Short Term Missions Trips – Africa

From the four corners of America to the mysterious reaches of East and Central Africa… Professionals, students, moms, and every variety of church lay-people pack their bags and brave the vaccinations. They come to Africa on a mission.

For some it is a repeat journey, but for most it is the very first time. Their mission is often well planned and clearly defined, but what lies ahead is pretty much unknown. Maybe that’s part of what draws them here each summer, the teams of volunteers, coming to give something of themselves to a land they know very little about. The uncertainty, the apprehension, and lack of control are part of the package. But, even at the onset, there is a suspicion that what a person takes away from two weeks in Africa will be much more than what he leaves behind.

At some point in time, all of the planning and packing comes to a juncture on the ramp at Wilson Airport in Nairobi – as the team circles around the airplane for a group photo, and the bags (minus the three that British Airways sent to Australia) are weighed. The team will gather here bewildered and jet-lagged – so far from home, but so excited for what’s ahead. It’s a mix of joy, fatigue, and some small concern that the pilot for this harrowing flight into the African bush looks like he’s sixteen and just got his pilot’s license yesterday.

As I meet them at the plane, the tool of my ministry, I introduce them to the idea of a pilot who is really a missionary.

We work together to get all the baggage aboard while I entertain questions… “Yes, I’ve been here awhile… I’m actually thirty-three… from New Jersey… Well, I haven’t lived there recently, so that’s why I don’t talk funny. Yes, I’m married… Here’s a picture of my wife and kids. It’s a Cessna… About 700 horsepower. No, the weather won’t be a problem.”

In the process I find out that they are from a church in west Texas, or that they are students from different schools across the country brought together for this trip. I discover that some of them are still a little apprehensive, and I try putting their fears to rest with a confident word and a pre-flight prayer. The copilot seat is then offered up, as a bonus of sorts, to someone in the group who has always wanted to learn to fly, or to the one most unsettled about small airplanes. The front-seater gets a photo at the controls, a headset, and a new friend from north Jersey.

I am optimistic for these new acquaintances and kindred hearts because I know some things that they do not yet know.

For instance, I know that the plane will indeed pick them up in two weeks from the little unreachable corner of Kenya or Sudan that we dropped them off at. And I know that they will most likely come back a different person. They will be appalled, and amazed at what they see there. They will lose some sleep under a mosquito net, imagining every manner of creepy crawling thing in God’s creation. They will sit with lifelong missionaries and discover that they are not all that different from themselves. They will come to love the African people there, and the children will especially capture their hearts. They will cry because of the world that these children grow up in — for the first time in their lives having a picture of “what it means.” What it means to need, what it means to suffer, what it means to fear. They will take a moment sometime in those weeks to examine their own lives and their own faith. And they will inevitably fall short.

After fourteen days or so, the airplane will arrive overhead a mixed blessing. For it is the sound of relief… the sound of a good meal, a hot shower, and a decent night’s rest. But also the signal that this is goodbye. In sweat and time and love they have given everything they had to give. And now they know for sure that they could never give enough. The flight back to the city is different from the one out. My passengers are looking tired. Most are quiet; gazing out the windows, writing in a journal, or fast asleep.

One is up front with me on the headsets again. I query him about the trip and am encouraged. And then I hear him say it – words I have heard so many times, in so many ways… “I come away with so much more than I gave.” I smile and nod and think, “I know what you mean.”

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AIM AIR website: www.aimair.org

Africa Inland Missions in Sudan

About a year ago, Franklin Graham, the President of Samaritan’s Purse, decided his organization would rebuild the churches of Sudan that had been destroyed by the radical Muslim government in the North during the twenty year civil war.

They have identified about 500 churches so far. Eleven have been rebuilt and I am currently at the main “factory” where they are mass producing the supplies to build many of these churches. The large generator, planer, table saws, welders, and hammers are working loudly in the background as I type this. However, it is not noise, it is hope.

I was at the reopening of a church nearby. It was packed with smiling, emotional, war-weary Sudanese with hundreds more standing outside; all singing and praising God. It is exciting to be part of such a worthy undertaking.

My aircraft is parked a few miles away at a dirt airstrip. The officials at the strip have just raised the rates and now want $100 per landing and $10 an hour for parking. AIM AIR is being told by many of the places we fly in Sudan that we will now be charged anywhere from $20 to $250 per landing.

Local officials are growing greedy as the central government moves too slowly. There is still a lot of hope here, but it is complicated and the frustrations and hassles of dealing with corruption are unending.

SURGERY IN C.A.R.
A few weeks ago, one of our pilots was flying in Central Africa Republic. He called me on the radio and asked if AIM AIR could absorb a free flight for a sick woman who needed help. I told him to do the flight and we would find the funds. Later, he told me he flew this young woman to a local pastor who had worked with a missionary doctor.
The girl was four months pregnant, but the baby had been dead for at least two weeks inside her. After removing the baby, the doctor had to remove much of her insides as an infection had developed and spread. The pastor told us she died three times on the operating table, but somehow she survived and is now doing well. With few resources, the church here still labors on, miracles happen and they cling to the hope of heaven.

MENINGITIS OUTBREAK
There has been a devastating outbreak of meningitis (an infection of the brain) in a number of areas here in Sudan. The World Health Organization has declared it an epidemic. The disease hits children the hardest and hundreds have died. AIM AIR has scrambled to get seven thousand pounds of medicines to these areas but the stories coming out of the villages have been heartbreaking.

It is so bad in some places that, after one of our pilots landed, the personnel on the ground didn’t even wait to get the meds back to the village. They pulled the medicine off the aircraft, ripped open the boxes and immediately began giving injections right there at the airstrip.

THE HORRORS OF WAR
In one of the towns hardest hit by meningitis, there lives a woman named Mary. Dr. Dick Bransford, an AIM doctor, told us her story. She returned to her village after serving as a slave in the North. She and her children had been taken captive and when the “master” wanted to give her 10-year-old daughter to an older Arab, she decided to escape with her five children.

The “master” came after her and located her in a grassy field. She sent her three older children on while she moved more slowly with her two smaller ones. The field was intentionally set on fire, and her two younger children were killed. She escaped but had burns on her arms. An AIM hospital was able to help Mary with her burns as her arms were frozen into place by the untreated scar tissue.

VISITORS
In early February, AIM AIR flew former US Senate Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist, his wife Karen, Franklin Graham, and several others on an eleven-day tour of Uganda, Sudan, Darfur, Kenya, and Rwanda. They met with heads of State, visited many SP projects, saw first hand the suffering in Darfur and even toured the AIM AIR hangar.

It was encouraging to the team as both Dr. Frist and Franklin spoke highly of what we do and the way in which we make it possible for them to travel so safely and confidently in such remote, insecure areas. It meant a lot. We have flown Dr. Frist about four or five times now, but this was by far the most I have gotten to know him.

I was with Dr. Frist at a mission hospital for a couple days as he performed surgeries. My job one day was to take lots of pictures in the operating room with his little camera.  He said that a few years ago, on a trip to Tenwick Hospital, a mission hospital in Kenya, a conversation he had with a doctor there about HIV/AIDS spawned the idea that eventually led to President Bush designating 15 billion dollars to Africa to fight the disease.

At Tenwick Hospital alone, they currently receive $270,000 a year for AIDS medicine which keeps hundreds of infected people alive. What an encouraging thing to know that AIM AIR had a tiny part in impacting so many lives.

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This story came from the Africa Inland Missions website.

Story by Matt Olson