Note: Rebecca and her family were preparing to move after 14 years in Indonesia.   

We’re going now. This is goodbye. Or, in Indonesian, if we’re the ones going, we say to you, “Selamat tinggal. Peace as you stay.” And then you, the ones staying, tell us, “Selamat jalan. Peace as you go.”

Indonesia, you’ve given each of us part of you. Evan, he’s my firstborn, the one who made me a mama in this world of islands and jungles. He takes with him your words. He picked up your language when he was little and, with his quick ability to make friends and your friendliness back, never lost it. For your voice in his life, I thank you.

Renea—she’s the girl that your humidity turns into my curly-haired angel. To her, you’ve given your embrace. You see her beauty and you want to take her picture, touch her hair, hug her. And when she figures out you see her deeper beauty, too, she hugs you back. For your relentless pursuit of connection with her, I thank you.

Eric is the child of mine that I like to say has Dayak blood. I almost lost him here, but with your doctors, your prayers, and your blood (through transfusions), he made it. Though he’s been through a lot, he’s my goofball, doesn’t take life too seriously. He likes to laugh and dance, too, just like you. But you know that he’s also a warrior. For the courage you gave him to live, I thank you.

Brad, my partner in this life—you gave him wings. You invited him to fly you in your most vulnerable moments, and into your hidden, breath-taking worlds. You showed him dirt strips and your escalating clouds, and rivers that curve under his floats. Through the flying, you gave him space and a purpose and a fulfillment of a God-given dream. But it was your accepting friendship that most let him be who God made him to be, and when he’s that person, he soars. For that freedom, I thank you.

As for me, you gave me your heart. You opened up to me, showed me your hurts, let me in. And in your struggles, I saw your courage. When I brought you my heart, you were there to listen, to comfort, and to guide me to heal. Deeply, I thank you.

So, Indonesia, dearest of friends, thanks for your peace as we go. Peace to you too as you remain. But please, stay with us, forever.

The post Peace in the Going appeared first on Mission Aviation Fellowship.

I heard a little commotion behind me and had barely turned around before the blowing of six horns interrupted the quiet of the river scene.

I chuckled, then rolled my eyes at my teammate. “Thanks a lot, Kathy.”

She shrugged, smiling big back at me.

Our friends had brought the hot dogs, corn on the cob … and apparently, enough loud paper horns for each of our six total kids. I brought watermelon, burgers, and my very quiet homemade pickles.

My teammate, Tim, got a bonfire going for our New Year’s barbecue at our MAF hangar next to the river in Palangkaraya, Indonesia. We joked and laughed and talked and ate. We sent the kids off to blow their horns—on the far end of the MAF property.

Pretty soon, people all over our town began shooting off fireworks. Many years, the rain of rainy season dampens the chance to use fireworks. That night, though, was clear and beautiful. The river broke up the reflection of the fireworks into even tinier little colored spots, then moved them along in its steady, relentless movement.

Indonesia has three New Year’s Days: one for the Muslim calendar, one for the Chinese calendar, and one for the first of January. Some of the other local traditions for the various New Year’s include praying special prayers, cleaning out last year’s spirits from a store, and giving away money to neighborhood kids.

Three chances for a New Year. Three chances for a fresh start. I like this country.

This year, I really wanted all the hope that turning a page promises. I spent time praying and reflecting. I came up with a “word of the year.” And I considered a couple of resolutions. But what has stuck with me into late January has been the relentlessness of many things in my life—things that seem to have no beginning or ending. Parenting. Homeschooling. The year-round humid heat here. Complicated needs with no easy solutions. Situations that could use a new beginning.

As the fireworks are replaced with almost nightly January rainstorms, I’ve shifted away from simple answers into day-in/day-out intentional choices of living well, loving well, and being grateful that His mercies (and help) are new every single morning.

The post New Year, New Mercies appeared first on Mission Aviation Fellowship.

My five-year-old son slides the beads on his abacus, and says, “sepuluh.” Then ten more beads, “dua puluh.” He continues counting by tens in Indonesian up to one hundred, the words gliding out of his mouth with just the right aspiration and tonality.

