Have you seen any fruit

Every Wed is Chapel Day here at MAF headquarters in Nampa, Idaho. But this Chapel Day was very special for me as a MAF pilot. We had two missionaries that spoke to us and shared a film about the arrival of the New Testament in their own language. These two missionaries had served many years on the island of Papua. A very remote village by the name of Korapun with a one-way airstrip on the side of a mountain in a small valley in Indonesia. MAF has served these missionaries for over 30 plus years. I was one of the many MAF pilots that made many flights into that airstrip to provide the food, supplies, a hydro-electric water system to make it possible to use a computer and have electric lights at night and so much more over those many years. During 15 of those years the missionaries were translating Gods Word into the language of the Kimyal people of that valley. 15 years of hard labor so that they now have and can read His Word in their own language. I am just a pilot/mechanic but I am also a part of the Body of Christ and todays Chapel brought into focus all that we do as an aviation ministry within MAF and world-wide Missionary Aviation.

Each of us in the Body of Christ have a special gift and ours is a very technical one but MAF has been a very important part in bringing Gods Word to the Kimyal people today. A eternal gift to them. As tears ran down my checks, I truly understand the need for all the parts to work in that Body, yes even pilots and mechanics. The years of training, raising support, living in a different cultural and language, seperation from our families in the States for long periods of time, yet all of that and more was worth every minute to see the faces of the Kimyal people as they looked and understood for the first time the Word of God in their own language. We have always had the Bible in our language to read and I even have over seven translations in my own home to reference ! Do I think each time I open Gods Word what a wonderful gift we have, is it the same joy I see on the faces of the Kimyal people on that DVD ??

Not only I have now seen one New Testament completed in a life time but have news of another in a different part of Indonesia that I flew for many years ago ! That's why I am in MAF and if I could, I would do it ALL again. Capt Hook