The Need
Currently Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), the largest missionary flight organization in the world, has a need for pilots/mechanics in providing aid to the over 300 Christian organizations that depend on their services. Many potential missions aviators never reach the field due to the costs involved in training. According to Ron Hilbrands, Manager of Recruiting for MAF, there is a great need for scholarships to those wanting to pursue missionary aviation. Many students graduate with considerable debt and then never make it to the mission field.
Pacific Missionary Aviation (PMA), based in the South Pacific, serves the islands of Micronesia and the Philippines. Currently, PMA’s Melinda R. Espinosa, Business Manager/CFO in Hagatna, Guam, expressed immediate need for scholarship assistance. She also expressed a great need for pilot/mechanics for both their Micronesia and Philippines mission.
JAARS of Waxhaw, NC, who provides technical and transportation support to Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) and SIL International has an urgent need for pilots and mechanics for their fleet of 27 aircraft.
JAARS President David Reeves noted, “Language experts have nearly 2,000 translation programs underway and plans for reaching the almost 2,400 remaining people groups. … Making sure that people, equipment and supplies are efficiently and effectively moved into and out of these field locations, many of which are located in remote areas on the continents of Asia and Africa, is one of our key responsibilities.”
The need for missions pilots and mechanics for missionary transport in Africa, medical transportation in the South Pacific, or Bible translation in Papua New Guinea, is prodigious. Christian Aviation Ministries can aid in filling the need for pilots and mechanics in the mission field by providing scholarship funding for training and placement in an organization in need of their service.