We’re practicing his math at home. I don’t think he even notices what language he’s using.

I notice.

“Pintar!” I say. “Wow! That was great!”

He’s spent almost his entire life in Indonesia, and the past couple of years going to this welcoming preschool nearby. But his first-grade year at the same school has required him to learn new Indonesian words for subjects like science, math, social studies. During the first few weeks, he came home in a fog of confusion, sometimes begging to quit. The next day, he’d find the courage to return to friends, beloved teachers and to the hard work of learning new words.

Like many third culture kids (TCKs) growing up in what can feel like a big world, my son’s good at watching, listening, noticing. I heard recently that another important piece of helping TCKs thrive among many cultures, beliefs and economic levels is to give them a voice so they can express concerns, questions, ideas. That’s one of my biggest motivators in encouraging my kids’ language acquisition. I want them to understand the world around them, and to be able to be understood.

I’m in first grade, too, sometimes. After thirteen years of making a life here in my adopted home of Indonesia, I’m still learning when to listen, and when to speak up, especially when it relates to my own family’s needs.

A few years ago, I decided to seek out Indonesian writers so that I could write in a community. Recently, one of my Indonesian writer friends asked me to edit her memoir—that she’d written in English, one of the many languages she speaks. Besides being a writer, she’s an advocate for indigenous concerns, a passion fueled by her own transformational relationship with Christ.

I returned her work, after taking the unique way she told her story and tweaking it for her English readers. But her stories stuck with me. I saw things I’d never fully understood about my adopted home take new shape through her voice.

The post Learning to Speak and Listen appeared first on Mission Aviation Fellowship.

It’s so nice to finally meet you. What’s your name, painted in blue on your side? PK-MEE? I’ve been an admirer of yours for the past three years. It’s been quite a long road—or…flight?—for you. Hurdles…setbacks…struggles…. Maybe you’ve wondered if you’d ever make it here to Palangkaraya, Indonesia. Maybe you’d nearly given up hope.

But I just watched you land, and, wow. Well done. You’re the type of plane that can land in short spaces or long, on water or on land. You’ve been tested and modified and remodified. Your type isn’t only a float plane, and now, after so many adaptations, no longer only a land plane either. You’ve been so many places—born in Idaho (but never meant to stay there). You’ve traveled all over America, then ferried across the globe, then spent the last year in Papua, Indonesia…waiting. (We’ve all been there.) You’ve had many addresses, and are so adaptable, but you’ve never quite belonged to any one place, to any one type, either.

Welcome to your new home. This river is where you’ll work and live and play. It may feel foreign to you at first, but you’ll learn to enjoy the feel of tropical rains on your skin and you’ll soon look forward to watching Borneo sunsets at the end of each day. And someday you’ll never want to leave this river and its people.

About these people—particularly your teammates: You won’t meet everyone who has been part of this whole thing, of bringing the work here, of bringing you here. Some work in other places, like Jakarta or Papua or the States. Some lived here, but have moved on. One has passed. They all cared. Some, though, are still here, ready to work with you, excited to see how far you can go, how much you can carry, how you’ll respond to the things the community asks you to do. They want you here—Did you see Pak Agus and Pak Abet and Pak Ogasto and Pak Sugi and Tim and Kathy waving and clapping and cheering when you glided across the river that first time? Did you hear any of their prayers? Remember, you need them to do this with you. They can go far, too. They respond to needs and carry so much and have hung in there during their own long journeys, too.

That’s your job, really, to be part of others’ journeys. You might carry a brand new baby, or someone who’s spending their life serving others. But many days will be hard. You might hold sickness, trauma, pain, loss and death inside of you. It’s a privilege to live so closely to the vulnerable, but also can feel heavy, so heavy you’re not sure you can get off that water to take them where they need to go. And sometimes you need others to help you, too. Sometimes you might be broken yourself, might need someone else to help you heal. (We have people for that.) Some days, you’re pretty sure everyone thinks you’re not gonna make it, but that’s when you’re at your strongest and bravest. And through it all—the good days and hard days—your Designer will be with you, on the journey, helping you navigate everything.

