A V I AT I O N MISSION ADVENTURE
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E-MAGAZINE E D I T I O N // 7
HIGH WINDS, HEROS & HIJACKED AID TRUCKS From its lowly disguise as a tropical storm in the Caribbean islands, to reaching near full strength in Haiti and Cuba, Hurricane Matthew left a trail of destruction in its path. Haiti is no stranger to natural disasters – an earthquake that ranked in the top ten most deadly natural disasters since the 1900s hit the island only six years earlier in 2010. The country had been picking itself up since the 2010 earthquake, but had barely recovered before Hurricane Matthew swept in, causing further death and destruction.
A stark reality ‘I saw people who were walking around as if they felt they had been cursed,’ explains Rocky Louis-Martin of HERO, a Haiti based charity bringing relief to those affected. ‘People are literally walking up to you begging you for a meal. Not like how it was in the past. You know, someone would say, “Hey, I’m hungry”. Now people are really in need.’ It’s been over a month since the hurricane uprooted Haiti. Yet, until recently, only 53% of those considered to be at the extreme level of food insecurity had received food support.
In disaster response situations, it’s usually those affected in the cities who are likely to receive help quicker than those affected in the more rural and remote locations. The same is sadly true in Haiti’s case. The main reason for this is that many of Haiti’s roads and bridges are now damaged and unfit for travel. As a result, remote communities have become even more isolated and hard to reach. To make matters worse, there have been reports of security problems in particular areas where relief aid has been distributed. In Dame Marie, a small coastal commune in the west, reports of shootings have surfaced, causing major safety concerns. Other incidents such as attempted boat lootings and the hijacking of aid trucks reveal a country in almost total desperation.
A glimmer of hope We’ve have an MAF programme in Haiti since 1986, so responding to the country’s natural disasters is something we’re able to do quickly and effectively! Since joining the relief effort, we’ve been incredibly busy. With many of the roads now unusable, air travel is often the only option. ‘We have no other way to move these supplies. But MAF was wonderful
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to get a flight to Les Cayes, which will allow us to move all our supplies to Port Salut and up the coast,’ explains Dr Robin Horak of No Time for Poverty. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to assist nearly 40 organisations and charities as they provide vital supplies, services and food relief. These partnerships have enabled some of Haiti’s remotest communities to receive the help so desperately needed. Areas such as Port Salut, Port au Prince, Dame Marie, Jérémie, Les Anglais, Grand’Anse, Nippes and Sud have benefited hugely from flights loaded with life-saving supplies.
Can you help? You might be sitting there thinking, ‘How can I be part of bringing hope to Haiti?’ Well, fear not! You can never underestimate the power of prayer, so – with that in mind – please pray! Haiti needs your prayers. Being on the receiving end of two natural disasters in the last six years, Haiti is many years away from total restoration. Pray for those who’ve experienced the loss of homes, livelihoods and loved ones. Pray that those who are able to help will be able to do so, and pray for the safety and endurance of those already working hard to provide relief.
A C H AT WITH ‘LITTLE MAN’ People move house all the time for all kinds of reasons: the need for a bigger house, a quieter neighbourhood, off-road parking. But being forced to move house is a whole other story.
Meet Cliff Cliff St Fleur is a 12 year old seventh grader living in Bacardi, Haiti. Cliff’s home was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew as it swept through the country, causing utter devastation to hundreds of thousands of people. ‘It is very hard for me. The way that it happened, the way it came – I was very scared. Every time a hurricane has hit Haiti, water hasn’t come inside the house. This time, water came inside the house,’ Cliff recounts. Other members of Cliff’s family face the same situation. ‘They need materials and metal roofing to cover the houses. In order to cover the houses, they need sheet wood, plywood and nails,’ he explains. Although all the materials are available in the town, they’re quite expensive. Cliff’s relatives have been trying to rebuild their house but all they’ve managed to do is arrange stones and wooden structural poles in the shape of a house with no covering.
source of help, smiles and positivity for MAF partner HERO. At the moment, Cliff’s school is closed and he has no idea when it’ll be open again, so he’s been cycling for roughly three miles from Bacardi to Dame Marie to see what he can do to help HERO out. Every little helps! Cliff has been running small errands for HERO, and he’s also enjoyed hanging out with the team. They call him ‘Little Man’!
