Hansen & West Tribute – 10 Years On

10 years ago, 2 very dear MAF bush pilots, Chris Hansen and Richard West lost their lives in Papua New Guinea. We’ve dedicated this post to them. The following words are from MAF Chief Exec, Chris Lukkien.

“22 February 2015 marks the ten year anniversary of the circuit area accident of MFQ, a 300 series DHC6, at Wobagen in the highlands of western Papua New Guinea.

It was the sixth flight leg of what appeared to be a normal day for New Zealand pilots Chris Hansen and Richard West, as they flew a load of freight and passengers from Tabubil towards Wobagen in the Bimin valley.  After arriving in the circuit area, due to ground fog the crew made several unsuccessful attempts to land at Wogaben before the aircraft impacted trees to the south of the airstrip. Both pilots were killed and the aircraft was destroyed.  Cabin Attendant Stanley Torea and some of the ten passengers on board received light injuries.

On that day, the lives of Janice (wife of Chris) and their children Rochelle, Jessica and Simeon, and Cherie (wife of Richard) and children Larissa and Marcus were irrevocably changed, and no doubt ten years down the track, the memories of the pain and devastation felt are still very tangible.

On that day we had inevitable doubts and fears asking such questions as – ‘Why us? How could God allow this to happen? Where have we gone wrong?  and Where to from here?’  It was a time for grieving and also a time when we were forced to depend on the sustaining love and faithfulness of our sovereign God in order to move forward.

Ten years on, let’s remember and celebrate the lives of Chris and Richard and give thanks for their service to MAF even unto death.  Please pray for Chris and Richard’s families, asking God to continue to uphold and sustain them.

Let us also give thanks to the Lord for recent flying safety and continue to pray for safety for our organisation.  Above all let’s recommit ourselves into the hands of God, praying for His will to be done in our lives and through our service with MAF.”

A Slight Inconvenience

We’ve all been caught flailing our arms around, clambering on furniture, or pacing back and forth just for that one precious bar of phone reception- but what about climbing a mountain to get some?

Oksapmin High School teacher in PNG, Glenda Giles, recently went through quite an ordeal to accomplish the simplest of tasks last month. Upon returning to the Sandaun Province after spending a month back home in New Zealand, Glenda experienced a situation that she shan’t quickly forget.

Extreme weather can ground general day-to-day life in PNG with life interrupted by a mud-slide or flooding. However, this particular incident featured a whirlwind! Glenda wasn’t caught in the whirlwind herself thankfully, but she was caught in the aftermath and its affects.

Glenda said, “Many Casuarina trees were spilt or uprooted. It affected the area from Tekap right through to here. The PNG Bible church was blown down. However, the whole community worked and has helped to get it back up again. At the school two sheets of roof came right off my house and it seems that the satellite phone dish got damaged also. Fortunately some of the young village men came immediately and nailed the sheets back up so nothing got wet. Plastic roofs came off the girls’ toilets and shower blocks plus some parts of the girls’ and boys’ dorms. The primary school radio aerial came down but fortunately not the one at the Health Centre…”

Although the whirlwind caused a fair amount of damage, it was interesting to hear what proceeded after these observations. The knocking out of the satellite phone dish and the school radio inevitably caused communication issues! Glenda, a student called Caleb and a teacher called Jethro all needed to contact various people urgently.

This led to a 7 hour excursion across challenging terrain and around the nearest mountain towards Oksapmin School just so that Glenda could send a text to her loved ones to say she was ok and so Caleb and Jethro could book flights with MAF!

To us, this would seem crazy but this is what it’s like in many places across the developing world! It’s a lesson for us all. The next time you feel a surge of frustration when you’re sending a text on a train whilst going through a tunnel, stop for a second and count your blessings! It won’t take a 7 hour mountain climb to tell your friend that you’ll be arriving in 10 minutes!

 

*Disclaimer: Images used are not taken from the event described in this blog. Images used are to merely give reader a visual to help illustrate what it’s like in PNG.*    

 

 

Getting Better – Michael’s Recovery

Not so long ago we posted about a schooling centre called Confident Children out of Conflict  (CCC) in South Sudan and how much we admired it’s work and how privileged we are to help out and be a part of what they’re doing!

We’ve recently been in contact with CCC with regards to Michael, a South Sudanese boy who is undergoing therapy after a being horrifically attacked. Do carry on reading to find out what happened to him and how he’s currently doing…

“In December 2013, 15-year-old Michael was walking home from school in Juba where he lived with his older brother, knowing that something was dreadfully wrong.

Several men with guns spoke to him in a language he didn’t understand.

When he couldn’t respond, they shot him in the legs. Michael was taken in by a local organisation that takes care of orphans and street children called Confident Children out of Conflict.