Welcome to your new life, the plane called MEE.

The post A Warm Welcome for PK-MEE appeared first on Mission Aviation Fellowship.

Just five minutes into the interview with Yusmanto Luis, a local pastor, and his wife, Elvina, and I already see a list forming in my notebook.

The supplies for the orphaned and at-risk kids’ rooms that are in the process of being built behind their house? Those were donated. Their move here to Palangkaraya from their home in a different part of Indonesia? They had just 400,000 rupiah in their pockets (equivalent to $35), Elvina was pregnant, but a friend of a friend offered a place to stay. And Pastor Yusmanto credits God with providing the 700,000 rupiah they needed to have the baby a few weeks later.

“God always helped us when we were out of options,” Pastor Yusmanto says.

He tells me that story in their home on this hot morning in Indonesia, while his wife sets a tray of crackers and water in front of me. She lights a simple white candle for our snack. The word “provisions” comes to mind as I listen and sip.

MAF is in the list—of provisions—too, starting when Yusmanto was just 10 years old and living in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, with his recently divorced mom.

Certain things were tough in his village in those days. There was an elementary school, but rarely any teachers because it was just too remote and difficult for these teachers from the city to want to stay. There weren’t any doctors or clinics, either—just local “healers/witch doctors” who sometimes blamed spirits for people’s ills. Women were dying from childbirth at high rates.

And Luis’s life at that point? He says one word in Indonesian—“susah.”

It means “difficult.”

But one day, a group of outsider men entered the village by boat.

“Mr. Bolser along with an MAF pilot and a local Indonesian said they wanted to survey the area for an airstrip,” Pastor Yusmanto says.

I look up from my notebook at him at the name “Bolser.” At that moment, my own husband, Brad, is in another part of Indonesia, being trained by Dudley Bolser’s son, Tom Bolser, an MAF pilot of 18 years, to fly a new amphibious Kodiak we’ll be using soon in Central Kalimantan. Tom’s parents, now retired, worked at a Bible college for indigenous pastors for many years in the western part of Kalimantan, where Yusmanto’s village is located.

I mentally add the connection to my own list of “provisions.”

The villagers carved out an airstrip by hand. While the grownups worked, the kids—Yusmanto included—watched and sang praise songs that these visitors had taught them.

That was the beginning of Yusmanto’s faith and his dreams of having a positive impact on his own community.

“I was helped by many missionaries who wanted to help people in difficulty,” Yusmanto says. “I soon had three dreams for when I grew up: to become a pastor; to help at-risk kids; and to fly in an MAF airplane.”

While some of his relatives flew in airplanes for medical needs over the years, Yusmanto didn’t fly in one until he was 23. His chance came just as he was achieving one of his other dreams. He flew MAF as a new pastor serving other isolated Kalimantan villages.

Soon after, he married his wife, who also knew MAF well because a medevac flight saved her father’s life. Together, they moved a few hundred miles away to Palangkaraya, in Central Kalimantan—where my husband and I now live.

They like to send teams to provide social services interior. And they hope to fulfill that long-held dream to reach out to at-risk kids from indigenous communities. On both accounts, MAF is standing by to help make their travels to these hard-to-reach areas shorter and safer.

“While some areas can be reached by road, the distances are quite far and the cost of going by land is very expensive,” he says.

I thank them for the snacks and time. Then I tuck my notebook into my bag—grateful that MAF gets to continue to be on the list of provisions for this family, as this family provides for others.

The post MAF is on the List appeared first on Mission Aviation Fellowship.

My husband and I recently had the unique opportunity to be part of the project to dismantle (and document) two recently retired Cessna 185s that had each served almost 50 years in Indonesia. Our team of American and Indonesian staff were joined for a week by other hard-working American and Canadian MAF mechanics to prepare the planes to be shipped back to the States.

The project soon turned into a reunion of sorts … and a farewell. Three of the mechanics have had a particularly long history with the planes. One—also a pilot—flew the planes years ago, here in Kalimantan. One has regularly come to help us carefully maintain them. Another grew up in Indonesia and may have flown on one of them as a boy. Various Indonesian community members stopped by throughout that week, too. They generously shared their own stories of either investment in or impact from those little planes.

