Grant and Emily Strugnell

Grant and Emily Strugnell serve with MAF in Lesotho, Africa. Grant is a pilot and uses his flying skills and experience to serve the Basotho people in the mountains by providing much needed medical flights and moving supplies and missionaries in and out of the mountains. Emily directs an orphanage in the mountains of Lesotho, providing financial oversight and guidance for the staff who run the center. Jane, their daughter, find lots of Basotho friends to join in her adventures.

Grant was born in Johannesburg and after school, started flight training. In 2004, he completed his CPL and instructor’s rating, and spent the next few years working as an instructor.
Grant grew up with an inward acceptance of God, but it wasn’t until high school when that became a more deliberate choice to follow Christ. Through a confirmation course at his Anglican high school, Grant’s knowledge of what it meant to follow Jesus was expanded and positively challenged. This led him to a place where he made a firm commitment to follow Jesus in 2001, and through involvement in a local church, his depth of what this means and how it would look in his life began to grow. When he began his flying career, he felt called to some kind of full-term ministry, and through various decisions, was led to mission work. In 2007, Grant took a break from flying to work as a missionary and began assisting at an orphanage in Lesotho. Over the next four years, his main work was in Lesotho, while he flew part-time off and on in South Africa.

Emily was born in Minnesota, USA. She grew up and attended college in Montana. During college, she was involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, and after leaving college she joined their staff full time doing campus ministry. She spent two years in Venezuela, as well as a few years in Salt Lake City and Dallas with Campus Crusade.

For Emily, it wasn’t until college that her walk with Jesus began. She had grown up in a very logically-minded family, where the spiritual was not always considered a reasonable alternative to hard facts. In college, Emily found herself among friends who demonstrated the love of Christ through their actions. Through their loving actions, these friends led her to a point where she made a firm commitment to follow Christ. Their demonstration of love was so influential, that over the next few years Emily found herself in campus ministry to help others experience Jesus like she had.

After meeting and marrying Grant, she moved to join him in South Africa. In 2015, Jane was born, in the small town of Oudtshoom where Grant and Emily were living at the time.

In 2016, the Strugnell family moved back to the remote regions of Lesotho to direct the Pulane Children’s Center. They joined  MAF in early 2018.

As a family, the Strugnells are so excited to finally tie in their love for Lesotho and its people, with Grant’s passion for flying, and to serve in a way that will make a real difference in the
lives of others.