Many at MAF took Michael under their wings, including Judith DuPuis who met with him regularly to talk, pray, and read the Bible, or Rob Johnson who would visit him in the evenings to play games.

Michael’s physical condition has worsened as his leg became seriously infected. Thanks to many donations and a church who will look after him, he left on 31 August for Nairobi for major surgery on his leg.

Update

Michael was operated on Saturday 6th September, and came out of hospital a week later.  With the help of friends in Nairobi we have identified a boarding school he can attend in Nairobi once the initial follow-up to his operation has been completed.

Michael is doing well.  He moved to Africa Nazarene University overseen by the Chaplain Dr Cindy from the end of November, and then moved into boarding school at Peace Junior Academy in the second week of January.

Over Christmas he had an operation to remove the pin from his leg (which had been put in in September) so he is back in a cast now.

MAF South Sudan staff have been instrumental in providing essential pastoral support to Michael during his stay with us at CCC.  They visited him, played games with him, counselled him, prayed with him, and read the bible with him.”

A shocking story but it’s great to see how things are looking up for Michael! We’ll surely be keeping you updated on how Michael’s doing in the future but in the meantime, please pray for his on-going recovery!

If you’d like to hear about how CCC began, view our blog post ‘A Safe Haven’ here… http://wp.me/p4k7dT-5Y

 

A New Airstrip for Bunam

For MAF, the opening or re-opening of an airstrip is a beautiful moment. It’s an opportunity and a gateway through which the gospel can be accessed by another isolated community!  Well, you can imagine our excitement when we’d received word of an airstrip being opened in Bunam, PNG!

Michael Duncalfe, MAF PNG’s flight operations manager and chief pilot, declared the Bunam airstrip open towards the end of 2014. The celebrations that normally occur were not as extravagant as they sometimes are but during the visits soon after the opening, something exciting was slowly becoming clear!

Mandy Glass and husband MAF pilot Mathias Glass, were on the first operational flight that landed on the newly opened airstrip on the 1^st of December. Whilst doing his circuit above Bunam, Mathias exclaimed “I can see about 20 people and there are more coming!” As they landed it appeared that the whole parking bay was surrounded by people! The community had turned up to witness the first landing!

The reason for such a turnout? Bibles. Mathias ended up selling 20 Bibles that day and then a further 40 on the pickup day. It must create such a buzz and excitement for the pilots as they witness how eager the communities they serve are for not only the presence of MAF but the word of God. It certainly gets us enthused too!

This wasn’t the only occasion where the interest for Bibles was displayed by the Bunam people. Even before the first operational flight, MAF pilot Brad Venter recalled being asked about the availability of Bibles during the inspection and test landing on the Bunam airstrip by the local people!

It’s absolutely thrilling to see these beautiful people getting excited about Jesus and what they can learn through the Bible and it’s one of the most rewarding aspects of our work in PNG! We’re certain that God has great plans and purposes for the Bunam airstrip and we’re so looking forward to seeing them unfold in the next few years!

The End of Ebola – Liberia

Praise God that the outbreak of Ebola is coming to an end! The crisis, which no one predicted, sent shock waves across West Africa and wide-spread panic globally. We’re glad to see light at the end of this tunnel but continue to pray for the hundreds of communities left in it’s wake.

Liberia, one of the nations affected by the virus, is still a place that MAF is committed to working in. We planned to set up a programme in Monrovia, West Liberia, last year but were suddenly halted when the epidemic broke out.

During the height of the outbreak, government offices were closed for long periods of time, freeing officials to focus on responding to the disaster. For this reason we were unable to move forward as we were waiting on essential paperwork from an office that was now closed indefinitely.

The government is slowly beginning to pick up where they left off. There are already signs of movement and gradual catching-up so do pray for those departments as they strive to get on top of things and, in the meantime, pray for patience as we wait for the necessary approvals to be processed!

What will we do in Liberia? Well 70 NGOs (Non-Government Organisations) have been identified as being eager for our services. Many of these organisations had to evacuate the country, so you can only imagine how much of standstill Liberia came to during the Ebola outbreak. Pray for those organisations that they might be able to resume their works and ministries soon.

There is much to do, much to think about and much to pray about! Will you stand with us in prayer? We so desperately want to serve the people of Liberia and bring them the good news of the Gospel as soon as possible! Please pray that why might be able to do just that and please pray also that the families we’ll be sending out there to work will know the peace of God throughout that transition, and that they’d fully trust that God will provide the way for them!

Thanks

MAF Youth

Praying For People You’ve Never Met

Praying for people we know seems natural and simple; however, the prospect of praying for people we’ve never personally met is potentially an alien one. It seems to be a Western mind-set that conditions us to only pray for people when we can immediately see their physical need. This leads to prayers that concentrate primarily on healing, financial help, ‘as-smooth-as-possible’ outcomes for those we’re praying for. These are all good things but let’s try and take our praying to the next level!

