First in flight
For generations, Verbruggen men have dreamt of flying. It started with Karel Verbruggen, who spent his teenage years in occupied Belgium during World War II, staying clear of Nazi occupiers who were scooping up young guys like him and forcing them to work in their factories. Following the war, he was accepted into Great Britain’s Royal Air Force, but instead stayed home to help rebuild Belgium. As soon as his country was liberated, he joined the Belgian army.
Karel’s son, Jan, grew up wanting to fly, too, but he was unable to boast perfect eyesight during an era in which pilots were required to have 20/20 non-corrected vision.
“So, I guess that makes me a third generation wanna-be,” Jan’s son, David Verbruggen, said. “I remember living in Baltimore when I was three years old, and we had a tree that you could sit in the middle of. I would sit inside it and pretend I was flying.”
A few years later, David stopped pretending and turned his family’s dream of flight into reality. But the dream came crashing down with one medical diagnosis.
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Not long after sitting in that tree, David and his family moved back to his dad’s home country. From the ages of four through 11, David lived in Mortsel, Belgium, a city of about 30,000 people just outside Antwerp. When you think of classic European towns, Mortsel, with its cobblestone streets, farmer’s markets and an 800-year-old church, is the picture inside your head.
“It’s a completely different environment there,” David said. “There’s very little crime, and I got to do stuff I would never get to do here. I was seven or eight years old and riding off on my bike by myself for hours. Sometimes I would ride close to 20 kilometers, following the train tracks and then turning around and riding home.”
Living outside the United States was tough on David’s American-born mother, and his family moved to Portland, Oregon when his father accepted a position at Western Seminary.
Whether he was in a tree in Baltimore, riding his bike along the railroad tracks in Mortsel or adjusting to a new environment in the Pacific Northwest, David never let go of his desire to pilot airplanes. By 1998, his family had purchased a flight simulator game. David estimates he logged somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 hours on the game, preparing for the opportunity to live his dream.
He finally had a chance to climb into a cockpit for real during his junior year of high school, sitting behind the controls of a Cessna 152 as he took flight lessons. Finally, the Verbruggens were flying!
David passed his checkride, the Federal Aviation Administration’s flight test to earn a pilot’s certification, just after he graduated from high school. With his pilot’s certificate already in hand, he enrolled at LeTourneau University and breezed through its flight program in two years. The summer before his junior year at LeTourneau, David earned a flight instructor’s certificate. He was just 20 years old.
“I was allowed to teach people how to fly an airplane, but I wasn’t allowed to teach people how to drive a car,” he said with a laugh. “You have to be 21 to be a driving instructor.”
While he had 250 hours of flying time under his belt, he was still far short of the requirements to fly full-time. He had been a flight instructor for about two years already and was building a growing business teaching others to fly while getting more flight time of his own in order to pursue his passion.
By the time he was 23, he was flying Citation 500 and 525 passenger jets as a first officer.
“It was a God thing, because I started flying jets at 300 hours (of accumulated flight time), which is pretty unheard of,” David said. “I’ve heard of guys with 3,000 hours that didn’t qualify to fly jets, and here I was the first officer of a Citation at 23 years old.”
As David’s business and his reputation in the industry continued to grow, he purchased a Cessna 150, similar to the plane on which he first trained.
“I was a good pilot and wasn’t losing any opportunities,” David said. “I had my own company and my own plane, and I was flying jets for celebrities and some very wealthy people.”
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While on a mission trip in Cambodia, David developed a passion for assisting victims of human trafficking. That was when he first thought about combining his love of flying with this new passion.
“I was doing corporate and charter aviation and was starting to look at selling my flight instructor business to pursue professional flying full-time,” David said. “Long term, I was really thinking about possibly doing something along the lines of missions aviation.
“I didn’t have concrete plans, of course, but I was dreaming of having an aviation company in a place like Cambodia that would be self-sufficient, but also offer free services to missions organizations that fight human trafficking.”
His next step, though, was to become a captain, and one local aviation company that he had been flying with had contacted him to check on his progress. The company was looking for a captain to fly Cessna Mustangs.
“I was at 1,200 hours, and it would only take about four or five months to get the next 300 hours I needed to be able to go to captain’s school, because I was flying quite a bit,” David said. “They told me to let them know when I finished those hours.”
A few months later, David went to see a doctor for a routine eye exam. When he was questioned about his family medical history, David mentioned that his sister had Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP).
