“I KNOW THE PLANS …”
FLIGHTWATCH
None of the stories you are about to read would be possible without the support of people like you. It is our pleasure to show how you are making it possible for the gospel to transform the lives of isolated people around the world.
Your prayers, your gifts, and your time are key to MAF’s ministry. Thank you for sharing the love of Jesus at the ends of the earth!
Director of Marketing
Tracey Werre
Managing Editor
Brad Hoaglun
Production Manager
Micki Blair
Production Assistant
Katie Moen
Writers/Resourcing
Natalie Holsten
Kevin Mills
Jennifer Wolf
Kimberly van Veen
Designer McKenna Castledine
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Dianna Gibney
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FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK
Aviation professionals like schedules.
Throughout the MAF world, pilots, maintenance technicians, and administrative staff work together to plan for the week’s flights. Schedules allow us to better manage the many moving pieces that surround flight operations in the developing world.
Inevitably, interruptions to the plan arise. Maybe the weather deteriorates, closing down an airstrip. Maybe a flight diverts to pick up a critically ill patient. Sometimes an unplanned maintenance issue grounds an airplane.
I can think of at least half a dozen times when a weather delay kept me on the ground, sometimes even overnight. Each of those times led to conversations with an airstrip agent, local pastor, or a missionary who needed encouragement or who encouraged me.
I came to see that God was working through the interruption and I just needed to follow Him where He was leading, even if wasn’t according to my plan.
The stories in this edition of FlightWatch reflect how God uses the disruptions in our lives to bring about His good purposes.
Our flight support for Outdoor Education in Papua is a critical component of that program’s success. You’ll read about longtime MAF teacher Joan Wiley’s passion for students’ spiritual transformation, and how that often comes through unanticipated challenges.
You’ll also read about a new aircraft for the MAF fleet in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and how God used donors and even a technical issue to demonstrate His perfect timing to bring “Sandy” to a place of service.
We want to be flexible and open to what God has for us, even if it sometimes means letting go of our well-laid plans. His way is best, and we look to Him for guidance as we seek to bring help, hope, and healing to the ends of the Earth.
Thank you for partnering with us in this good work to see isolated people changed by the love of Christ.
Serving together,
David Holsten President & CEO
Front Cover: Hillcrest School students in Papua, Indonesia, dig a drainage trench on an airstrip in a remote village.
Photo by Angie Hamstra
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
Proverbs 16:9 (ESV)
Students work to improve a jungle airstrip as part of Outdoor Education. The airstrip is critical to the mission work in this village.
An Adventure Focused on God
A longtime MAF teacher’s vision for Outdoor Education transforms students and communities
By Natalie Holsten
The airstrip at a small village in the swampy lowlands of Papua, Indonesia, buzzes with activity as high school students dig trenches, push loads of gravel, and prepare piping, slowly turning the spongy landing area into a safer place for MAF planes to land.
Their work is part of Outdoor Education (known as “OE”), a program of Hillcrest School (HIS) in Sentani, Papua, where every year students take a two-week service trip into remote locations.
For OE 2024, MAF flew students to Faowi, where they loaded into boats for a trip upriver to the village where Ryan and April Beck serve as missionaries, translating and teaching God’s Word to the local people.
At lunchtime the hardworking students gather around a house where another group of students prepare a meal. As the students pause to ask a blessing, a slim, older woman stands smiling among them.
Joan Wiley, or “Aunt Joan” as she’s affectionately known by her students, is MAF’s longest-serving teacher. She’s taught hundreds of missionary kids (MKs)—including many MAF children—for 37 years.
In addition to teaching, Joan helped spearhead OE, a program that has had ripple effects throughout the province and in the lives of the students.
Photo by Angie Hamstra
A Heart for Missionary Kids
As a teenager, Joan made friends with a girl whose missionary family would furlough in Joan’s hometown in New Jersey. When it came time for her friend’s family to return to the Philippines, she told Joan she dreaded going back, because she felt like her dorm parents at her boarding school didn’t love her.
