NAMPA, Idaho – Mission Aviation Fellowship celebrated its 70th anniversary Saturday at the organization’s headquarters at the Nampa airport. Some 600 guests attended the open house and enjoyed airplane rides, games, face painting and a breakfast fundraiser.
“Seventy years ago, MAF was founded by those who realized that small airplanes could be used to take the Gospel to isolated parts of the world,” said John Boyd, MAF president and CEO. “Pilot Betty Greene flew the first flight to Mexico. Since then we’ve expanded across the world, and serve on every continent except Antarctica.”
Today, MAF operates a fleet of 132 airplanes in 31 countries, enabling the work of some 1,500 churches, mission organizations, medical groups and relief agencies. MAF also provides IT and communication tools to support mission and development work, and make life better for isolated people.
In addition to the work at its permanent bases, MAF is currently enabling disaster response efforts in Nepal. MAF is partnering with Fishtail Air, a Nepali company, to coordinate helicopter transportation to remote villages in the mountains of Nepal that have been devastated by earthquakes in April and May. The MAF-Fishtail partnership has conducted more than 800 flights to 150 different communities in Nepal. They have helped 48 different aid groups, transported more than 1,100 relief workers, and delivered 131 metric tons of relief supplies.
