AV I AT I O N MISSION ADVENTURE
ABC
ABC
E-MAGAZINE EDITION #3
K E N YA – FROM WAR TO PEACE Tribal warfare is a fairly abstract concept to us in the west. But the result of conflict – torn families, broken homes, devastated communities – is something we can all relate to. Unfortunately, all too often it exists just moments from our doorsteps.
TWO TRIBES For decades, Kenya’s Borana and Rendille tribes have been in violent conflict; with many people suffering as a result of tribal clashes. Children have lost dads and wives have lost husbands. Tribal conflict can be found throughout Africa – you’ve only got to look at the number of peace and reconciliation projects happening out
there to see that. But for the Rendille and Borana tribes, peace has been possible.
SAUTI MOJA The charity Sauti Moja, which means ‘one voice’ in Swahili, runs a number of projects in Kenya and Tanzania. The initiatives provide vulnerable women and their families with the loan of four goats and a donkey. These livelihood-providing projects are called Community Livestock Banks (CLBs). If any of the loaned livestock give birth to a female, the offspring is then passed on to someone else and the chain goes on and on until the community has a sustainable means of living! A pretty good idea, right?
Later, the former enemies visited each other’s homes and invited their newly reconciled friends to take part in weddings, funerals and other important events.
THE LIKELIHOOD OF THE TWO TRIBES SHARING ANYTHING, LET ALONE THEIR PRECIOUS LIVESTOCK, SOUNDED CRAZY, BUT IT ACTUALLY WORKED!
IT HAD TO BE DIFFERENT But amazing though the CLBs are, they’d never been used to generate peace. Particularly between 2 tribes whose violent conflict had caused 250 deaths. When Sauti Moja was asked to be involved in enabling peace and reconciliation, they changed the way the CLB worked by getting widows from the Borana and Rendille tribes to give any offspring from their livestock loans to each other! Ten widows from each tribe, in Leyai village, who were more than likely to blame each other, were now going to be sharing goats and donkeys! The likelihood of the two tribes sharing anything, let alone their precious livestock, sounded crazy, but it actually worked!
No longer enemies, they now visit other communities to help them to resolve conflict and achieve the same incredible transformation that the Borana and Rendille experienced.
AN AMAZING PRIVILEGE Peace between warring tribes is no myth, that’s for sure and MAF staff in Kenya have had the privilege of seeing it blossom before their eyes! We love providing flights for Sauti Moja as they travel throughout Kenya, continuing their fantastic work.
TO THEIR SURPRISE The first peace CLB was a huge success and exceeded Sauti Moja’s expectations. Both sides co-operated and, in doing so, helped unite the warring tribes.
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Top Women from the Sauti Moja peace project Left Borana and Rendille tribes people sharing a meal together
GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT NEPAL Here’s an update from Issue 2 on our disaster response work in Nepal TARGET — ACTUAL
FLIGHT FREQUENCY
MEET A NEWBIE – REBECCA WALKER
EVERY 26 MINUTES EVERY 11 MINUTES AFFECTED DISTRICTS SERVED
4 11 MEDEVACS FLOWN
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Hello! I want to introduce myself as I’m the new face around MAF Youth! I’m massively excited to stir a thirst for adventure in the hearts of all our MAF Youth audience across the UK.
I previously worked at The Prince’s Trust where I supported disadvantaged youth and young adults in inner-city Birmingham. I have always loved travelling and I worked in a school for the deaf in the Philippines during my gap year. It was the first of what I hope will be many adventures! MAF Youth is now pushing to reach out to more churches and youth groups than ever before. We want to share the amazing impact we’re having on remote and isolated communities around the developing world. My new role involves recruiting MAF Youth volunteers and training them up so they’re inspired and ready to go out and spread the word. If you have a real passion for mission, a big heart for spreading the news of MAF’s work and enjoy working with young people, then I’m sure you’ll make a fantastic MAF Youth volunteer. I’d love to hear from you, email me at: rebecca.walker@maf-uk.org
NGOs SERVED
40 78 LOCATIONS SERVED
40 300 HOURS FLOWN
236 1,496 FLIGHTS CARRIED OUT
354 4,209 AID RELATED PASSENGERS FLOWN
707 4,710 KGs OF CARGO FLOWN
15903 712,667
P R AY ! P R AY ! P R AY ! • Please pray for the work of Sauti Moja and for the effort towards peace between warring tribes in Kenya. • Our programme in Liberia is up and running! Join us in praying that MAF would be used mightily by God to impact the surrounding communities we’ll be serving. • As you can see, we’re still working hard in Nepal! We’d really value your continued prayers for the wellbeing of our staff, our operations and, of course, the Nepalese still deeply affected by the quake. • Do pray for the recent developments in PNG with alleged ‘witchhunting’ (see page 5). Pray that God’s light would shine vividly in that land so the killing will stop. • Please pray for Becs (above) having taken on the new role as Youth Development Officer. She’s already doing a brilliant job! Pray that God would strengthen her for the tasks ahead and that she would continue to enjoy her shiny new job! • We’d love for you to pray for our programmes worldwide! Pray that we would continue to operate well in the countries we serve and that all our staff would know God’s guidance in all their decisions.