“Right then I decided I wanted to work with MKs, so they would know that they were loved,” she shared.
After teaching missionary children in Mexico, Joan married her husband Wally, and together they set off for Indonesia, where Wally started working as an MAF carpenter. After a term in West Kalimantan, the family moved to Papua.
Joan was a busy mom with two young kids when Hillcrest School was started in 1987 and Joan began her long career as the high school English teacher.
MAF MK Nathan Boogaard plays with village children during OE. Photo courtesy of HIS
Photo by Debbie Klynstra
The First OE
The high school was small at the time—only 20 students total—and for the first few years, the school held an annual spiritual emphasis retreat with a speaker from the U.S.
In 1993, the retreat expanded into a two-week Outdoor Education, with students traveling by ship to the coastal city of Manokwari, then by MAF plane to a village where students worked alongside local missionaries helping with work projects.
Over the years, Joan and other leaders developed OE into its current format, including daily worship and Bible teaching from a speaker, work projects that benefit the village, kids’ Bible clubs, and an anthropology project requiring the students to observe and interact with the people in the village. Later, back at school, they each write an anthropology paper to earn school credit.
“It's for them to observe and respect somebody else's culture,” Joan said. “But also to see what a difference Christ makes in somebody's culture.”
High school students and leaders from Hillcrest School spent almost two weeks in a remote village served by MAF. They worked on the airstrip, held kids clubs, and assisted missionary Ryan Beck (pictured far right). Photo courtesy of HIS
Partnership with MAF
MAF plays a critical role in the success of the OE program. This year, MAF conducted 11 flights to position supplies, teachers, and students for OE. “It couldn’t happen without MAF,” said Joan.
Planning for OE usually begins with Joan and other HIS leaders meeting with MAF to strategize about good locations, ones that might include work projects for the students.
This year’s work project was particularly important for the missionaries in the village. With 370 inches of rain a year falling on the airstrip, it quickly becomes spongy and is often too slippery for planes to safely land. Ryan sometimes spends up to 10 hours fixing any divots made by a plane's wheels after it lands.
MAF is the Becks’ lifeline, so a safe airstrip is critical, but the project was too much for Ryan to do alone. By having the students work on the airstrip during OE, they accomplished in 10 days what would have taken him months.
Ryan figures the collective work hours of the students freed up enough time for him to translate 1,000 Bible verses.
Spiritual Transformation
Taking 50 to 60 high school students into a remote village for two weeks is not for the faint of heart. Many of Joan’s colleagues refer to her as “unflappable,” with an uncanny ability to pivot and turn difficulties around for the good of the students.
“She's very passionate about having hard things happen because it helps us see what the original missionaries had to work through. It develops grit in these kids,” former HIS principal Kim Mills said.
Spiritual transformation is at the heart of OE for Joan. She’s seen it happen time and again: When students are stretched and challenged, they have to depend on the Lord. “I think OE is an endless adventure, but an adventure that’s focused on God. Our goal is to have our kids see what God is doing and how they can be a part of it.”
Jackson Hamstra is one MAF MK who found himself at a crossroads after an experience at OE last year. His group of students went on a grueling nine-hour hike to a village to do ministry. When they arrived, one student collapsed. Her teammates didn’t know it, but she had typhoid fever and was in desperate need of medical attention.
Using a satellite phone, the OE leaders contacted MAF and other mission leaders in Sentani, who just happened to be having dinner together. The leaders quickly made an evacuation plan.
The students used machetes to clear a spot for a helicopter to land. Jackson carried the sick girl to the helicopter, which flew to an airstrip, where an MAF plane flew her to Sentani and she received lifesaving care.
“I had been pretty committed to going to the Air Force Academy my whole life,” Jackson said. “But while I was on OE and saw how the MAF plane literally saved that girl’s life, I was like, no, I need to do this. This is what I’m called to do.”
Jackson is now a freshman at Liberty University majoring in aviation technology, flight and maintenance.
“Because of OE,” Joan said, “we're seeing a lot of our MKs returning as missionaries, both in Papua and around the world.”
