News for Prayer 24 January 2013
Issue 467
Wanting to hear The year got off to a good start for Gerard, a Yolŋu Christian and MAF co-worker in Arnhem Land, Australia. On 1 January, Gerard arrived home to find 17 people waiting to hear a Gospel message from him. After preaching to them in their own language, all 17 accepted Christ as their Saviour. The following night, two more indigenous locals gave their lives to the Lord. The conversions come at a time of great spiritual opposition in the area, with family feuds causing dissension and someone even sending a huge amount of money to another people group to place a curse on Gerard. Pray that the new believers will grow in their faith and that the Lord will protect Gerard, his family and our staff. Pray too for our work in places like Yirrkala, Elcho Island and Lake Evella. More people are needed to disciple and teach Yolŋu Christians. Pray the Lord will send more people trained in cross-cultural mission who are willing to learn the language and culture for a long-term placement in Australia’s remote outback.
DRC update
Flying in Jesus’ Name
Feeling the cold
The latest update from our team working in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) shows an area still beset with uncertainty as well as sporadic violence in outlying areas. Country Director Jon Cadd reports that most of the NGOs that evacuated in November (NfP 465) have now returned. In eastern DRC, we operate three aircraft supporting the work of the church, missionaries, medical organisations, Bible translators, relief workers, and other NGOs. Four MAF pilot/ mechanic families currently serve in Bunia along with some 20 Congolese staff members, and 4 families work from Kampala, Uganda. Please continue to pray for the Congolese people, our team in eastern DRC, and everyone working in such difficult areas.
Praise God for our Kenya operation’s new Cessna 208 Caravan, which arrived earlier this month and will be based in Juba. The plane’s call sign is 5Y-ESU. Because ‘Yesu’ is Swahili for Jesus, it will remind passengers that our pilots fly in Jesus’ Name. Country Director Alan Sully writes, ‘We thank the Lord for the aircraft and for safe transit from the USA. There will now follow a time of inspections and paperwork to allow us to fly it as a Kenyan registered plane. ‘After that, there will be a need for pilot training as the instrument panel on this aircraft is very different from anything our pilots are familiar with. Pray for the safety of the pilots who fly in the plane and the passengers they carry.’
Uphold Tom Mason, who leads Blue Sky Aviation (BSA) in Mongolia, and his team as they work on winter tasks and projects such as translating documents, carrying out maintenance, and stock counting. Working in the current -37°C conditions makes the simplest things challenging. Because it is so cold, the animals living in the countryside are barely able to survive. In the city, air pollution, as well as the cold weather, continues to cause major problems. Pray for everyone who is struggling. Pray also for Operations Officer Bayarbadrakh Agvaandagva Badaa who visited Ashford, Kent, for operational training, and aircraft maintenance engineer Dugardorj Batbayar, who is currently in Uganda gaining technical experience.
Plane chain
Juggling flights
Give thanks for the thousands of messages written by MAF Supporters to orphans at Gethsemane Garden Christian Centre on Mfangano Island, on Lake Victoria, Kenya. Over the Christmas period, greetings, prayers and Scripture verses were written on over 6,000 cut-out MAF aircraft. Then, earlier this month, two staff from our Folkestone office delivered them to the children. The youngsters, who lost their parents to a spread of AIDS which began in the 1980s, were delighted; praising God for everyone who wrote a message. Our planes regularly fly to support the work of the Christian school and orphanage on this remote island (NfP 465). For more information, visit www.maf-uk.org/planechain
Our Papua New Guinea (PNG) team asks us to pray that Christian Radio Missionary Fellowship’s Jesus film project will gain momentum, with increasing opportunities to show the movie. Pray too for the team responsible for programming flights. With limited aircraft and flight crew, the flight programmers face a difficult juggling process. Praise God that over 1,000 Bibles have been distributed to remote communities since our Learning Technologies ministry began in PNG, and give thanks for pilot Philipp Sutter. Philipp has been transporting building materials in our new Cessna Caravan for houses at Munbil – a new New Tribes Mission station near the Papuan border in West Sepik.
Translating Jesus Pilot Patrick Keller flew Rachel and Faith, two American ladies from Campus Crusade for Christ to Mananara, Madagascar, to work on a new translation of the Jesus film. Patrick says, ‘The Jesus Film Project has about 30 people, self-funded, travelling all over the world and recording new languages to the Jesus film. The movie now exists in over 1,165 languages. For Faith, the Mananara project was about her tenth language last year.’ Pray for the post-production work on this important project and that the film will be a challenge and blessing to all who see it.
Prayer points • BANGLADESH Give thanks that our flight operation is busy, and pray for safety both in the air and on the ground. • HAITI Damage from tropical storm Sandy is still being evaluated (NfP 463). Pray that the thousands of people affected will be able to rebuild their homes and feed their families despite extensive crop damage caused by the storm. • MONGOLIA Our BSA team met with Mongolian Evangelical Association to discuss opportunities and challenges for a church mapping project. Give thanks for this opportunity to work closely with other Christian organisations. • PNG Break-ins and hold-ups are becoming increasingly common throughout PNG, so remember to pray for our staff, facilities and operations (NfP 451).
• Pray for the reception staff at our Mount Hagen base. Because the telephone system isn’t working properly, calls are not being received. Pray the problem will be fixed soon. • SOUTH SUDAN Pray for strength for our team in Juba as they continue to work in a stressful and demanding environment (NfP 462). • Give thanks we were able to fly patients who lost their limbs in the recent conflict with the north to receive treatment and prosthetic limbs in Mbale and Kampala, Uganda. Transporting the patients overland would have been challenging. • TANZANIA Give thanks for the work our flights have supported in the Malambo area for more than 25 years (NfP 465). Our planes enable Maasai evangelists to reach their own nomadic Maasai people, resulting in many coming to Christ.
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