As we worked and shared, the service of these planes could be lined up, the clarity of their impact orderly and shiny and full of focus and perspective. The Indonesian boy whose family members were saved because of MAF medevacs grew up to become a pastor who cares deeply about bringing hope to his community. The girl who was scared that first time she rode along with her sick relative in an MAF airplane grew up to invest in the youth around her.

Many of the stories, when they were happening, seemed uncertain and full of challenges. Our own team has seen its fair share of challenges and heartbreaks here.

But now, in just a few weeks, our team will get to enjoy another unique opportunity. We’ll watch a new amphibious Kodiak arrive, providing an opportunity for a greater range of service. We’re already talking about the pieces we’ll need to get operations with it going. The “slip” in our nice floating hangar needs to be widened. The fuel system at the hangar must be changed.

We’ll also use many “parts” that came from the legacy of the Cessna 185s. For instance, we look forward to continuing to partner with Indonesians who care about their community. We want to walk with care and respect with the vulnerable around us. We plan to continue to use excellence, precision and integrity to provide safe operations for our users.

And we aim to keep on caring for each other—our teammates—through our own personal struggles even before the impact, perspective and purpose are lined up, shiny and complete.

The post Reflections and Farewells appeared first on Mission Aviation Fellowship.

“When I was little, I wondered how an airplane could fly if it couldn’t breathe,” said Yunike Hermanus.

Yunike and I were talking about the Cessna 185 with the affectionate name of “Charlie Brown” that has served indigenous Kalimantan, Indonesia, communities for almost 50 years and 23,000 hours of flight time. Yunike is married to one of the Indonesian staff who care for MAF’s airplanes here. MAF was based out of her own village home of Kelansam for about 30 years starting in the 1970s.

Charlie Brown may not be able to breathe the way you or I do, but to hear the words used by those who’ve either worked closely with it or been flown in it at critical times of their family’s lives, you’d think this plane had a life of its own.

The airplane’s official registration number is PK-MCB, or in pilot-speak, Mike Charlie Bravo. This plane and our other Cessna 185 “Charlie Delta”—equally old—will be retired, crated up and sent to MAF US’s headquarters in Idaho this fall. The current plan is to display them there. Collectively, they’ve served 100 total years and flown almost 50,000 total hours.

Some believe that the church in Kalimantan would not have grown without MAF—specifically without Charlie Brown, which started flying there in 1969. Within a few years, that small airplane would serve the 50 different airstrips dotted around the island almost every week.

At one point, Charlie Brown had wheels and served missionaries on runways cut by hand out of jungles in West Kalimantan. Later it was converted to a floatplane, and has been flying in Central Kalimantan’s ever-changing, challenging rivers for the past 20 years.

“The plane would bring food, vegetables, LPG bottles for cooking,” said Tommy Yansen, who helped build a runway that gave airplanes access to his village in the 1970s. “It would carry pastors, Sunday school teachers, and patients going to the hospital.”

“It used to take four days for us to get patients to a hospital,” said Asaskarto, an Indonesian nurse. With Charlie Brown, patients could get to his hospital in an hour.

Charlie Brown impacted so many lives throughout the years in Kalimantan—and one day he was needed to save Yunike’s brother.

Yunike grew up in remote villages, where her father served as a pastor or taught at a Bible college that trained other Indonesian teachers and pastors to reach isolated communities. One day, her brother needed urgent medical care.

“He needed surgery for his stomach,” Yunike’s mother, Naomi, recalls. “The doctor said if we’d been just one day later, he would’ve died.”

This small airplane played a major role in Yunike’s life and the lives of so many like her. She hopped on and off Charlie Brown throughout her childhood, knowing the pilots as family and their kids as friends. But her own life was saved one day after she followed in her parents’ legacy to serve with her Indonesian pastor husband in the remote village of Ulak Mued.

She was so sick, she lost consciousness. Someone took her by boat to the nearest airstrip.

