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Meet the "Father" of MAF in Bougainville

“In 1969, when I was young, doing my grade three, I heard of MAF,” Rev Abraham said, his eyes sparkling through his dark-rimmed glasses.“MAF left a very good history and legacy here in Bougainville. Under the leadership of Captain Harold Morton and some other pilots, they would go around Bougainville, especially in the United Church places, mission stations.”Rev Abraham explains that Harold was a friend to many, because he not only knew how to speak Tok Pisin, but also a little bit of th...

Life-Saving Vaccine Fridges Boost Chuave Health

With more than fifty thousand people residing in the remote highlands of the Chimbu Province, Papua New Guinea, many mothers and children rely on Chuave Rural Hospital for their essential health services, including immunisation programmes, health patrols and community awareness initiatives.The hospital serves as a key referral point for surrounding health centres in Chuave, often without suitable medical storage.Through a health initiative with Digicel Foundation, the MAF Technologies team have ...

Surgeries Give Babies a New Chance at Life

One out of every 1,000 babies are born with hydrocephalus worldwide, many families not able to afford surgery.MAF flies CURE Children’s hospital’s medical team from Tororo in eastern Uganda, to Mbarara in western Uganda for a medical camp, offering a rare surgery to children with hydrocephalus, spina bifida and epilepsy.Doctor Shadrach Kisa, CURE’s clinical service supervisor, is one of the passengers on board the MAF flight.“We’d been traveling by road. It’s more than 500 km and we ...

Set-Up Phase Becomes Emergency: Meeting Long-Term and Sudden Needs in Bougainville

“Just over two years ago, we were invited by the Bougainville government to look at whether we could start an aviation programme,” said Glenys Watson, MAF’s Flight Operations Manager in Papua New Guinea.In early 2024, she and fellow pilot Brad Venter conducted a week of survey flying out of Buka, the main centre for the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.“We were able to scope out meeting with community members and see if there was a need for an aviation programme to start up in Bougainvi...

New Life for Lillian

As Lillian, from Western Equatoria, flew to South Sudan’s capital Juba with MAF for surgery to treat fistula, she was smiling and hopeful, despite living with debilitating condition for decades.‘I got this fistula in 2003 giving birth to my first child when I was 16 years old. I stayed for almost a year and a half in the hospital. The doctors helped me with soap and clothes. I didn’t have anywhere to go because they could not fix the problem,’ she said.When she was finally able to leave ...

After Years of Pain, They Finally Found Hope

Hadra is the mother of four healthy children, but she has given birth to nine. There are no hospitals in the area where she lives. It is not uncommon for women to labour at home for 2-4 days, rather than set off for hospital, (a journey of hours or days) and risk delivering on the way.As they board a MAF flight together, Hadra Yousef and Tensa James are like sisters, although their hometowns in South Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, are far apart. This is the second time they have both flown with MAF t...

Fighting Polio in remote Papua New Guinea

Much of the world is no longer concerned about polio: a deadly disease that affects mainly children. Though many people in today’s generation barely know what it is, this highly contagious infection can cause long-term disability, paralysis and even death.While it was eradicated in Europe in 2003 – and stamped out in Australia in the year 2000 – it’s still out there in other parts of the world, including Papua New Guinea.With low vaccination coverage, the risk of transmission for many Pa...

Isolated Bougainville gets Radio Communication Link

Having served four years as the officer in charge of Han health clinic in the Carteret islands, Sister Bernice Kumis knows well the challenges of reliable communication and transportation when referring patients to the main island of Bougainville.“The Carteret Islands are isolated and are very far from the mainland,” she said. “We can only travel by boat, and we manage to stay here and care for the patients.”Situated 113 km east of Buka island in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, th...

When One Man can See, Two Men are Set Free

As Ernest Nicolaus Skalwanda enters the hospital, his hand is held by Abeli Pita Kamanija.As one seeing, younger man leads a blind, older man to life-changing surgery, it’s evident that the weight of five years of blindness has been weighing heavily.“My life has become difficult to understand,” says Ernest, who comes from Urambo. “I have ended up living by begging and I lack the freedom to go anywhere or do anything I want, especially economic activities.“My main activity is farming. N...

