Communities of Hope | MAF Appeal March 2024

COMMUNITIES OF HOPE

Dear Friend,

How many of your thoughts each day are focused on building a better life for yourself and your family?

Most of them, right?

“How can I better myself with new skills?”, “How can I grow in my faith?”, “How can I make more money?”, “How can I overcome the challenges my family is facing?”, “How can I make that dream come true?”, “How can I do something significant with my life?”

Now take a moment to put yourself in the shoes of a person living in an isolated part of the Papua New Guinea highlands or the war-torn villages of South Sudan…

You have the same dreams of bettering your life and building a future for your family…

But the reality is, there is no school for your children’s education, there is no church to learn more about the gospel, there is no

hospital to care for your pregnant wife, there are no building supplies to build a safe home, there is no equipment to grow sufficient crops for your community.

But there is hope in the form of an airstrip.

An airstrip that is the difference between a life of mere survival and a life of hope and a thriving future.

So you put all of those consuming thoughts and dreams into preparing an airstrip in your village. Perhaps, like those in the PNG villages of Dimanbil and Yakona, it becomes your life work. You spend 30 years clearing a space in the jungle for a plane to land. Every day spent digging, every tree cut down, every root dug up, every rock moved is building a better future for your family and community.

For many isolated people around the world, the most significant contribution to the quality and betterment of their lives is the establishment of an airstrip in their village.

Find out how airstrips transform communities

AIRSTRIPS = THRIVING COMMUNITIES

The establishment of an airstrip in an isolated community radically increases their hope for the future by being a gateway to food, water, education, medical care, humanitarian aid, and hearing the gospel.

SEE WHAT IT’S LIKE WHEN AN AIRSTRIP OPENS...

South Sudan

New Airstrip Relaunches Every Village Ministry After War

After war ravaged the area they were initially serving, a new airstrip was built in Torpuot to provide access for Every Village to build a new base to continue their ministry. Every Village works to provide safe drinking water, build healthy church congregations and provide gospel radio to remote villages. MAF pilot, Jono Pound was able to fly building supplies for their new base, and will continue to provide regular flight support as they establish the base.

Papua New Guinea

Airstrips Become the Natural Place to Plant Churches

Missionary Church planter, Richard, had a vision to “reach the unreached area like MAF is doing.”

“When I started as the area supervisor, they gave me the mandate to put a church in Mamusi, and so I said, let’s go where the planes can”, he explained. Planting churches by airstrips means they can access the building supplies needed to build Churches in central and significant locations within communities. The airstrips enable more Missionaries to bring the gospel to isolated people with greater ease and safety.

Papua New Guinea

Airstrip Repair Brings Relief For Expecting Mums

Imagine being in labour, and having to travel three days by canoe to reach medical assistance. This has been the reality for women living in the isolated village of Fiyak over the past three years. Their airstrip had deteriorated to the point of closure. Most women would not make it in time, either losing their baby or their own life giving birth in a small canoe on the May River or beside the banks of the river if needing to stop.

Communities have the responsibility to maintain their airstrips, so when an airstrip becomes too dangerous to use, it reveals just how vital it is. You can imagine the celebration with the reopening of the airstrip earlier this year and the significance it has in saving lives from these unthinkable circumstances.

Friend,

While

own lives, what if we turned some of our attention to the

of other’s lives? Isn’t it incredible that something as simple as a strip of leveled-out grass could significantly impact the lives and future of whole communities?

Perhaps in our effort to better our own lives, achieve our dreams, and do something significant, we can be people who strive to improve the lives of isolated people. Perhaps living a life of generosity that impacts people all around the world is a key to bettering our own lives.

Will you be a part of enabling MAF planes to transform isolated communities? Will you hear the call of a desperate mum in need of urgent medical assistance? Will you hear the call of the child-victim of war? Will you hear the call of those who have never heard the gospel? Will you partner with us to answer those calls that can only be met by plane?

Your generous donation will bring significant transformation to communities around the world. You will enable education for children, medical care in desperate situations, consistent food and water supplies, humanitarian aid in crisis, and the hope of the gospel to be shared with unreached people.

Mark Fox CEO, MAF