airpass-04-papua-new-guinea - Mission Aviation Fellowship

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Welcome to Papua New Guinea

The fourth stop on your Discovery Air Pass journey

Papua New Guinea was one of MAF’s first ventures, and quickly grew to become our largest operation. The sheer isolation and challenging terrain made it a perfect fit for our mission: to see isolated people physically and spiritually transformed.

Since 1951, MAF has been the only way to access hundreds of tiny, hidden and sometimes dangerous tribal villages which remain cut off from the outside world. For many indigenous communities, MAF has helped introduce healthcare, medicine, technology, education, and the Gospel. To this day, thousands of otherwise forgotten people rely on MAF’s regular and dependable service to thrive in their traditional environment.

MAF PNG Timeline pt1 1951 - 1975
MAF PNG Timeline pt2 1997 - 2018
MAF PNG Timeline pt3 2020 - 2021

Seventy years in the wilderness

Encased within dominating mountain ranges, dense forests and rolling foothills dwell fewer inhabitants than in London. Between them, these rural tribes speak 839 different indigenous languages, making PNG the most linguistically diverse nation in the world.

But it’s not the diverse culture or the inhospitable terrain that’s the biggest challenge for PNG’s isolated people. Across the entire country there are just 2,172 miles of paved roads. That’s less than 1% of the 245,000 miles we have in the UK. Without MAF’s commitment and ability to land on the most challenging airstrips in the world, these people would remain in the wilderness.

MAF’s role has changed and adapted over the last 70 years from supporting individual missionaries to now sustaining entire communities. By flying crops to market, delivering building equipment, transporting teachers and performing medical emergency evacuations, villages have been transformed, modernised and finally become connected to the outside world.

Row of three photos from PNG

Population

Life expectancy

Languages

Agriculture

Basic human needs

How we bring help

Children’s Activity Worksheet

Mike, Alpha and Foxtrot have put together some fun children’s activities which you can download and print as a booklet. In your printer settings, just choose the options to print on both sides of the paper and flip on the short edge.

Continue your journey through Papua New Guinea

Come fly with me

Meet pilot Glenys Watson

While you're here

Meet the people MAF serves

Bibles being handed out from a MAF plane

Just before you leave

For your next destination...

We fly to remote places to reach the world’s most isolated people – thank you for joining us in Papua New Guinea.

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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 1,400 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.