How your generosity brought hope amidst devastation in Central America

“We were blessed to serve those suffering from extensive wind damage, flooding, and landslides that affected hundreds of thousands of people. Homes were gone, crops destroyed, and livelihoods lost in many areas,” said John Woodberry, Mission Aviation Fellowship’s director of global disaster response.

Loading an MAF affiliate, AGAPE, aircraft in Guatemala during the Hurricane Eta disaster response.

A few members of MAF U.S.’s disaster response surge team were already on the ground in Guatemala to bring relief after Hurricane Eta hit Central America on November 3. They worked with MAF affiliate AGAPE to deliver family food packs, provide evacuation flights, and fly a search and rescue team into an area destroyed by landslides.

As Hurricane Iota approached, the MAF team hunkered down in Honduras and waited for it to pass. Then they were in the air again, conducting aerial surveys in Honduras and the border areas of Nicaragua to assess the damage.

An aerial view from an MAF assessment flight in Honduras.

One destructive hurricane is hard enough to imagine, but a second hitting two weeks later in the same region . . .  There are no words for the desperation that 5.5 million people are experiencing, 400,000 of whom have been displaced from their homes. Many have lost everything.

A Kodiak aircraft at MAF’s Nampa, ID, headquarters prepares to depart for Central America following Hurricanes Eta and Iota.

Friends of MAF had compassion and gave toward the MAF Hurricanes Eta and Iota Disaster Response, for which we’re so grateful. You cared about “the very least of these” and enabled MAF to deploy a Kodiak aircraft from its headquarters in Nampa, ID, to Nicaragua, to further aid in the response. Here are a few examples of what your gifts contributed to:

• One flight for eight Nicaraguan pastors enabled them to train 63 local pastors in trauma counseling.
• Another flight carried 2,000 lbs. of relief packages, including food supplies and clothing.
• Food and supplies were transported to a local orphanage.
• Equipment and supplies were delivered to a local fire station.
• Medical personnel and equipment were flown, plus malaria medications, and other medicine.
• Five flights for the Moravian Church of Nicaragua, delivering over 7,000 lbs. of water filters, basic relief packs, and clothing.

The MAF DR surge team finished up over the weekend, and finished well—because of you! Thank you to the compassionate, caring friends of MAF, whom God is using to share His love and hope with the lost and hurting.