Operational...

5 May 1971 was the day my dad started his first job. 5 May 2003 I did my first training flight. 5 May 2008 I started my first flying job in Malawi and 5 May 2012 I flew my first operational flight for MAF!

It was a great feeling to finally start flying in a MAF program after the long road of preparation. With all the exams, briefings and tests completed, I am now doing supervised flying; that means I have complete responsibility but there is another MAF pilot who supervises the flight. The first flights I did were part of what is known as the Kilimatinde Safari; over 3 days we take evangelists from Dodoma to what is essentially an airstrip with a tree. Then we get a medical team from Kilimatinde Hospital and take them to the same airstrip.

“As I sit here in Chidudu waiting for the medical team and evangelists to finish their work, I realize how much I have to be thankful for. Once a month this large thorn tree and mud hut becomes the centre point for the nearby communities. On the flight in I could not really make out a central village. There are clusters of bomas, each with a kraal and a few huts, scattered around the area and that must be where these mothers with their babies walked from. As babies are weighed, recorded, injected and some basic medicine is handed out, I realize that there is a joyful atmosphere despite the sound of crying babies. The evangelists play gospel music over a crackling speaker powered by a car battery. They preach a little, have a session with some kids under the shade of the plane’s wing and spend their time talking and sharing with the mothers. There is a sense of peace and contentment despite the circumstances.”

It is in this type of work that our vision is truly seen…

“Isolated people physically and spiritually transformed in Christ’s name”