John Piper once said “It’s simply staggering that God – the sovereign ruler of the universe – would ordain that prayers cause things to happen that would not happen if you did not pray”

Simply emphasising the privilege of prayer, in light of a God who controls everything, shows how powerful it is. God is the one backing our prayers because he wants to use them as a way to bring about His purposes on earth! Surely this should stir us to pray with a wider lens!

When we look at scripture and particularly the prayers of the Apostle Paul, we can actually begin to see how we can pray for people all over the world despite us not knowing them. Let’s have a look…

Colossians 1:3-4 says “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints”

At this moment, Paul is in prison and the fact that he writes to the Church because he’d “heard of [their] faith in Christ Jesus”, suggests that he’d never met the people in Colossae! But nevertheless he was praying and thanking God for them!

Praying broadly is clearly biblical and that’s an absolute reason to do it – but how? The likelihood is we still have this hurdle of not knowing anyone particular and therefore not knowing what to pray for. Let’s look again at the scriptures…

Paul goes on to say in Colossians 1:9-10 “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

In simple terms, although Paul has never made any physical acquaintance with the Colossian Church, he still knows what to pray for and it’s that the believers would get to know God more! Paul wants the Colossian Christians to grow in their faith and lets them know he’s praying that they would have the determination to pursue the things that accomplish just that!

SO, when you attempt to pray for people you don’t know, lean on these things as well as the things you might know about them! Paul prays for the spiritual needs of the believers and that’s something we can learn from when praying for known and unknown people! If we’re not praying for a person’s salvation, we should be praying for their on-going walk with Jesus!

One way to put these important aspects into practise is to pray for overseas missions! As a charity, MAF serve some of the most isolated people groups all over the world and we encourage our supporters to pray for the work using our prayer diary! Why not request one?

You can get your prayer diary by calling 01303 852819 OR why not sign up for our daily eMail prayer diary? Sign up here! http://bit.ly/1ATyyTW

A New Year Reflection

Linda Ringenberg and her husband Dave have been working for MAF since 1997 in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Linda shared a few honest thoughts recently that occurred during a brilliant New Year fireworks display at the end of the runway at Nabire airport!

“When we first moved to Papua in December of 2012, I was quite surprised to see fireworks being sold in the remote highland town of Wamena.

Dozens of stands popped up alongside the road where you could buy any kind of firework, for a price. And that New Year’s Eve was like none I had experienced before! The town was alive with glittering, sparkling fireworks.

As midnight approached, the colorful display seemed to crescendo into a never-ending grand finale that would put to shame any fireworks show in the States!

A new year is a time for new beginnings. Some new beginnings come loud and brazen into our lives, like the Papuan fireworks of Wamena, and rock our world. Others creep softly in on cat-like paws so we scarcely know they’re there until we sense God’s gentle working.

Where are you at the beginning of this new year? Is God doing a brazen new thing in your life? Are you experiencing some fireworks? Or is He quietly nudging you in areas He’s already been working?

I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, but as January first rolled around, I began to ponder some areas in my life where I would like to make progress. I believe God is quietly nudging me to grow in the area of “finishing.”

I tend to stop things in the hard places. If a book gets really sad, I’ll tend to put it down at that spot. If a long-term project (like organizing my office!) gets overwhelming, I’ll put it off.

I want to grow in the confidence that what I am working on is truly what God wants me to be doing, and then focus on finishing it in His strength.

How about you? I’d love to hear about your New Year’s fireworks, or how God is gently challenging you to grow in 2015.”

We Heart 2014 – Some Of Our Favourites

We’ve had a great year! We hope you have too. To celebrate this fact, we’ve compiled some of our favourite images/moments of the year! So in no particular order…

We launched the ‘THINK//INSIDE//THE//BOX’ campaign this year and this brilliant image from Oksapmin school sums up what we we’re hoping to achieve with the project! Helping PNG kids keep their education!

More info here! http://www.maf-youth.org/thinkinsidethebox

We hope this image brings you joy as much as it did us! Little Amaraa from Mongolia having his dinner!

Love this one, Bangladeshi folk standing by the river in their vibrantly coloured get up!

Probably accompanied by one of the most compelling stories of the year is this brilliant photo of MAF worker Kiir Dau, South Sudanese lost boy, reunited with his mother after 18 years of war torn separation.

We simply picked this one because of how amazing it looks! Dave Forney is the genius behind this one. Taken from the skies above Uganda!

A snap from Soul Survivor 2014! There were many great moments but not many that topped this one and you can see why!

This image scores high in our books simply because of what it stands for. Taken at the 25th Anniversary ceremony in Madagascar! Each piece of bunting has an encouraging message on the back from our supporters!

