Thriving in careers they enjoyed, Matt and Beth Wisch thought they would always be senders, supporting their church and missions. They never imagined working for a mission organization, let alone an aviation one. But now they are preparing to do just that.
Matt will lead MAF’s IT efforts in Africa, overseeing IT infrastructure, VSAT terminals, servers, cyber security, solar systems, laptops, and more.
“We had good careers, making good money,” said Matt. “I would have laughed if someone told me I would become a missionary.”
Right out of high school, Matt started working for a tech company and eventually worked his way into the U.S. Department of Defense as a private cloud administrator.
Beth joined the Navy after high school and served as a linguist, transitioning into the Department of Defense as an instructor. They met at Fort Meade in Maryland and married two years later.
With two daughters, the youngest only a year old, Beth accepted a position at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, Austria. While stationed there, the family had the opportunity to travel and it was on a trip to Africa that Beth first felt God’s call to mission work.
But neither Matt nor Beth were ready yet. God still had work to do.
Several years later, after returning to the U.S., a friend happened to mention MAF, because he had flown on MAF airplanes as a missionary kid in New Guinea.
Beth encouraged Matt to look into MAF, which he eventually did. “I looked at their website and thought they were really cool, flying airplanes. But when I looked at their requirements for a pilot, I thought to myself that this is a whole different career.”
Matt said God kept putting it into his heart to look at the website again. Reluctantly, he did, and this time he saw a banner on the page: ‘Seeking IT Specialists.’
The next day, they called MAF, and in 2021 they officially joined the ministry.
During candidacy classes at MAF, the Wisches learned that IT staff had been praying for six years for the right person to manage the IT work in Africa.
Beth noted that it was six years earlier that God began to stir their hearts to serve people in Africa!
Today, the Wisches are thrilled to be on a new career path as MAF missionaries. They are now raising support to head to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they will be based.
Matt and Beth are looking for financial and prayer partners to join their team. Learn more about them at maf.org/wisch.
This story appeared in the Vol. 2 2022 edition of FlightWatch. Read the entire issue here:
