Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) provides vital aviation and radio communications services to national churches, Christian missions, and non-government organizations (NGOs) ministering in Ecuador, as well as to jungle villages.
THE NEED
In the Amazon basin region of Ecuador, the dense jungle and ever-changing serpentine rivers create living barriers, conspiring to keep people in isolation and spiritual darkness. The country lacks a national communications infrastructure, and all-weather roads are nearly nonexistent.
Childbirth, a snakebite, or a fall from a tree is a grave event in these jungles. Left untreated, minor ailments worsen until they become life-threatening medical emergencies. For the rural poor, health care is deteriorating rather than improving.
Since the 1960s, the Church has grown significantly in response to the faithful preaching of the Gospel. However, losses to cults and syncretistic beliefs are a great danger when opportunities are inadequate for believers to be discipled and grounded in God's Word. Many people groups in the Amazon integrate the beliefs and practices of animistic cults with Catholicism. Those in remote communities believe that shamans (witchdoctors) can kill and cure through magical means, which allows them to play an important part in their religious and social life.
THE SOLUTION
Since 1948, MAF has provided access to the Gospel and life-sustaining resources to the people of Ecuador.
In many of the country’s remote regions, MAF provides flights, communications, and logistical support for missionaries, local churches, and villages. MAF operates a fleet of five aircraft from two bases: Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, and Shell, on the edge of the Amazon basin.
Medical and air ambulance support are significant components of the MAF ministry in Ecuador. Forty-three percent of all MAF flights are medically related, including flights for the Ministry of Health, which sends health care teams into the jungle to provide preventative immunizations and rural health education programs. The recently established chaplain ministry, established in 2005, is impacting hundreds of patients and their family members each year.
Throughout the jungle, MAF communications networks enable villages to communicate with one another and with the outside world. Missions and local churches coordinate evangelism and discipleship programs, request medical emergency flights, and bring isolated communities together.
Ecuador, like many mission fields, has seen a rise in national missionaries and a corresponding decrease in foreign mission workers. The fruit of earlier mission efforts, national pastors and missionaries have a call to share the Gospel with their countrymen, but may not have the economic ability to use aviation services. When possible, MAF subsidizes their flights.
IMPACT 2007 HIGHLIGHTS
In the past 12 months, the MAF program in Ecuador ...
- Saved Christian and humanitarian workers 4,873 days of travel time—or 20 work years redeemed for productive Kingdom work!
- Executed 4,633 flights, transported 9,966 passengers, and delivered 544,421 pounds of cargo in order to provide access to the Gospel and to basic services such as health clinics, medical emergency evacuations, and education—services otherwise unavailable in jungle locations.
- Supported 95 national and expatriate mission workers, including doctors, teachers, and translators, who provide critical services to isolated villages and remote regions.
- Continued a chaplain ministry that ...
- Witnessed to each passenger at the hangar by playing DVDs in the waiting room about Jesus Christ or His ministry.
- Distributed approximately 2,000 New Testaments and more than 9,000 Christian tracts.
- Made 200 visits to the government hospital in Puyo, sharing the Gospel and encouraging patients. Shared the Gospel with some 800 people brought from the jungle on MAF air ambulance flights. Eighteen patients ultimately professed faith or expressed an interest in following Christ.
- Linked patients with jungle churches for follow-up and discipleship.
- Provided many patients with clothes and personal hygiene items.
- Provided monthly flights supporting the ongoing translation of the Old Testament into Shuar by Avant Ministries—a project that could not otherwise be accomplished.
- Transported staff of Compassion International and Ecuador para Cristo to support their ministries to jungle communities.
- Upgraded the MAF radio network, including replacing repeaters. Some 35 villages now have new radios, batteries and solar panels.
- Installed 32 VHF radios, part of the 74 units in the MAF jungle radio system. The only communications link to the outside world, these radios allow isolated jungle villagers to contact doctors; doctors to schedule emergency flights; pilots to obtain accurate weather reports; church leaders to participate in regional training events; and remote communities to connect with one another.
- Hosted six work teams from the U.S. and one from Ireland. These teams donated 90 days of service to MAF. The volunteers constructed protective containers to house radio systems, painted the hangar, and installed new roofs on the fuel depot and one missionary home.
- Enhanced the precision and safety of MAF flight operations by upgrading the safety equipment on two aircraft. A third aircraft is currently being upgraded.
- Continued frequent flights for brigadas, medical teams each consisting of a doctor, nurse, and dental hygienist. These teams treat patients, teach improved hygiene, and instruct villagers in basic first aid to treat minor medical problems before they become serious and life threatening. Successfully lobbied the Ministry of Health to send more preventative medicine teams into the jungle, resulting in an increased number of teams in 2007.
KEY GOALS 2008
- Evaluate trends in usage and flight hours to determine fleet optimization needs, including the suitability of the Kokiak aircraft for Ecuador operations.
- Continue the MAF chaplain ministry, including quarterly visits to village churches. Explore ways for the MAF chaplain program to coordinate ministry efforts with Alas de Socorro del Ecuador (ADSE).
- Install the remaining 40 HF/VHF radios in the villages that are part of the MAF Jungle Community Radio Project.
- Install a remote voltage monitoring system at two radio repeater stations as well as a new roof on the south repeater.
- Work with MAF-Learning Technologies to assess the need for distance education services in Ecuador.
- Continue ongoing efforts to nationalize the MAF program in Ecuador, working in close association with the MAF affiliate, Alas de Socorro del Ecuador. Continue to develop an MAF/ADSE partnership, including possible integration of staff. Create a plan to promote the ministry of ADSE in Ecuadorian churches. Develop a program for mentoring and discipling ADSE missionaries.
- Work with ADSE to develop a funding model for Ecuadorian missionaries that fits the Ecuadorian church situation.
- Plan for and host visiting work teams throughout the year. Six to eight teams are anticipated over the next 12 months.
- Replace the roof on the old hangar apartment in Shell.
MAF STAFF SERVING IN ECUADOR
ADOPT "ALAS 12"
Learn more about "Alas 12," a Cessna 206 Turbo airplane serving in Ecuador.
an MAF airplane bring desperately needed aid and assistance to needy people in remote places. Learn more...