A glimmer of hope As the relief effort continues in Haiti, morale-boosters like this make an exhausting task a little more manageable. Cliff is an incredible example of someone who’s able to overcome huge difficulty.We ask him if he thinks he’ll be able to finish school even though it’s closed for the foreseeable future, and he replies with a confident ‘yes’. He also wants to become an engineer and says he’ll need to move away to fulfil his dream. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll see Cliff become an MAF aircraft maintenance engineer one day! People like Cliff represent a glimmer of hope in Haiti and we pray that there will be many other ‘little men’ and women who will do whatever they can to help get the country back on its feet again.
‘IT IS VERY HARD FOR ME. THE WAY THAT IT HAPPENED, THE WAY IT CAME – I WAS VERY SCARED. EVERY TIME A HURRICANE HAS HIT HAITI, WATER HASN’T COME INSIDE THE HOUSE. THIS TIME, WATER CAME INSIDE THE HOUSE.’
Help, smiles and positivity Despite the ordeal Cliff and his relatives have endured, he’s been an amazing
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A SCHOOL TRIP TO REMEMBER Story and images by Kim Job
Teaching in another language is hard. Learning sign language is difficult. Working in a country where resources are limited means you need to make lots of things yourself. But the rewards of these efforts are really encouraging. MAF wives Deborah Moser and Kim Job have been serving in Timor-Leste for over a year now.
Where it all started As they started to adjust to life in Dili, Timor-Leste’s capital, they met a missionary who’d been there for some time. This missionary started Liman Hamutuk (‘Hands Together’), a centre for disabled people in Hera, east of Dili. Deborah, who worked with disabled children in Switzerland, was keen to learn more, so she visited the centre and began volunteering on Wednesday mornings. Kim, a school teacher from Australia, had also taught students with special needs. But visiting Hera was a new experience for her. The children she met were so happy, and loved any game or activity she did with them. But the centre had few resources and little support. So, with a growing love for the students, Kim returned each week with Deborah, using her minimal knowledge of the Tetun language and her nonexistent sign language.
A good idea The children and their families know that Deborah and Kim are in TimorLeste because their husbands are MAF pilots. Several of the young boys at the centre are particularly interested in aircraft, and often use the sign for plane to tell each other when they can hear one flying overhead. These boys, and their families, had never seen an aeroplane up close, and had certainly never been on one. Aware of their interest, Kim and Deborah began to plan a trip so they and their families could visit the MAF hangar at Dili’s international airport. So they wrote and then translated a letter into Tetun, asking for permission to visit the airport. Although their knowledge of Tetun enables them to buy things at the market and teach, writing formal letters to people in authority was definitely more difficult!
Smiles and awe But the day soon arrived. Two minibuses of smiling students and carers arrived at the airport. MAF Pilot Daniel Moser told the group where the airports in Timor-Leste are located, and explained how MAF uses its aircraft to evacuate ill and injured people from remote parts of the country. Aldo, one of our Timorese personnel, acted as translator and helper while one of the students agreed to lie on a
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stretcher and be lifted into the plane. Babies, children, young adults, parents and even grandmothers took turns at exploring the aircraft. Many had smiles of joy on their faces as they sat in the plane. Others regarded it with a look of awe. The excitement level rose again when Daniel took a plane out of the hangar to do his pre-flight checks on the aircraft. Watching the lights turn on and the propeller begin to turn was tremendously exciting for the onlookers. Tired but happy, everyone eventually returned home to Hera after an exciting and fun filled visit to the airport!
A calling within a calling When God calls a pilot or an aircraft maintenance engineer to serve Him by working with MAF, that often means He is calling a spouse and sometimes a family too. Both Kim and Deborah are married to MAF pilots, but it’s exciting to see how God has given them skills and gifts so they can serve the Hera community and bring huge blessing to those at Liman Hamutuk.