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YO U ARE HERE
GET DEEP – ‘I WANT YOU TO PRAISE ME’
to praise Him. – to not do so is offensive to God. Quite clearly, God doesn’t have self-esteem issues. He’s quite happy being Himself. He is the greatest. There is no one like Him. So we don’t praise God because He needs our praise but because it’s what we should do. In fact, He shows mercy by asking us to praise Him because He knows we don’t always do what we should!
When we look in the Bible, especially in the Psalms, we see God asking people to praise Him. Now that probably sounds a bit weird, doesn’t it? From our human perspective, if someone is seeking praise for themselves then we’d probably view them as ego-driven and insecure. But is that the case with God? Surely not!
SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US?
IT STARTS WITH WHO HE IS In his book, Desiring God (Multnomah Press, Colorado Springs, 1986), John Piper states, ‘God is the greatest thing that exists, ever has existed or ever will exist.’ This is reason one as to why we should praise God – He is God! He is most worthy of one hundred percent of our praise simply because He exists, and because, as John Piper points out, ‘God is the greatest thing to ever exist’! Piper goes on to say, ‘Therefore, for us to glory in anything else, would be sin, as there is nothing greater than God, there is no calling greater than praising God.’ Because God is the greatest thing in existence, that should be reason enough
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Jesus said it Himself: ‘Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.’ (John 14:11) We know that God is good when we look at Jesus’ life and death. Throughout His time on earth, Jesus was a man who constantly had compassion on those who came to Him, and He led the perfect life that we couldn’t! In Jesus’ death we see the most explicit display of God’s love and perhaps the most vivid expression of God’s goodness. Jesus died for sinners, for you and I, so that we would come into an everlasting relationship with God, and spend eternity with Him. This is the basic message of the Gospel and one that MAF is committed to sharing with everyone we come across – whether we do so with words or deeds.
If the idea of God desiring praise seems weird to us – despite the fact that God is the greatest thing to ever exist, then surely the problem lies with us rather than with God.
IT CONTINUES WITH WHAT HE’S LIKE God is good! Psalm 136:1 says: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His steadfast love endures forever.’ God is good. He is not evil or unloving, and we can be absolutely sure of this when we look at Jesus!
Just when you thought that God couldn’t be more worthy of praise because of who He is, He then reveals an absolute treasure-trove of reasons why in the Gospel! God is God, but God is also good. It’s when we see His goodness that our affections are stirred and our emotions are engaged, so we can begin to praise God in an appropriate manner. He’s done everything necessary to demand our praise, how could we withhold it now? In light of all this, perhaps the question shouldn’t be ‘Why should we praise God?’ but rather, ‘Why should God have to ask?’ — Especially now we know these amazing truths!
STORY – WE WILL NOT KILL ANYMORE We recently heard about a courageous young schoolgirl called Nes who protested against one of the most awful cultural norms practised by remote communities – witch-hunting.
EVIL SPIRITS For many years, remote villages in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have taken part in supposed ‘witch-hunting’ as a way of getting rid of evil spirits that are thought to cause terrible things to happen, like diseases. As a result, apparent ‘expert witch-hunters’ will accuse people, mainly women, of being possessed. The accused are usually tortured into confessing to witchcraft, and are then murdered – a shocking reality.
WITCHCRAFT Nes had heard that four women had been accused of witchcraft following a measles outbreak in Fiyawena. Nes had witnessed the killing of suspected witches before – some of her friends had been killed in front of her. But this time would be different! The ‘expert witch-hunter’, a lady called Lakimon, came from Wanakipa, Nes’ home village. To make matters worse, Nes’ dad, Mark, went to Fiyawena with Lakimon as her bodyguard when she accused the unsuspecting ‘witches’!
Later, Nes learned that a total of 4 women and 13 children had been accused. All 17 would soon be put to death. But Nes had to do something, she’d had enough.
DANGEROUS So she asked Lutheran missionary Anton Lutz to arrange for an MAF flight to Wanakipa, where she would do something unthinkable – protest! As soon as she arrived in Wanakipa, Nes went to the local market to persuade the people there to prevent further killings. ‘A new time has come in which this behaviour will not be passed on to the next generation,’ she exclaimed. Some laughed at her, others warned her that what she was doing was dangerous. But many listened – including Nes’ cousin Josely, whose step-mum had been accused of witchcraft and killed. Nes’ impassioned speeches gradually convinced the community and a couple of weeks later an intervention team, led by the Deputy Police Commander of Enga Province, arrived. Commander Nili congratulated the people of Wanakipa for taking a stand, reminded them of the law, and warned that witch-hunts were illegal.
witch-hunter and had made the whole thing up – she’d even taken bribes to make false accusations against people!
