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Nick & Ruth Hitchins

“Dreams do come true—just never in the way we could ever have imagined! My initial dream of a life of flying began as a teenager, and after a career spanning Business Admin, Operations Management, Film & Television Production and more recently as the CEO of an IT company, joining MAF in 2021 has brought all the threads together into the perfect package.  Working around the world and back again, including stints in Canada, Japan, UK & Australia, our journey has been an unfolding mir...

Andy & Sharon Campbell

Born in Gisborne, Andy became interested in aviation at the age of four. Upon leaving home he joined the RNZAF as an avionics technician. Around 2000, he read personal accounts of Papua New Guinean Highlanders and their experiences and response to the Gospel—it left an impression on him. He recalls wondering if he might end up in PNG some day!  In 2015, he obtained a job with Pacific Helicopters, a commercial company based in Goroka (PNG Highlands). This has been ideal preparation for...

Jerrycans Of Jet Fuel

Over the years we have been amazed at God’s mercy and compassion for even the most marginalized and how, by working together, we have been able to bring God’s love to isolated people in places of deepest human need. Begun by two young pilots from New Zealand after the Second World War, Mission Aviation Fellowship now has 130 aircraft in over 30 nations and flies in some of the most challenging places on earth. In 2019 we flew teachers, pastors and resources to the aboriginal people living i...

The Greatest of These is Love

Francis Wayambo and his family moved to Australia from Papua New Guinea two years ago. Francis serves as a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (LAME) in the MAF Arnhem Land programme. They live in the Yolngu community of Yirrkala and have established good relationships with the people there—everyone knows of the Wayambos and their passion for ministry among the children and youth of Yirrkala. Every week, they set up their local church building to run a thriving ‘Kids Ministry’. ...

A Girl With A Broken Arm

Mission Aviation Fellowship has been serving the remote areas of Papua New Guinea for over 60 years. Recently Mark Fox, the CEO of MAF New Zealand, had the chance to see first-hand the difference MAF makes. He was flying with a missions team in PNG when they made an emergency detour. A 4-year old girl had broken her arm in three places. With no roads in or out, the only access to her village was by air. Mark and the MAF team were able to fly her and her parents to a hospital for treatment. If no...

A Privilege To Help

In Western countries medical emergency needs are addressed through a country-wide call centre. In Germany for example, an ambulance should reach you within 15 minutes. The ambulance itself is furnished with high-tech medical emergency equipment, at least one doctor plus and two highly qualified nurses. It’s so different in Papua New Guinea—and even more challenging in remote areas! Recently a medevac was requested through a hand delivered letter!  This story is by Siobhain Dales in ...

Dodomona HF Radio Install

MAF sponsored six HF Radios’ to be installed in six different remote areas last year. Five of the six HF Radios were installed by our installation team in five remote communities in Edwaki, Kabori, Kwieftim, Yebil, and Seserimi which are located in the West Sepik Province and Western Province of Papua New Guinea. The Christian Radio Missionary Fellowship (CRMF) installation team recently completed the installation of the 6th and final MAF-sponsored remote HF Radio installation in Dodomona, a r...

A Redbird Helps Pilots Prepare

In a milestone for the flight training department in PNG, the recently installed Redbird Flight Simulator was dedicated to enhance and improve in-house training on Caravan aircraft. On Thursday, 22 August 2019, during the little dedication ceremony, Markus Bischoff, MAF PNG’s Crew Training Manager, explained the advantages of the ‘sim’, as everyone is calling the Simulator, “Compared to a real aircraft, the sim is much cheaper to operate and we can use the actual airplanes for operatio...

Connect, Equip, Send - Our Highest Priority

We can have the aircraft, the fuel, the teachers, pastors and medical teams that urgently need to reach isolated areas. We can have the landing strips, the building supplies and educational materials...but if we don’t have the right staff, the MAF planes can’t fly. And at this point, many key positions overseas urgently need to be filled. If just one of these positions is vacant, it impacts on the whole programme—and in turn on all those who depend on MAF’s aviation services!  W...

What a Difference a Vaccine Fridge Makes!

Late last year our technical team installed a High Frequency (HF) Radio in Kabori, a remote village in PNG. The HF radio was installed in a local pastor’s house, part of which he dedicated to serve as a health clinic in Kabori—the only health clinic for the community. Despite the lack of proper health equipment and medicines, the local pastor went out of his way to help provide basic health-care treatment for people in need of medical attention. Upon entering the clinic, the Christian Ra...

Working Together in Bible Translation

It is 2019 yet there is still a long way to go to complete translating the whole Bible to Yolngu-Matha, the heart language of the Yolngu people. The encouraging news is that there are both indigenous and non-indigenous translators in North East Arnhem Land who have invested years in building relationships and learning language to effectively translate the Bible.  Yolngu-Matha was originally an oral language. Though the Yolngu excelled in bark paintings, traditional dances and other forms of...

The “Forgotten People” of Northern Kenya

The Turkana people call themselves “Emuriakin”, the forgotten people. This is understandable given the fact that the government’s attention towards this region was drawn off when the borders of southern Sudan were opened and the money left, together with the NGOs. All plans to develop the area were put on hold indefinitely, and Lokichoggio (the outermost Kenyan town, on the border with Sudan) became a town of derelict and abandoned buildings and people without hope. When a Swedish pilot an...

Help Transform a Nation!

Can you imagine being among the 70% of the population of Timor Leste who live in rural areas? You would face significant inequality with those in the capital Dili. In fact you, your family and your community would face urgent medical and health issues that include: Rheumatic heart disease (one of the highest rates in the world —1 in 20 children impacted)Tuberculosis (51% of the nation has latent TB)HIV/AIDs (there was a 15% increase in cases last year)Child malnutrition and stunted growth ...

