More than just a PILOT

As part of the MAF recruiting team I get letters and e-mails from pilots that come from all walks of life and backgrounds. airline pilots, military pilots, corporate pilots to the pilots that only fly on the weekends for fun. We all love to fly and many have flown pistons to jets and everything in between. I took my first airplane ride 48 years ago and still get the same feeling everytime I take-off as I did that first time many years ago. Those of us that fly have been given a great gift. Many that write to me, say they now want to use that gift for something important in life. Some discover this later then sooner in life.
Some of us use the airplane to make money, some of us use it for fun and adventure. MAF have pilots that use it to change lives in 30 countries around the world. When I was in the MAF Training Department, I always told the new pilots that they must be the best pilots and mechanics in the world to be a part of MAF but if they only came to fly the airplane then they came to MAF for the wrong reasons. The airplane is a special tool to get Gods Word out to those that have never heard His name. During my many years of flying overseas, I saw some come home early saying well I have flown all the airstrips and it was great fun and lots of adventure but now it is kind of boring and just a lot of hard work and so they went home looking for new adventures. So are we just pushing another piece of metal through the sky day after day or do we car about those we are flying and do we care enough about them to help change their lives for Christ. Sometimes it is a hard thing to do. Sometimes they smell bad, look bad, do not like you, even rub pig grease all over their body and have bones in their noses and do not wear clothes. Do we really care about them and their lives. Care enough to change their lives for eternity. MAF pilts are some of the best and they do a very technical job every day flying airplanes but they are more then just pilots and mechanics. They take a big piece of metal everyday and use it to change lives. Yep, I then get more fun and adventure then I can take in a lifetime.