Latest News Archive - MAF Australia MAF Australia

One Final Emergency: MAF in Uganda

Back in March 2020, MAF was able to answer one last emergency before lockdown in Uganda grounded all of our operations for many weeks. David and Rose-Mary Salmon have been living in North Uganda for many years working with ex-child soldiers near Gulu. In March, Rose-Mary fell seriously ill and remaining remotely would have been extremely risky for her health. MAF was able to fly them out to Entebbe on our last flight back in March when restrictions were put in place.David and Rose-Mary wrote this letter of thanks to God for all they have seen of His faithfulness to them over the years.

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Achieving the Engineering Dream!

Have you ever thought of becoming an Engineer for Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF)? Is this something God might be calling you to do? Dan Perrett has just completed his apprenticeship in Engineering (Cert IV in Aero skills – Avionics) through Aviation Australia in Cairns. He achieved this after five years of dedication and hard work. […]

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Breakthrough Disaster Relief Flight to Kasese

The day has finally arrived our team has waited and worked towards for the last 2 long months. The MAF Uganda team have been communicating with the Office of the Prime Minister to find a way to bring cargo to the people suffering in Kasese after flash-flooding displaced 25,000 people and finally permission was received! Read about what happened here.

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Attacked by a Crocodile: MAF in Arnhem Land

During this time of world wide lockdowns and restrictions on flying, MAF Arnhem Land is blessed and grateful that they have been declared an essential service by the Northern Territory Government and can continue helping people in need during this Covid-19 Crisis. Read about the latest medevac on the link, rescuing a crocodile bite victim. Please help ensure MAF can continue helping people as we have for the past 75 years, by contributing to our current appeal: https://maf.org.au/covid/

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Exciting Updates from MAF Mareeba

2020 will be remembered as a very unusual year, when social distancing was the norm and children and parents alike, studied and worked from home, trying to ensure our safety from Covid-19. However for MAF in Mareeba there are hopeful ventures afoot.

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Looking back over 75 Years of MAF: A Mother’s Day to Remember

One Sunday morning in May, six women set off from Kawito station, Papua New Guinea on an adventure set by God. There was laughter in the air and a sense of freedom and celebration as these women zoomed off down the river. Maybe it was the anticipation of a break from the kids and a change of scenery or maybe it was the excitement of what lay ahead.

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Aerial Health Patrol and Air Strip Surveys in Papua New Guinea

Mission completed! “We were happy to have finished the mission!” Standing in front of Sierra Delta Papa at the end of their 3 days flying are pilots Jan Ivar Andresen from Norway and Corné Noordhoek from the Netherlands. On Wednesday, they took off from Mount Hagen flying Sierra Delta Papa (P2-SDP), which is our dedicated […]

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Disaster Response in Uganda

There’s an overwhelming wave of trials hitting Uganda which are adding to the insurmountable struggles of lockdown. The latest is extreme flooding in Kasese, Western Uganda. At the same time, MAF Uganda’s runway has been flooded from all of the rain which is causing Lake Victoria to swell to record levels which haven’t been seen […]

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Looking Back over 75 Years of MAF: A Story from Grace and Earle Greaves

Grace and Earle Greaves served for over thirty years with MAF. Most of that time was spent at the MAF-AIR training base situated in Ballarat where they were involved in supporting and encouraging many others to ‘go forth’ to other lands. In this excerpt from ‘Wives Within Missionary Aviation Fellowship’ by Raelene Hawke, Grace writes […]

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A State of Readiness in Bangladesh

While numerous nations declare a ‘state of emergency’, MAF’s program manager in Bangladesh is declaring a ‘state of readiness’ to serve at this time in this densely populated country. Alone in the sky Mark Blomberg, MAF’s program manager in Bangladesh, shares, ‘Right now, we just want to maintain a readiness and an ability to respond […]

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Changing the Ending: One Face Mask at a Time

COVID-19 has brought about challenges that we at MAF were not even aware of. This being a shortage of personal protection equipment for our medical flights and our partner organisations providing health services. Most of the homelands we service in the Northern Territory do not have fully equipped surgeries, clinics or full time Doctors, they […]

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Improving the safety of flying during Covid-19

The Engineering team at Mareeba are always looking at ways to improve systems and products, and it is no different during these difficult days of Covid-19. Ed Hawthorn, Fleet Development Manager, was tasked with developing a physical separation between cockpit and cabin in Mission Aviation Fellowship’s (MAF) GippsAero GA8 and Cessna 208 aircraft. This will […]

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Helping During COVID19 Lockdown – Timor-Leste

At 7am on the 8th of April, Pilot Andrew Macdonald and MAF Timor-Leste’s Operations Assistant, Aldo Falo took off in the MAF aircraft VH-MFM for the region of Oecusse. Oecusse is an area of Timor-Leste which is surrounded by West Timor (Indonesia). To access this region from Dili is usually done via sea ferry or by road taking many hours. But with a State of Emergency declared in Timor-Leste due to the current COV19 crisis, Oecusse has become locked away from the world. The ferries have stopped. The borders are closed. They are seemingly alone and cut off from everyone else to face this crisis.

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Engineering through Covid-19

As our world changes to cope with Covid-19, so do the ways in which Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) can help our local communities. Mareeba Engineers Phil Snell and Ben Sibthorpe were made aware that the local doctors at Mareeba hospital were keen to get a special shield made for use with Covid-19 patients, to help […]

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Covid-19: MAF Response and Prayer Points

MAF has been serving isolated communities around the world for 75 years. Our vision is to see isolated people physically and spiritually transformed in Christ’s name and with Covid-19 reaching almost every country in the world, many people are experiencing isolation in a new way.

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God’s Escape Plan

Paul and Clare Woodington have been serving with MAF Australia for the past 13 years, including 8 years in Papua New Guinea from 2012 until now. In this beautifully written story, Paul explains the tension between the ‘should I stay or should I go struggle’ that many of our staff are feeling around the world during the current Covid-19 global emergency.

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The Flying Ambulance

For 75 years, MAF has been serving isolated people around the world by using aircraft to bring in the essentials of life as well as medical care, emergency food, and Christian hope. In Arnhem Land, apart from flying medical teams to the remote homelands, MAF aircraft also fly isolated Yolngu men, women and children to the district hospital for general appointments or urgent medical care. In 2019, 1085 passengers travelled on a MAF medical flight and another 236 patients were medevaced by MAF during medical emergencies. Read more here.

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Medevac from Suai: MAF in Timor-Leste

Written by Kim Job, MAF Timor-Leste As I watched VH-MAH, a GA8 aircraft climb into the sky above Dili International Airport, my eyes filled with tears, knowing that most likely this flight would help to save someone’s life. The pilot, my husband, Jason was on his way to Suai a town on the southern coast […]

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Travelling by Car in Timor-Leste

Why do MAF Programmes need good vehicles? Because we cannot always use planes to get where we need to go!

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A Day in the Life of a MAF Engineer

Have you ever wondered what MAF Engineers do in a typical day? John Hermanus, Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (LAME), has served MAF for over 30 years and is currently based at Mareeba in Queensland, Australia. He was brought up in Western Borneo, where he worked as an Engineer in various locations, then the plan was […]

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