“If the airplane hadn’t taken me (to the hospital), I don’t know if I’d be alive today,” Yunike said.

By the 1990s, MAF pilots were looking at the transportation and ministry needs in the central part of Kalimantan. Doug Allrich, an MAF pilot, did the first survey flight in the area.

“The community was thrilled with our interest in serving their transport needs,” said Doug. “Central Kalimantan was a vast area with seven river systems and we felt that if we could get something built, the rest would fall into place.”

So the decision was made that Charlie Brown would be transformed into a floatplane so that even more people could be reached by MAF.

A change came for Yunike as well. Her husband died, and she moved with her two young kids to Central Kalimantan to work with an MAF family as a cook, babysitter and housekeeper. She later married Daniel Ogasto, an MAF staff member who helped take care of Charlie Brown for the past 15 years.

Charlie Brown’s successor will still be connected to Yunike’s family. Soon Daniel will be learning how to care for a much more complex airplane—the amphibious KODIAK PK-MEE—arriving in 2018. And just as Charlie Brown made an impact and left an impression on so many lives in so many ways, PK-MEE will do the same as it carries on the work of reaching Borneo’s lost and hurting people with the love of Christ.

Story originally appeared in the November 2017 issue of FlightWatch (Vol. 5).

The post Remembering a Faithful Airplane appeared first on Mission Aviation Fellowship.

“It doesn’t get much better than this.”

Brad Hopkins, our MAF pilot—and my husband—pointed at the clear blue sky out of the floatplane window. I glanced at my notes: Kuala Kurun—that’s the name of the jungle town to which we were headed.

“Just a 40-minute flight,” he continued. “It saves these women hours on a jungle road.”

I glanced back at the two women sitting behind us.

Nope, it doesn’t get much better than this—for a different reason than gorgeous weather. We were carrying story-tellers.

While Brad’s office view is often the jungle and blue skies, mine is usually words, ideas, and stories. I love stories because they remind me that the difficulties of today can grow into the legends of tomorrow.

Brad landed the airplane on the river, docking next to village boats. The women climbed out and had to be on their way to administer a story-telling training seminar. We needed to return to our home in Palangkaraya, but I asked Ibu Ronna Karasih (ibu is the Indonesian equivalent of Mrs.) if I could interview her later, when she returned home to Palangkaraya.

Ibu Ronna is the director for Kaleb Yoshua, a local Indonesian organization that’s currently working on four language projects. In a nutshell, Indonesian Dayak translators translate the Bible into local languages, compile stories from the Bible that many local churches use to teach children and adults, and train villagers in how to connect the stories with common Dayak methods. Some of the stories are written in Sunday school books and the already completed books of the Bible. But often times, Ibu Ronna and others train villagers in using traditional wayang puppet dolls, performing play-versions and singing the tales—all long-held Indonesian story-telling traditions. Not everyone can read, but Bible stories—and the hope that these particular stories will foster—are essential to remote jungle communities throughout Central Kalimantan.

“My friends all said this would be impossible,” Ibu Ronna said.

She was telling me the story of how Kaleb Yoshua was formed while we sat in the recently built wooden office—on stilts—in Palangkaraya.  When Ibu Ronna isn’t flying with MAF into villages in her story-training role, she’s overseeing a staff of twelve.

Ibu Ronna started as a secretary for a handful of Americans and Europeans in 2000. Back then—at the beginning of the story—she didn’t even really understand that her employers were Bible translators. Somehow, no one explained that part when they hired her. Nine years later, all these Westerners lost their Indonesian visas that gave them permission to work there. They had to leave the country, and the future of Bible translation in that area was uncertain.

But by then, Ibu Ronna not only understood what they were trying to do, she was so passionate about continuing the work that she accepted the role of manager. And then she spent the next five years in what felt like constant failure. Almost everyone around her told her it would be too difficult to do it the right way.

“I didn’t keep going with it just to have a salary so we could eat,” she said. “I believed it was an important work that must continue. And we—the local people—are the people who have the language, know the culture, and are from this place. ”

Finally, she formed an official, locally-run organization with a reputation for financial health, honest interaction with the government and impact in the community. Her staff and translators are mostly Indonesians, with two American consultants who recently got visas.

