Donate
Back to all staff
Support our staff

Nathanael and Joanna Smith

Give once Give regularly

 

Nathanael was the first person to be enrolled on MAF UK’s Engineer Trainee programme. He is spending four years training in the UK before joining an MAF programme. He will be part of a team helping to maintain our planes so we can enable our partners to reach isolated communities. He married Joanna in 2021 and they will be serving together.

Background

Nathanael grew up a child of missionary parents serving in Cameroon. His interest in aviation started as a result of flying on missionary aircraft between boarding school and home. He spent a gap year in 2013-2014 working as a volunteer at the missionary hangar in Cameroon and gained experience working on the aircraft in which he had flown. It was during this time that he first felt called to mission aviation. On leaving school he returned to the UK and studied aerospace engineering with a view to going into mission aviation in the future. Since graduating in 2018 he has briefly worked as a caretaker for his home church and then for a company making and maintaining microlight aircraft.

Joanna is from a Christian family and also has some mission experience having spent a gap year in 2014 serving with Tearfund in Peru. She and Nathanael first met while studying in Cambridge in 2015 and then again at church in Norwich where they were leading Bible studies together. They were engaged in 2020 and married after Joanna finished her PhD in Plant Science in October 2021.

Our MAF journey

Nathanael was excited to hear about MAF’s Engineer Training Scheme and his application was successful. He spent two years studying theory in Perth, Scotland, before moving to Bournemouth for his practical training where he qualified as an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer.                     .

In 2025 Nathanael and Joanna had their first child, Joel. The three of them moved to Madagascar in March 2026 where Nathanael will be working as an MAF Engineer ensuring that our planes continue to serve the isolated communities in the country.

If you would like to partner with them by giving regularly to the work, or receiving their prayer letters, please select the option to the right.

Would you prayerfully consider joining their support team?
Role:

Trainee Engineer

Location:

Madagascar

Favourite Bible verse:

'Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.'

1 Corinthians 15 v 58

Pray for The Smiths:
Sign up for their prayer letter Read their latest prayer letter
Stay up to date
Donate today

About MAF UK

Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is the world’s largest humanitarian air operator. For over 75 years we have been flying light aircraft over jungles, mountains, swamps and deserts. We enable more than 1,500 aid, development and mission organisations to bring medical care, emergency relief and long-term development. Our pilots and personnel deliver relief workers, doctors, pastors, school books, food, medicines - everything that can only be safely and speedily delivered by air. Our faithful supporters give and pray to make this all possible.

© 2026 / MAF UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1064598) and Scotland (SC039107)