachers died.
“I prayed and I begged God... I said Lord I’m still young, if you allow me to live to see tomorrow, I will give you my life, just please let me live to see another day,” Bennett told the observer.
After his request was granted, he became a Seventhday Adventist and studied at the College of Health Evangelism in the United States. He later ventured into missionary work in the Philippines, where he has lived since 2013.
Since COVID-19 began impacting the Philippines in March, Bennett has transported 180 patients. His most intense experience during that time, he said, was transporting
a baby who had a seizure. It struck home because one of his former classmates had also died from a seizure last Christmas.
“I got a call that a baby was having a seizure and he needed to be rushed to the hospital. It was getting close to late afternoon and usually the weather gets bad with heavy rains and thunderstorms. But I found the opportunity to navigate around it. It was the most intense because although the weather was a challenge, I was still willing to try,” said Bennett.
That determination is a trait he is convinced he gets from his mother, Velma Brady, whom he describes as his hero.
According to Bennett, his mother has a soft heart and is always willing to help others. She was his inspiration to become a missionary. She also overcame her fair share of challenges in life. She was was a teen mom, giving birth to Bennett at 19.
Growing up in Troja, St Catherine, was rough for Bennett. His mother had not finished school and his father left when he was two years old. His mother then moved with him to Cane Heap in St Mary, in search of work.
She found employment as a live-in domestic worker, cleaning and taking care of the elderly and babies. Bennett only saw her twice a month then as she worked to take care of them both. Her willingness to help others even as she worked to overcome her own challenges had a huge impact on him.
“What I am doing now is what I saw my mom doing. I think her life influenced me to have that same willingness to help people as much as I can. I go beyond the call of duty and get very involved,” he said.
“I am amazed, I’m still pinching myself because I will never forget where I am coming from. In the ghetto I did not have much ambition, I did not feel as if I would ever leave Jamaica. I want the world to know my story of how I was nothing. If you had asked me what I wanted to become [when I was in the hospital] at 15 years old, I would have told you that I just want to survive because everyone around me was dying,” he added.
Bennett continues to share stories of his patients and experiences from his missionary work on his Youtube channel and Facebook page called “Flying by Faith”.