'God still loves me': Rozalia regains full independence after surgery

“The pleasure of the world is to see. If you do not see, you have no pleasure,” says 75-year-old Rozalia Masanja Mayunga.For two and a half years, Rozalia lived with blindness that robbed her of all independence and joy. But last year, MAF flew Tanzanian eye surgeon, Dr Erick Msigomba and his team from Njombe to Rozalia’s home region of Tabora. There the team performed surgery that not only restored Rozalia’s eyesight, but also blessed 60 others with their sight and independence once mor...

'An absolute delight': 45 years of giving, caring and serving

“We wouldn’t have missed it,” said Grant. “There’s nothing else we would rather have done with our lives than what the Lord’s been doing over these 45 years.”From engineering and quality assurance to recruitment and pastoral care, their journey has been a unique call to serve and equip others to do the same.Originally from New Zealand, the couple spent their first 17 years with MAF in PNG. Grant maintained the aircraft that offered a lifeline to isolated communities, whilst Sharon ...

‘With MAF, what would normally be difficult becomes possible’

An aircraft from Mission Aviation Fellowship flies over the dry landscape of northern Kenya. On the ground, Maasai huts known as manyatta dot the earth. Their rudimentary construction shows just how far these communities are from basic services.Normally, the journey here would have taken something like 20 long hours by road, much of it far from tarmac.Today, by air, the journey is reduced to just two hours.Here in Loyangalani, CURE International is conducting a ‘medical safari’, an initiativ...

The Flight That Could Change Everything

“Yaya was born with a cleft palate and a problem with his lower jaw, which needs to be readjusted,” says Diallo Mariama Bobo, a telecommunications engineer.Chaikou Yaya Diallo has had this issue for two and a half years. But today, he is boarding an MAF flight with his mother.“We are here today for the trip to the N’Zao hospital, for the surgery of my child,” says Mariama. “We were recommended by the Sacré Coeur team who have been monitoring the health of my child since birth.“Whe...

Forty years of waiting

The recovery after surgery is slow and painful, and I am aware of this as I walk over to Ayor’s bed in the hospital in Juba. My translator, Garang, asks if she is willing to share her story. Ayor replies with a quiet yes.Her white hair tells me she is long past the age when women bear children, but her eyes tell a story few other people have heard.“The fistula followed the birth of my fourth child, over forty years ago,” Ayor says.“I have been suffering from this condition ever since. My...

Premature death for babies averted - Motorcycle ambulances bring new hope to Liberian families

Francis Forndia, Executive Director of Foya-Borma Hospital, described what could happen on the way to care: “Before they could get to the clinic, the pregnant woman would have lost her foetus. The pregnant mother sitting on the bike would press the baby to its early grave.”With the only large referral hospital from Foya being a one-day drive away, it causes lots of pregnant women or patients to lose their lives. But the arrival of the first two motorcycle ambulances in the region is changing...

"I'm really grateful to MAF" - Burns survivor Daniel owes his life to a medevac

Today, there are hardly any scars from the scalding water and white-hot charcoal, when toddler Daniel fell into a fire and knocked over his mother’s cooking pot. But Sentina will never forget her son’s screams on 18 June 2005.‘Daniel got burnt. In our village, we don’t have those modern kitchens. We cook on the floor with firewood,’ explains Sentina.‘He had just started walking and fell into the cooking pot. Unfortunately, his right side got burnt from his hand to his shoulder. All h...

Guns to Bibles: How MAF supports life-transforming teaching

“I am a man who carried a gun and held up boats on the river.”These were the words of a man attending a Scripture Application and Leadership Training (SALT) course who admitted he once carried a pistol and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and had been involved in many crimes.“Some people gave me a SALT book and shared a little bit of the teaching with me,” he said. “It wasn’t long before the Holy Spirit gripped my heart. I told my brother, ‘I am going to hike all the way up to Dundrom...