BROKEN ARROW As the young warriors from Wanakipa publicly broke their arrows, Lakimon herself broke down. Standing by MAF’s plane, she cried out, ‘I say “No” to accusations. I say “No” to killing. I am returning all the bribes, the cash, everything!’ A team of 18 peacemakers then flew with MAF to Fiyawena where the same message was shared with the community there, who similarly renounced witchcraft, bribery and intimidation. Praise God for Anton Lutz, the peace-making team, courageous Nes and her fearless witness!
CHANGE OF HEART That same day, three young men came forward, dressed as warriors. and uttered ‘Today, ‘we too make our choice. We will not kill people anymore.’ But what of Lakimon, the ‘expert witch-hunter’? A week earlier, Lakimon had staggered over to Nes’ house, heartbroken. ‘What have I done?’ she cried. Lakimon confessed that all the accusations she’d made since she was a teenager were false. She said she wasn’t an expert
Above Deputy Police Commander Nili Left Nes Mark
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‘ THOUGH THE MOUNTAINS BE SHAKEN AND THE HILLS BE REMOVED, YET MY UNFAILING LOVE FOR YOU WILL NOT BE SHAKEN NOR MY C O V E N A N T O F P E A C E B E R E M O V E D, ’ S AY S T H E LORD, WHO HAS COMPASSION ON YOU. I S A I A H // 5 4 : 1 0
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ENDANYAWISH // TANZANIA
WHEN MAF YOUTH M E T… V O L U N TEERS MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK
BEN CROOK
SUSANNA WARD
BEN SMART
My name’s Ben and I’m 18 years old. I’m in full-time work, but really enjoy doing things with MAF Youth. My parents have both worked for MAF for a number of years, so it’s been a big part of my family.
My name is Susanna and I’m 19 years old! I’m a design student currently living in Norwich. I come from a Christian background, and have been involved in many local Christian organisations – working with lots of likeminded young people.
My name is Ben and I live in Kent with my family and four chickens. I attend Dover Grammar School for Girls (yes it has a mixed 6th form) and am in my second year of A-levels. I’m hoping to do Biomedical Engineering at University. I also enjoy the trumpet and the guitar as well as playing for the church football team.
WHAT DID YOU DO AS A VOLUNTEER? The main thing has been going to different Christian events around the country. I’ve either run MAF Youth’s flight simulator, or led the exhibition stand while talking to young people about MAF’s work.
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT MAF? I love how MAF does all it can to take aid and supplies to people less fortunate than ourselves. I love the stories I hear of how MAF has helped people. And finally, I love the passion each member of MAF has to help those who need it most.
WHAT DID YOU DO AS A VOLUNTEER? I represented MAF Youth at Soul Survivor, which involved spreading the word about MAF. It was my job to create a daily video diary, which showcased some of the major events occurring throughout the day, along with general silliness!
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT MAF? I love the bravery of MAF! Seeing how focused MAF is about meeting the needs of those facing horrific circumstances throughout the world. I also love the history. It’s great to see a mission so grounded with so much experience, and some of their photos are incredible too!
WHAT DID YOU DO AS A VOLUNTEER? I helped plan a focus group aimed at youth groups to discover: what charity meant to them, why they would volunteer and what they look for within a charity; the results were then interpreted to help redesign promotional material.
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT MAF? I loved the opportunity they gave me to be part of a team. It was so unique and I had a really great time! MAF are amazing; they’re helping people who desperately need our support, flying straight to the heart of the problem (pun intended).
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WANT TO VOLUNTEER? WE’RE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR ENTHUSIASTIC GOGETTERS TO REPRESENT MAF YOUTH IN A WHOLE H O S T O F WAY S ! WE’RE LOOKING FOR: YOUTH GROUP SPEAKERS CHURCH YOUTH REPS EVENT REPS FUNDRAISERS For more info, go ahead and email Becs at rebecca.walker@maf-uk.org OR you can check out our website www.maf-uk.org/youthvolunteer
RESOURCES
HELP YOURSELF! OUR WEBSITE IS JAM PACKED FULL OF GREAT RESOURCES FROM FUNDRAISING PACKS TO BLOG POSTS FOR YOUR GROUP! CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE RESOURCES! www.maf-uk.org/youthresources
THANKS FOR READING THIS ZINE - CONNECT WITH US AGAIN SOON - VISIT www.maf-uk.org/youth
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