YO U ARE HERE
G E T // DEEP
Why a human, though? It’s that exciting time of the year when many people will be thinking about Jesus’ birth and His life on earth! As Christians, we know why Jesus came to save us, but why did He need to be human? Have you ever wondered about that? When we look at Jesus’ life and read about His miracles, we can see why Jesus had to be God. If He wasn’t, He wouldn’t have been able to perform all those miraculous works.
Both God and man Colossians 2:9 (ESV) says this about Jesus: ‘For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.’ This means that Jesus is both God and man. He’s not part God or part human, He’s
completely God and completely human – all at the same time. Don’t worry, everyone finds this mind-boggling! The more we read the Bible, the more we realise that, in order for us to be saved from the grip of sin and wrongdoing, God Himself had to break in and do everything needed in order to free us. The fact that Jesus was born to human parents actually fulfils part of what needed to happen for us to be saved. We see clues of this throughout the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament.
THE SACRIFICE OF AN INNOCENT ANIMAL PROVIDED A SHORTTERM SOLUTION FOR SIN, BUT THE SACRIFICE OF A PERFECT HUMAN WOULD BE ONE THAT WOULD LAST.
Let’s have a look The law revealed in the Old Testament relates to a set of rules made by God before Jesus came. These rules were given to God’s people to make sure
they continued to do what He wanted. Sin occurred whenever any of the rules were broken. In His kindness, God promised His people that they could temporarily have their sins removed if animals were sacrificed in their place. Galatians 4:4-5 says: ‘But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.’ ‘Born under law, to redeem those under law’, did you notice that? This is one of the reasons why Jesus had to be human as well as being divine. Only human beings can be ‘born under law’ and this verse tells us that only a human could redeem or save those also ‘under the law’. The sacrifice of an innocent animal provided a short-term solution for sin, but the sacrifice of a perfect human would be one that would last. Jesus had to be human. He had to live perfectly without sinning, and He had to die for our sins so we could be saved. He achieved all that for those who are His! How amazing is that? It shows how trustworthy the Bible is as we see how Jesus being human perfectly fits in with what God promised hundreds of years earlier in the Old Testament!
Remember This Christmas, as you re-hear the story of the nativity, remember that not only was it vital that Jesus be born as a human, it was also necessary that He later die as a man. Because of Jesus and His sacrificial death on the cross, we can be saved from sin and death and be united with a loving Father!
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Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. P H I L I P P I A N S // 2 : 6 - 7 6 MAF Youth E-Magazine 2016 www.maf-uk.org/youth
RWENZORI MOUNTAINS//DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
H E L P I N G H A I T I // T H E N U M B E R S From 5 October to 13 November 2016, MAF’s response to the destruction caused by Hurricane Matthew includes:
P R AY ! P R AY ! P R AY ! • We’d love it if you could pray for Haiti. Seeing a broken nation restored is something we’re passionate about! Pray that God will use our Disaster Response team and our partners to help heal Haiti. • We loved getting to know Cliff St Fleur! Please pray for him and his family as they try to rebuild their lives and homes after the devastation of Hurricane Matthew. • Please pray for our work in Timor-Leste. Pray for Kim Job and Deborah Moser as they continue to bless everyone at the Liman Hamutuk centre for disabled children. • As Christmas is now hot on our heels, why not pray for a friend who doesn’t know Jesus? Pray that God will open their eyes so they’ll come to know Him and begin a lifelong journey of following Jesus! • Many of our staff will be travelling back to their home countries or spending Christmas at one of our bases. Pray they’ll remain safe, have a fun time celebrating, and enjoy a well-earned rest. • 2017 is pretty near now! As we enter a new year as an organisation, we’d love you to pray that God will continue using us to bring hope to isolated people throughout the world!
ARE YOU A YOUTH WORKER? Or do you know someone who is? Why not get an MAF Youth speaker to visit your church or youth group? To get booked in visit: www.maf-uk.org/youthspeaker
er h t o n a t s Not ju
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Why not make sure it’s not just another birthday and make it an MAF birthday? Donate your birthday to MAF and grab your free pack at www.maf-uk.org/birthday
Search ‘MAF Youth’ W www.maf-uk.org/youth E youth@maf-uk.org