The heart of MAF’s work is to provide flights that share the love of God. Sometimes that love is expressed by providing itinerant farmers with access to larger markets, or by making emergency and ongoing medical flights that save lives. Other times, it’s by transporting missionaries or Bible translators to share God’s Word to communities desperate for hope.

Whatever the cause, none of it would happen without donors who generously provide flights for those communities and individuals who simply can’t afford them.

Aviation training is expensive and time-consuming. We need to invest in future missionaries. The MAF Canada scholarship fund is designed to recognize Canadian post-secondary students preparing for a full-time career in mission aviation who plan to use those skills overseas upon completion of all required training.

Applicants should be able to demonstrate a discernible call to full-time missions as attested by others, must have a proven history of involvement in their local church and community, and must be able to demonstrate a Christian lifestyle and adherence to MAF Canada’s Statement of Faith.

When flying, Pilots need to be aware of everything around them in 3 dimensions, as threats can come in the form of other aircraft, uneven terrain, inclement weather, and even birds. Advanced avionics help our Pilots increase their “situational awareness” and assist them in their handling of these threats. More than just the GPS found in your car, an advanced avionics suite helps Pilots get a better understanding of aircraft performance and environmental conditions, allowing them to make decisions when they have minutes, instead of leaving them until they have only seconds.

Upgrading our aircraft with components like TAWS (Terrain Awareness and Warning System) is expensive, but also saves lives.

Regular inspections of our aircraft are not only required by law, they are an important and indispensable safety feature; helping to ensure that our planes are among the safest in the world. At specified intervals, different aircraft parts and systems must be dismantled and inspected by our team of maintenance experts. These checks are critical to detecting potential issues before they can pose a threat.

Gifts are used to help send qualified inspectors to those bases that need inspections in a timely manner to ensure that our aircraft remain compliant, safe, and ready to continue serving those who need them.

When you are half a world away, something as innocuous as a broken bolt can ground you and your passengers; and cause days or even weeks of delay until a replacement part arrives. And because parts shipment and customs clearance can take several weeks, we need to ensure that regularly used replacement parts are always on hand.

Donations are used to help stock those parts that are needed as part of regularly scheduled maintenance, and also provide a fund from which more expensive items like propellers and electronic components can be purchased – items which would otherwise take several months to raise money for grounding needed aircraft in the process.

Where the road ends is where you’ll find us. We’re experts at that. Getting things from A-B within a country with little infrastructure is what we’re best at. But we need help from couriers and shipping companies to get aircraft parts, materials, tools, and even entire aircraft to the field. Before they are even installed, it can cost hundreds or even thousands to ship even the smallest of aircraft parts from North America to the field (or from overseas to North America for refurbishment).

Take for example a dinner plate-sized turbine wheel that can cost $100,000 to replace, and which requires it’s own special handling and packaging, and is insured for tens of thousands of dollars.

Insuring our aircraft, crews, and passengers is expensive – especially in “war risk” locations served by MAF. It may not be the most glamorous thing, but every cent contributed towards insuring our aircraft is money that doesn’t need to be diverted away from our flight fund during times of crisis, or added to the cost of a ticket for a local pastor, or nurse who is paying out of pocket just to reach those in need. And in the end, it can save us millions of dollars in lost resources if a plane is written off in an accident, or even partially damaged by an incident such as a hard landing.

What’s more, aircraft insurance protects our aircraft even not flying as things like vandalism, theft, or the effects of war or natural disaster like hurricanes or earthquakes are all too common in the places we serve.

If we want to base Pilots and planes at remote locations, we have to give them and their families a place to live and rest. A house must be built where none exists. With the possible exception of sand for making concrete, all of the materials must be flown in from the nearest city which take several hours each way. Additionally, all infrastructure like electrical power, water, and communications must be installed and maintained, because none of these things will be currently available at these remote locations.

Building remote housing is an investment in reaching new communities, and building relationships that can open new roads to Christian witness and ministry.

MAF is committed to providing access to remote and isolated communities, by providing safe, efficient, and cost-effective transportation to individuals and partner organizations. By doing so, MAF multiplies the effectiveness of those we fly, by making it possible for donations entrusted to partner agencies to be spent on immediate aid where it matters most, rather than on days of dangerous and costly overland travel.

Donations may be used to help maintain existing airstrips as well as expand our reach with the creation of new airstrips in communities where access by road is severely limited.