Areas of Service
Since its early days as an aviation ministry, MAF has grown and evolved to meet the changing needs of the isolated and impoverished people it serves. Though the airplane remains its primary ministry tool, MAF has emerged as the key provider of communications, learning technology, and logistics services in the world’s most remote areas. MAF missionaries perform tasks as diverse as digging wells in Mali, providing disaster relief services in Sumatra, installing jungle communications and internet wifi networks in Papua New Guinea and Ecuador, operating computer centers in rural African villages, providing air ambulance services in East Timor and Haiti, and showing the “JESUS” film in remote villages. Its learning technologies division provides training and biblical resources for thousands of isolated pastors and church leaders. The organization focuses its mission work in the areas of 1) evangelism and church nurture, 2) medical assistance, 3) disaster response, 4) community development, and 5) training and development of indigenous people.
MAF has become well known as a provider of disaster response and relief services. Following the 2004 tsunami which struck Sumatra on December 26, 2004, MAF provided air and communications support to humanitarian agencies responding to the crisis. In 2007, MAF provided aid following Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh and Hurricane Felix in Nicaragua, and worked with the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2008, MAF planes evacuated missionaries and foreign aid workers from Chad following violence there. That same year, MAF airdropped food and medical supplies to villagers stranded by flooding in the wake of four deadly storms in Haiti, and served refugee camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo following clashes between government and rebel forces. Currently, MAF is providing relief services in response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. (More information about MAF-Haiti here )
MAF also provides internet, I.T. and RF communications to its various projects around the globe. In disasters, MAF uses a mobile VSAT terminal which can be 'checked' onto most commercial airlines as baggage. This terminal can provide emergency communications anywhere in the world and can be quickly deployed. MAF's technology services played a critical role in the infrastructure and emergency aid to Indonesia's devastating tsunami. They have been providing aviation and communications support to remote parts of Indonesia for decades.
Read more about this topic: Mission Aviation Fellowship
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