“These stories touched me,” said an Indonesian woman who attended one of the story-telling training sessions, after hearing the Bible stories in her own language. “I want to do what God wants.”

MAF has also gotten to be part of this story for more than a dozen years. Not only have our pilots flown translators into and out of remote Borneo villages, but one American MAF woman helped make a connection with a donor to build their office so they wouldn’t have to keep suddenly moving when the landlords kept kicking them out of their rented spots. Another Canadian MAF woman—an artist—illustrates the Sunday school materials.

I get the best part—watching some of these stories unfold from the seat of a red and white floatplane.

Note: This was one of Charlie Brown’s last flights before he retired earlier this year. Watch for more stories about this beloved airplane published in FlightWatch and arriving in your mailbox, or online, soon!

The post Unfolding God’s Word through Stories appeared first on Mission Aviation Fellowship.

So, that’s how I found myself strapped onto a wakeboard on a Borneo river.

As a required safety feature of our floatplane water base, MAF owns a speed boat, which is also a way our team of Americans and Indonesians plays together. The rest make it look so easy to get up on that board, gliding past the monkey-filled forest and our red and white floatplanes.

But I’d been trying to wakeboard for several months, each time ending with far was too much river water in my belly, sore muscles, and face-smacking failure.

“Be patient and hold on,” shouts my coach, one of my MAF teammates, from the boat.

He means what he’s already told me zillions of times, “Take your time standing up. Let the force of the boat pulling you do its part, too.”

Be patient. Hold on. It sounds simple enough … even something my child self would say. But the years have taught me other things. Life isn’t easy. Simply wanting something badly doesn’t guarantee success. And being an adult can be. So. Very. Tiring.

And yet, I see my teammate’s words around me here in my Indonesian town.

I see them in the story of an Indonesian woman with whom I chatted this week. I see how she wouldn’t give up — for five years! — on the vision she had for her community even though almost everyone told her she’d fail. I also see them in my neighbor’s determination to create a school here that offers something different and important and amazing. And I see it in her offer to invite me and others into the process.

Bobbing on the river, I close my eyes and try to find the words, the resilience and the adventure again in myself. I squeeze my hands on the handle, then nod at the boat driver.

And I brace for the force.

Somehow, in just a split second, I go from being dragged along to gliding on top of the water.

I’m shocked, my legs wobbly, an eventual wipeout coming. But I manage to stay up long enough to smile big at my husband and kids, to glance at the MAF floating hangar that we pass, and feel utter awe of what hope-stronger-than-fear can do.

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Some days, we’re dodging puddles from last night’s tropical downpour. (OK, I’m dodging the puddles, Eric’s leaping right into them.) Other mornings, the sun is already so bright, we’re both wishing we brought sunglasses.

This school is a great fit for us for many reasons. It’s on my neighbor’s property, so close and convenient. It’s special in its vision for education, and a great place for Eric to make friends and learn Indonesian. And the simple walk—usually just the two of us—is one of my favorite moments of the day. I’m thankful.

But I’m usually holding more than Eric’s hand in my grasp each day. I complete twelve years of living as an American in Indonesia this year. But the longer I’m here, the more I realize  how much I don’t have figured out about cross cultural living, or parenting my own identity-confused third culture kids, or how to respond in what feels like an increasingly complicated world. Add to that identity and belonging issues that I’ve always had as a third culture kid myself (and that get even murkier the longer I live as a foreigner) and the questions I’m carrying nearly blind me some days.

I bring these questions into this place of colorful kids’ art on the wall, creative teachers with patience and smiles for the kids, and other moms who bring with them stories and questions, too. We all meet regularly for brainstorming, prayer, eating, friendship. If one of the families has a need, like an illness, the others make a trip to the hospital, or a house, offering food, gifts, and prayer. We do these things with our kids in tow, mixing their various languages, cultures and snacks.

I’m not sure I’ve got any more hard and fast answers to all my questions. But I’ve got people here, welcoming me into this community, just as I am and growing to be.

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