We had the pleasure of having Jemima Sparkes working with us earlier this summer as a volunteer! She even wrote about her own experience on this very blog, check it here http://wp.me/p4k7dT-45. Ever thought about volunteering too?

We loved taking Elijah up in the clouds this year, more reasons to get involved in our competitions! He had a blast and so did we!

LOVE this image! Believe it or not, this is the MAF UK CEO, Ruth Whitaker and here she is flying down the zip-wire at The Big Picture event!

A very good year indeed! Look out for more posts in the New Year as we’ll certainly be up to more exciting things worth reading about!

 

A Pilot’s Diary: A Week In Mongolia

Our pilots do A LOT of travelling as you can imagine, MAF pilot Ryan Van Geest lets us in on one of his weekly schedules…

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Saturday-

-Leave Ulaanbaatar with 9 missionaries from Antioch church aboard

-Travel 6 hours to the far east of Mongolia

-Drop 3 Missionaries off in Uliestii, Zavkhan

-Drop 3 Missionaries off in Ulaangom, Uvs

-Drop final 3 Missionaries off in Bulgan Sum, Khovd

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Sunday-

-Go to 2 Hour service with co-worker, Baatarsukh, at the church in Bulgan Sum

-Hire truck

-Search for a semi-nomadic Karakh family

-Find them, have food and tea during a wedding celebration of a young Kazakh couple

-Pray for a boy with learning difficulties, phone for a physiotherapist

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Monday-

-Missionaries to continue travelling on land, nearby Pastor to pick up

-2 hour delay as Pastor’s truck gets stuck in a river

-Pray for and encourage Missionaries before send off

-Ryan and Baatarsukh to stay in Bulgan Sum until Missionaries return

-FREE TIME: climb a mountain

-Meet church leaders for supper and fellowship

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Tuesday-

-Stranded near hotel due to snow storm

-Teach Baatarsukh some English

-Talk about Jesus

-Brave the storm, find an open restaurant

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Wednesday-

-Meet with the Pastor Oyunga

-Have lunch with two church ladies at the restaurant

-Take details to the Doctors of restaurant owner’s 4 ½ year old disabled son for assessment

-Find Pastor Oyunga

-Search for Kazakh family

-Get lost

-Find the family amidst on-going wedding celebrations and inquire about the small boy’s condition spoken about on Sunday

-Pray for the family as they await a call from the doctors

-Visit 8 year old girl from a poor Mongolian family, a previous patient

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Thursday-

-Run up a mountain for 6 ½ hours

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Friday-

-Fly back to Ulaangom to hear about the Missionary work in Bulgan Sum and Uvs

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Saturday-

-Despite the threat of more extreme weather, fly everyone back to Ulaanbaatar

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This is just one example of one pilot’s weekly lifestyle. It certainly gives us a flavour of what it’s like to serve remote communities like those in Mongolia! Despite all the obstacles, MAF still continues to operate all over the world!

A Safe Haven

As a charity, we get to partner with some amazing initiatives and organisations around the world – 1500 in fact! One of our absolute favourites has got to be ‘Confident Children out of Conflict’, an amazing schooling centre based in South Sudan, ran by the remarkable Cathy Groenendijk!

Cathy has lived in South Sudan for 7 years and, soon after moving there, began to notice the living conditions (or lack of) endured by the young orphaned children due to the savage conflict in South Sudan. They’d live on the streets, in the slums and in cemeteries in Juba and often suffer constant abuse.

Cathy’s heart went out to these children and, little by little, she began inviting the vulnerable kids into her home to bathe, change clothes and eat until it got to the stage where 25 children would come to her daily!

After managing to raise enough money, Cathy was able to open and centre called ‘Confident Children out of Conflict’ – a place where orphaned and vulnerable children could live, learn and keep away from the streets. Isn’t that just incredible?!

MAF Staff have been supporting CCC through raising money for school fees, airlifting children to Nairobi Hospital, building fences, IT, counselling, financial help and teaching and it’s been such an amazing privilege!

“They are very good neighbours. MAF is a very, very special partner for us” says Cathy.

As if your heart toggles weren’t warmed enough, MAF South Sudan Finance Manager Elger Nieuwenhuis fosters a little boy, Moses, who was once taken in by CCC as a malnourished baby! It must be so rewarding for Cathy to see Moses as a fruit of her labour – a healthy and happy boy with his loving foster Dad!

It’s so reassuring to know that people like Cathy are around, especially in the places where we serve! We thank God for His limitless grace for there is now a safe haven in Juba for young children to escape the devastating conflict that continues to dominate South Sudan. We also thank God for the amazing lady whose heart is to see South Sudanese children live freely and safely.