MAF in Ecuador
MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) provides vital aviation and radio communications services to national churches, Christian missions, and nongovernment organizations (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 (witch doctors) 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 nationalized 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.
Demographics
Ecuador has the 89th lowest Human Development Index rating in the world
- Population: 13,927,650 (UK:61 million)
- Birth rate: 21.54 births/1,000 population (UK: 11 births/1,000)
- Life expectancy at birth: 76.81 years (UK: 79 years)
- Population under 15 years: 32.1% (UK: 17%)
- High infant mortality: more than 1 in 47 die at birth (UK: 1 in 200 die at birth)
- Population below the poverty line: 38.3%
- HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rate: 0.3% of population (UK: 0.2%)
- Literacy rate: 91% (UK: 99%)
Infrastructure
Mountainous terrain, dense rainforests and a limited road infrastructure makes overland travel difficult to isolated communities
- Area of the country: 109,483 sq miles (UK: 94,525 sq miles)
- 26,842 miles of roads in total, but only 4,019 miles of paved roads. (UK: 241,104 miles – all paved)
- 406 airstrips of which 302 are unpaved
Economy
Petroleum accounts for a large proportion of the economy of Ecuador. However, rising taxes and trade restrictions are slowing the growth of the nation which suffered a severe economic crisis at the turn of the century, while poverty remains high for many.
- 8% of the population employed in agriculture, fishing and forestry
- Main exports include petroleum, bananas, cut flowers, shrimp, cacao, coffee, hemp, wood and fish
Environment
Ecuador’s landscape varies from a coastal plain, to rainforests and the central highlands of the Andes which includes Cotopaxi, the world’s highest active volcano. Environmental threats include:
- Deforestation
- Soil erosion
- Desertification
- Water pollution
- Pollution from oil production wastes in ecologically sensitive areas of the Amazon Basin and Galapagos Islands
Climate
Ecuador’s Amazonian jungle lowlands and coastline have a tropical climate, although the higher-altitude interior is cooler. Natural hazards are:
- Frequent earthquakes
- Landslides
- Volcanic activity
- Floods
- Periodic droughts
Religion
While there is freedom of religion, the culture has been strongly moulded by Catholicism
- Roman Catholic: 95%
- other: 5%