Ecuador

Mission Aviation Fellowship provides vital aviation and radio communications services to national churches, Christian missions, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) ministering in Ecuador, as well as to jungle villages.

The Need:

In the Amazon basin region of Ecuador, the dense jungle and ever-changing serpentine rivers create living barriers, conspiring to keep people in isolation and spiritual darkness. The country lacks a national communications infrastructure, and all-weather roads are nearly nonexistent.

Childbirth, a snakebite, or a fall from a tree is a grave event in the jungle. Left untreated, minor ailments worsen until they become life-threatening medical emergencies. For the rural poor, healthcare is deteriorating rather than improving.

Since the 1960s, the Church has grown significantly in response to the faithful preaching of the Gospel. However, losses to cults and syncretistic beliefs are a great danger when opportunities are inadequate for believers to be discipled and grounded in God's Word. Many people groups in the Amazon integrate the beliefs and practices of animistic cults with Catholicism. Those in remote communities believe that shamans (witchdoctors) can kill and cure through magical means, which allows them to play an important part in their religious and social life.

The Solution:

Since 1948, MAF has provided access to the Gospel and life-sustaining resources to the people of Ecuador.

In many of the country’s remote regions, MAF provides flights, communications, and logistical support for missionaries, local churches, and villages. MAF operates a fleet of five aircraft from two bases: Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, and Shell, on the edge of the Amazon basin.

Medical and air ambulance support are significant components of the MAF ministry in Ecuador. Thirty-nine percent of all MAF flights are medically related, including flights for the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health, which sends healthcare teams into the jungle to provide preventative immunizations and rural health education programmes. The MAF chaplain ministry, established in 2005, is impacting hundreds of patients and their family members each year.

Throughout the jungle, MAF communications networks enable villages to communicate with one another and with the outside world. Missions and local churches co-ordinate evangelism and discipleship programmes, request medical emergency flights, and bring isolated communities together.

Ecuador, like many mission fields, has seen a rise in national missionaries and a corresponding decrease in foreign mission workers. The fruit of earlier mission efforts, national pastors and missionaries have a call to share the Gospel with their countrymen, but may not have the economic ability to use aviation services. When possible, MAF subsidises their flights.

In recent years, MAF has been under pressure from Ecuadorian authorities to develop a more nationalised program, integrating additional Ecuadorian personnel into programme operations. MAF has been working closely with its sister organisation, Alas de Socorro del Ecuador (ADSE), to find solutions for sustainable Ecuadorian operations.