Jason and Joselyn Thiemann

Jason and Joselyn Thiemann joined Mission Aviation Fellowship in 2007 as a pilot/mechanic family, serving most of their time since then in Lesotho, a small, mountainous country in southern Africa.

In Lesotho, MAF does about 80% of its flying for the Lesotho Flying Doctors Service, caring for the people in remote mountain villages. In this tiny kingdom devastated by decades of drought, famine, tuberculosis, and AIDS, it is easy to feel hopeless. Nearly 200,000 people depend solely on our partnership for medical care.

Jason is grateful he can use the skills and training God has given him to serve God’s Kingdom in ways he never imagined. He enjoys the challenges of his technical work: inspecting, repairing, and maintaining aircraft for the difficulties of operating into remote and harsh airstrips; flying doctors, pastors, and critically-ill people safely through the mountains; and learning to communicate in a foreign language. However, none of this would be worth the effort, stress, and difficulties of living in a foreign culture, as well as the pain of missing one’s family, without the central purpose of bringing the hope, life, and love of Jesus to build His Kingdom here.

Joselyn absolutely loves being a full-time mom, walking her children through the challenges of living in another culture, celebrating what God does inside them, pointing out what He does around them, and nurturing what He intends to do through them. She shares that Colossians 3:23 is one of her favorite Scriptures: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”

Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Joselyn came from a strong Christian family. She struggled at times with the brokenness she saw in church, but after graduating from Milligan College, she committed herself to loving God’s people as Christ loved her. She moved back to Indianapolis and became a music minister, passionately pursuing worship in all of life and pointing others toward the same.

Jason is from Brazil, Indiana. After an unexpected flight in a small plane, he decided to attend Purdue University and become an airline pilot. In his second year of college, he discovered that his religion was empty and broken, based solely on his efforts to please God and others. With a renewed mind, Jason began walking with and listening to his Savior.

Jason and Joselyn met and married in Indianapolis, but moved to Maryland to fly for the airlines. Jason had his dream job, but God was moving them toward something different, focusing their hearts on what He desired in this world, rather than what they desired. Following His call, they left the airlines, spent a year at the School of Missionary Aviation Technology to get Jason’s maintenance license, and came to MAF in 2007.