Adopt a Plane: Ecuador HC-BXK

Model: Cessna 206 Turbo (TU206G) Registration: HC-BXK Common Name: 206 Turbo

Meet “HC-BXK”!

This MAF Cessna 206 serves the Amazon Basin of eastern Ecuador. Some of its stories are fascinating … many of its flights are lifesaving … all of its service in Ecuador is life-sustaining. Welcome aboard!

Without HC-BXK, the only access to many jungle villages in Ecuador is by hiking trails—an extremely grueling, dangerous and time- consuming mode of travel. Almost daily, this Cessna 206 Turbo makes one or more medical emergency flights, where a mere 30 minutes in the air saves two to three days on the trail—a trip that a severely ill patient might not survive.

On one such flight, HC-BXK picked up a woman in great distress from a scorpion sting—not fatal but excruciatingly painful. After loading her aboard the plane and taking off for the next village, the MAF pilot received a radio message, asking what his location was in relation to San Carlos. “I’m nearly right over it,” he reported. The pilot was asked to land and evacuate an injured man who had fallen off a roof. His head was badly cut, and he possibly had sustained internal injuries. Landing immediately, the pilot placed him aboard the plane and continued on to the next village where he found a woman who was nearly unconscious. The villagers had waited several days before radioing for the airplane, thinking she would recover on her own. Upon arriving at the MAF base, all three patients were transferred by ambulance to the hospital. Without the plane, all three might have died.

This MAF plane is also helping plant at least a dozen new churches among the Atshuar people. HC-BXK flies an itinerant missionary to one village where he teaches and encourages local church leaders. He then hikes through the jungle to another nearby village to disciple believers there. Then HC-BXK picks him up and takes him to yet another village further away. On his circuit, this missionary eventually visits several more places to strengthen churches, before resuming his circuit again. The plane meets and transports him at strategic locations, greatly maximizing his time.

Another missionary has been asked by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education to provide teachers for a large number of schools in jungle villages. As often as he can, he recruits Christian teachers, who teach Bible classes as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic. HC-BXK not only flies teachers to their teaching assignments, but children as well. If they memorize a certain number of Scripture verses, the children are eligible to attend camp—a coveted reward! Every year, HC-BXK travels from one village to another picking up children for camp and returning them home afterwards. Some former campers now work with this veteran missionary, teaching in village schools and helping operate this program that ministers to hundreds of children in remote jungle villages.

Through the MAF Adopt-a-Plane program, you too can play a significant part in saving patients’ lives, planting churches, teaching children about the love of Jesus, and translating the Scriptures.

For just $1 a day, you can adopt HC-BXK and help transform lives through this vital ministry. Please sign up today! On behalf of missionaries and thousands of Ecuador’s needy who depend on MAF, thank you for your prayers and support. We thank God for you.