“In everyday terms, it kills the peripheral vision and as it continues to progress and close in, it can cause blindness,” David said.
They ran tests. David had RP, too. He was grounded for good by the FAA.
“I had 1,465 hours of flight time under my belt,” David said. “I was 35 hours short of being a captain. I would’ve had those hours in a week and a half.”
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In an instant, David’s business was shut down and his future plans were dashed. His vision above his eye level is gone, but recent examinations have shown only minimal progression of the disease. Overall, he’s lost about 20 percent of his vision since the diagnosis three years ago.
“Best case scenario, nothing changes from here on out,” he said of his vision. “Worst cast scenario, I lose all of my sight in the next five years.”
But, David was left with uncertainty beyond his vision. Flying was out, and so were his other options. He looked to God for answers.
“I said, ‘You gave me this flying career, and you made me really good at it. You made me to be a pilot. Those abilities You gave me were tailor-made for a pilot. Now, what do You want me to do? I can’t fly anymore.’
“I had a backup plan if flying were to ever end,” David said. “I was going to be a fire fighter. Obviously, you can’t go into a dark, smoky environment with my eyes and see what you’re doing. Plan C was the police department. You need peripheral vision in that, as well. Plan D was the military. I would never get past boot camp. That’s all gone, and I didn’t have a Plan E. Who has a Plan E?”
It’s in the plans where the struggle lies. Whose plans are they? And what happens when God’s plans don’t match up to your own? How do you move on?
“You just have to trust God,” David said. “You have to follow Him. When I first learned about my vision, people would try to be encouraging and uplifting. They would say, ‘God has a bigger plan for your life.’ And I would think, ‘Bigger than flying jets? What am I going to do, be an astronaut? That’s bigger. Navy Seal? President?’
“I know God has a bigger plan for my life, but it doesn’t mean a life with God isn’t painful sometimes. But even in the pain, He’s still there.
“Flying was obviously just a gift. I have had this desire forever. God let me have a great career, even though it was short. I don’t know anyone else who has done more in a flying career in the timeframe I had. All those things happened by the time I was 24 years old. And, I wonder if God was like, “OK, you’ve done that, and now I’m going to have you do this.’”
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David’s new “this” is serving as Mobberly Baptist Church’s Community Outreach Coordinator, directing the church’s booming Upward Sports ministry, as well as overseeing Mobberly’s Operation Christmas Child endeavors and community block parties. He also coordinates the church’s efforts with several local outreach ministries and plays trumpet in Mobberly’s orchestra.
Prior to joining Mobberly’s staff full time, David embarked on a mission trip in Nepal, backpacking through rugged, often dangerous terrain to share the gospel in remote locations where little, if anything, is known about Jesus. He was stretched both physically and spiritually beyond any limits he had previously known.
“I had no previous backpacking experience, and my first experience was with a 45-pound backpack in the Himalayas,” he said. “It was during the monsoon season. We had harnesses and ropes, but once we were on the trail, we couldn’t even attach them to anything. There were parts of the trail where it was about 10 inches wide and there was a 500-foot ledge.
“I remember thinking that there was a possibility that one of us might not return from this trip. At one point on the trail, we were about 1,000 feet up the mountain. It was raining and we were literally crawling up a 45-degree angle on our hands and feet. I was just hoping not to slip, because if you slip, it wasn’t going to be a minor thing; it was going to be to your death. We had just waded through a river and had leeches everywhere.
“I kept thinking about how miserable I was and that I was not cut out to climb mountains, but I had to keep going because God was going to use us to tell these people about Jesus. I thought of how the Apostle Paul might have felt miserable, but God was using him through his inadequacies.”
In recent months, a Christian church has grown in that remote village where David and his team first shared the gospel. For David, that news was needed confirmation that God often works through others’ weaknesses.
“With Nepal, it was so clear,” he said. “It was like everything that I’m not good at doing, good was still coming from it. But, I have to think that the things we go through are often meant to prepare us for something else.
“Losing my flying career is just a reminder that God is in control, and tragedy and painful things often happen while you are living the dream. But God is the only one to turn to during those times, and eventually, that will draw you closer to Him.
“I have to trust that I would be more fulfilled in God’s plan than in what I think is my dream,” he said. “My desire is truly to be in God’s plan. So, that is actually the dream. I thought it was flying, and it was for a period of time. Now it’s not. I’ve kind of given up on future plans. I’ll let God make the plans.
“I’m where God wants me to be right now. This is a happy story.”
Originally appeared in Mobberly Magazine