MAF MK Jackson Hamstra, left, carries one of two sick students to a waiting helicopter. The girls were flown to a nearby airstrip where an MAF plane was waiting to medevac them. This incident, which happened during Outdoor Education 2023, changed the trajectory of Jackson's life, and he's now studying mission aviation in college. Photo courtesy of Angie Hamstra
An Airplane Named Sandy
By Kim van Veen
Most MAF airplanes don’t have nicknames, but “Sandy” does. And that’s because her journey to join the MAF fleet was full of twists and turns.
Sandy’s Belgian owners, Patrick and Régine Deliens, decided they wanted to sell their 13-year-old Cessna 208 Caravan. Patrick Delien, who had flown in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as a young man, hoped the plane could be used by a humanitarian group working in the DRC. Despite Sandy’s low flight hours-185-no one was interested.
Unable to find a buyer, the Deliens resolved to sell the plane to a humanitarian group that works in the Caribbean.
By chance, several MAF staff members, including fleet manager Dave Rask, were in Florida helping finalize the purchase of another airplane. An AfricaAir salesman took the MAF team aside and mentioned the Deliens’ airplane. “You have a chance to buy this airplane and put it to work in the Congo,” he told them, “but do it fast because they have an offer of $1 million.”
Rask decided MAF could offer $600,000 for an airplane he valued at between $1.8 and $2 million because of the low flight hours. Although there was no money in the budget for an airplane, he knew the opportunity couldn’t be missed.
Within days, an MAF donor offered to fund the $600,000 purchase price. An estate gift of $500,000 came in to cover the modifications and other costs. And the Deliens agreed to the sale. Patrick Deliens even recalled working alongside MAF pilots in the DRC.
This was 2021. MAF staff knew they were up against a strict deadline. The DRC does not allow airplanes older than 15 years old to be imported into the country, and the Caravan was already 13. If Sandy was going to serve in the DRC, she had to get there before the end of 2023.
Then came the twist: After adding MAF-specific modifications, MAF mechanics sent the airplane to a paint shop in Arizona. Once the paint was removed, maintenance staff went to check the plane’s condition. “We like to do that … because there can be corrosion or hidden damage under paint,” Rask explained.
To their dismay, they found that the rounded tops of the rivets on the Caravan’s silver-gray hull had been sanded down. Some were so thin that they couldn’t do their job of holding the plane together. The airplane was unfit to fly. Fixing this issue could mean it probably wouldn’t make the DRC’s importation deadline.
But the team persevered. And they gave her the nickname Sandy, because of the over-zealous sanding.
Dave
Rask getting Sandy ready for the trip to the repair shop after her rivets were sanded thin.
After dealing with the insurance company, mechanics replaced the damaged rivets and sent Sandy to a new paint shop, where she finally got her “MAF uniform.”
On a crisp winter day in Nampa, MAF staff gathered around the airplane to dedicate her to the Lord. She arrived in Kinshasa, DRC’s capital city, in November 2023, just before the cutoff date.
After the rush to get her ready, it was now time to wait.
The importation process took several months, but on April 18, 2024, MAF staff in Kinshasa gathered around Sandy once again. This time, she bore her new call letters: “9S-EEM.”
In the hazy African heat, program director Stephen Hale shared from Acts and reflected on the many donors, mechanics, and others who worked to get Sandy to the DRC. In Lingala, French, and English, the team praised God for His good gifts and asked for wisdom, safety, and good stewardship.
Today, Sandy is the third member of the Caravan fleet serving in Kinshasa. She performs medical emergency flights and ferries patients to and from medical care. She carries partners like the Kids Action Network, who train other Congolese how to teach God’s Word to children. Sandy also flies church planters and Bible translators.
“We are so happy that the Caravan is now in operation.… We wish you and all the MAF team all the best with your work for the Congolese people,” Régine Deliens wrote. And Patrick Deliens plans to visit Sandy in her new place of service soon.