One MAF flight: Almost 1000 patients treated by specialists

“The sheer number of people who turned up from across the region shows how great the need is in the community,” said Becki Dillingham. She was the MAF pilot who flew  the medical team from the Pamoja Specialised Polyclinic to Malambo in  just 35 minutes – a journey that would have taken  eight hours by road.Over the two days of the mobile clinic, the nine-member team treated almost a thousand  patients, the majority of whom were  suffering from ophthalmologic cond...

Rescued survivors arrive safely in Buka

The eight men of the rescue team had been sent by sea to extract two fishermen who had been stranded for five days on Ausarara Island in Siwai. With roads cut off and the Ramazon ridge damaged by flooding, the team navigated through the eastern side of Bougainville using two speed boats.Tragically, one of the speed boats encountered heavy waves and sank just next to the island, where the two fishermen were stranded. The four crew members were left stranded at sea before reaching Tuluve Island. T...

From Burundi to South Sudan: An adventure in Mission

Jean Thierry and Moise caught a bus in Burundi to make the 2-day, 782-mile journey overland, from Bujumbura to Nairobi. From there, transport options narrowed.Boarding an MAF plane, they flew 2.5 hours to Torit in South Sudan – and began their one-year ‘Inbound’ orientation with Africa Inland Mission.Before Jean Thierry arrived, South Sudan was already on his heart.“When I was in the school of mission, I prayed for South Sudan without knowing why,” he said.“Moise and I were praying i...

"Thank you MAF for rescuing us": 88-year-old nun flown to care

For years, MAF has flown Sister Bianca during her life of service, back and forth between South Sudan and Uganda.But this flight for the 88-year-old carried urgency: it was a medevac.MAF pilot Andrew Parker made the almost three-hour-flight from Yambio in South Sudan to Entebbe International Airport in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. The alternative form of travel to Uganda is by road, which would take over two days.“It is good to be able to bring Sister Bianca down here to Kampala where she will...

'Aerial health patrols save lives': Fly-in medical team treats sick in Yambaitok

“This patrol is the only link we have to reach our rural communities,” said Philomina Baking.From the coastal town of Rabaul in East New Britain, Philomina is a volunteer dentist at Kompiam District Hospital. She participated in a two-day aerial health patrol to the village of Yambaitok, with the support of Mission Aviation Fellowship.“I don’t know how these people would get help without aerial patrols, especially in places like Yambaitok,” she said. “I deeply appreciate the work MAF...

Egbert's one-way ticket pays off for bush people

After graduating from Don Bosco Technical Institute, Egbert Awani bought a one-way ticket and travelled across Papua New Guinea. In search of work, he left the city of Port Moresby and focussed his efforts on the small town of Kiunga.“You guys have to pick me up from the airport,” he told his friends. But after almost a year, and multiple failed attempts at finding a job, he stumbled across a social media advert for a role with MAF.Growing up in Nuku, in the Sepik region, Egbert had seen MAF...

From bush hut to permanent health centre: MAF flights enable epic transformation

Dedicated community health worker Patrick Dickson has been serving at Yambaitok health centre for almost nine years. Working in a bush materials building, he has personally experienced the pressing need for a proper healthcare facility to support locals from Yambaitok and neighbouring communities.Thanks to the ten crucial MAF flights that delivered the required building materials from Kompiam, the new facility will feature a labour ward, a small outpatient area and rooms to accommodate patients....

From Dreams to Skies: A PNG Pilot Story

“The spark was there,” says Ricky Poki. “But I honestly believe God puts it in your heart before you’re even born. Ever since then I’ve always had a thing for flying.“My first plane ride – man! The thrill that I got! I was like, ‘I want to be the person doing that over and over again.’”Little did Ricky know, his lifelong dream would eventually shape his calling – to share God’s love through his passion for flying.“It’s like showing a little bit of what God is like for...