A Force To Be Reckoned with!

Joe Knighton, Senior Flight Instructor for Mareeba Flight Training Centre strongly believes that, “God gives us skills and abilities, and it is our duty to use those skills to help others.” Growing up in England, Joe’s first flight was at the tender age of 14 as an Air Cadet. This led to his first solo flight at 18. He was all set to enter the Air Force, when—at just 19—Joe had a debilitating motorcycle accident, which left him paralysed. While in hospital he had been told repe...

Managers Needed

TREE TOPS LODGE IN BEAUTIFUL NORTH QUEENSLAND is a joint venture of MAF and Wycliffe. It provides accommodation for missionaries seeking a break from the mission field, offering rest in a peaceful Christian atmosphere. There are currently positions for Management Team Members, typically husband and wife couples, that urgently need to be filled.  POSITION TITLE: Management Team Members (typically husband and wife team). POSITION TYPE: Full-time volunteer on a rotating two-week roster that in...

Clean Water, Fresh From the Mountain!

Flying over the highlands of PNG and looking down on the huge forests, more and more houses with a corrugated iron roof can be spotted. For hundreds of years the people used to live under a grass roof. Many still do. But apart from easier maintenance and higher sustainability, having a corrugated iron roof helps with collecting rain water. However, even for those with corrugated iron roofs and a small drum to collect water, after a couple of days of dry weather this runs out. Then a time-consumi...

Help Dreams Come True

In 2013 Josephine was living in an orphanage in Kajo Keji, South Sudan. She was a teenager, exhausted by a life that had left her powerless. Her broken wheelchair had condemned her to crawling on the ground, her legs and knees caked in mud. The only way Josephine could keep her dream of an education alive was to crawl to school and back every day.Verses like the one below show God’s amazing mercy and compassion for every person on the planet, even the most marginalized:He raises the poor from ...

Overcoming “Runny Ears” in Arnhem Land

From the very beginning, the vision of the Menzies School of Health Research has been a commitment to examine, understand and improve Indigenous health, including those living in Northern Australia and the tropics. Thirty four years later, the organisation has four headquarters across Australia, with an influence that spans across the developing countries of the world. Menzies is the global leader in tropical research into life-threatening illnesses. For the past two years, MAF has helped fly M...

MAF Makes It Possible

Friedemann Urschitz, from the Liebenzell Mission in Austria recently wrote: Thanks to MAF I was able to get to remote villages to conduct courses, get airstrip equipment repaired and visit churches over an eight week mission trip to the East Sepik Province of PNG. Without MAF’s flights into remote villages, I could not have done that many visits and courses. The first village MAF flew me to was Nungwaia. Shortly after we landed, the pilot sold almost a full box of Bibles and some reading glass...

Second Disaster in Five Weeks for Mozambique

Cyclone Kenneth struck Mozambique April 25-26, 2019, just five weeks after Cyclone Idai caused large scale devastation and loss of life. In response to this latest disaster Mission Aviation Fellowship again mobilized staff from its Nampula base (the largest city in northeastern Mozambique) to assist, along with staff from the MAF Disaster Response Team. On 27 April, MAF delivered a load of rice, sugar and candles to the island of Ibo, which was hard-hit by the cyclone. More than 160,000 people h...

Flying Over the Mud!

Only 43% of Chadians have basic access to clean water. International Aid Services (IAS), a relief and development organisation based in Denmark, drills wells to provide clean water to those who need it most. Luke Lunsford works with IAS in Chad—but sometimes the biggest obstacle to his work is dirty water. In rainy season it can be almost impossible to travel because of flooded rivers and thick mud. According to Luke, travel in and out of Hadjer Hadid (an area in eastern Chad) is “one o...

A Medevac for Meshack

A Friday night in October 2017, four gunmen killed a security guard and six students while injuring another 18 at Lokichoggio Mixed Secondary School, close to Kenya’s border with South Sudan. A former student, who had been expelled from the school due to indiscipline, led the three other armed men in the deadly revenge mission that lasted three hours. The attack happened between 1 and 4am—but the police didn’t arrive at the school until 5am. Therefore, the attackers had plenty of time ...

Too Busy to Care

Stewardship is one of our key values. For staff on the ground, this boils down to "efficiency" and since the start of this year, we have been on a drive to maximise our flying days. More flights mean that more people can be served and more impact on an individual and community basis. At the same time, we try to ballance efficiency with Care. One Monday recently, the Mt Hagen based Cessna Caravan P2-MAG was dedicated for our partner organisation, the Rural Airstrips Agency (RAA), which does a won...

A Camel Train in Chad

MAF pilot Stefan Hug recently flew some workers and journalists from Every Home for Christ (EHC) to Ati in the center of Chad. After arriving in Ati, he realized that he had no way to secure the airplane for the night as the airport was designed for larger aircraft that don’t need to be tied own. With some support from the base in N’Djamena and help from some local construction workers, Stefan was able to secure the aircraft to prevent wind damage using sacks filled with stone and sand and s...

Support MAF’s rescue and relief efforts In Mozambique

MAF US, based in Nampa, Idaho is on the front lines of the cyclone disaster relief efforts in Mozambique. The cyclone hit on March 14. Winds over 100 miles per hour flattened homes and left some underwater. The storm also destroyed water sanitation systems, raising concerns among aid workers that waterborne diseases could spread more easily. Aircraft are doing flight surveys and helping deliver supplies to areas cut off by massive flooding that has already killed 200 people. It is estimated that...