Sandy, or 9S-EEM as she is now
the
known, joined
DRC's fleet. She was dedicated before leaving Nampa (above) and prayed over again when she arrived in Kinshasa (bottom left).
MINISTRY SPOTLIGHT
KEVIN AND KIM MILLS
Kevin and Kim Mills' journey with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) exemplifies God's unexpected callings and the power of adaptability in ministry. Their path has led them from Indonesian classrooms to impacting lives globally through MAF's communication efforts.
The Mills' adventure began in 1997 with a one-year stint as teachers at Hillcrest School in Indonesia. Kevin recalls, "After praying, I suddenly felt we should go. It was a clear calling from God."
Fifteen years later, they returned for a four-year commitment as dorm parents. "We had up to 12 students six boys and six girls in addition to our own family," Kevin shares. "It was a 24/7 job that required a special calling, but it was incredibly rewarding."
From 2016 to 2020, their roles evolved. Kevin taught creative writing, while Kim served as a teacher, counselor, and eventually principal and interim director.
After navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and a final year in Indonesia, the Mills relocated to Arkansas in June 2023. Kevin joined MAF's communication team, using his skills to share MAF's mission worldwide. "Now I'm impacting not just Indonesia, but the world," he explains.
Reflecting on their years overseas, Kim values the broader worldview their children gained. "It's shaped their faith and perspective on life," she says.
The Mills approach fundraising with a unique perspective. "I want people to support MAF because they feel led by God to do so," Kevin emphasizes. "It's about building trust and sharing our vision."
From dorm parents to teachers, and now global communicators, the Mills' journey showcases how God can use willing hearts to impact His Kingdom in diverse ways.
PRAYER REQUESTS
• Please pray for the Lantern of Hope students who moved from the highlands of Papua to the big city of Jakarta, Indonesia, to complete their secondary education. May they cling to God and develop a deeper relationship with Him during this time.
• In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, MAF returned home several young men who had been abducted and used as child soldiers. In partnership with MAF, another organization is working to restore more than 100 children and young people to their families. Please pray for the freedom of the remaining captives who are being held against their will.
• Pray for MAF staff working to establish a new base in Haiti and resume flight services there.
• Pray that MAF staff and other missionaries working in Guinea will feel God’s love and protection surrounding them as they serve in this place of spiritual darkness.
To partner with the Mills family and MAF's global work, visit https://maf.org/mills.
PROGRESS ON A NEW TESTAMENT
MAF pilot Ben Samuelson recently had the chance to fly alongside Douglas Wright, an SIL translation consultant who lived and served in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1990s. Douglas was wrapping up a three-week trip to Isiro for a translation workshop for the Mangbetu language and flying to Entebbe to head home. The SIL group was able to check and confirm five epistles, and also provided additional training. Douglas said he was encouraged by the progress on this translation and thinks they will have the entire New Testament finished in the next five years.
—Photo by Ben Samuelson
LEAVING HOME FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
In June 2024, students from Papua’s remote Lantern of Hope (SLH) schools boarded MAF airplanes for the next step in their educational journeys: secondary school in Jakarta, Indonesia. Pilot Tyler Schmidt, who flew children from Nalca to Sentani, said, “There was a prayer time for the two groups I took out today with the parents and community surrounding them and crying with them as they leave their homes and what they have known all their lives.” From Sentani, the students boarded a ship for the long trip to Jakarta. —Photo by Kent Embleton
CELEBRATING IN KOTIAK
Earlier this year, MAF’s floatplane pilots did over a dozen flights to Kotiak, in Papua, Indonesia, in preparation for the dedication of the Auyu New Testament. First, MAF flew in the 2,000 New Testament Bibles, followed by the people and food for the big event. Myo Sook (third from left) worked 22 years to bring this project to completion. She said that she and mother-tongue translators Yulius Binu and Paskalis Gerbahagi “are very grateful that we are a part of God's project. Also, MAF is a big part of His project for the Auyu people. Thank you for serving Auyu together till this time!” —Photo by Jack Gandy
Look above this turbulent world and fix your gaze on Christ, our present and coming King.
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