While rolling along through the beautiful American countryside on our drive from Idaho back to Indiana, I had plenty of time to mull over our first training experience at MAF.

We came to headquarters in Nampa, ID, just over five weeks ago not really knowing what to expect but knowing clearly that we had been led by God to join this ministry. Now that we’ve officially been accepted as MAF missionaries—“prefielders”—we’ll soon be hitting the road to begin putting together our ministry partnership team. In the meantime, we returned home with a hope and excitement beyond what we could have imagined.

The Hamstra family is preparing to serve in Papua, Indonesia, as a maintenance specialist family. Now they’re building their ministry partnership team.

During our time at headquarters, and through all the training we received, there were a few resounding themes that stood out to me.

1. MAF is heart focused—Every program director, teacher, coach and staff member we came in contact with had a fire and yearning to reach people for Jesus that was infectious. Each conversation we had was seasoned with a measure of the Holy Spirit that brought a new excitement and left us feeling so blessed to be a part of this ministry.
2. MAF is a family—There is a genuine sense of care and love for each other. This care came in the form intentional training, meaningful conversations, and a space to learn about us and our story. The care also came in the form of challenge. We were challenged to be mindful of our own spiritual lives and battles and that was followed up with many resources to help us, including MAF’s Member Care team. Even our kids were deeply cared for and taken on adventures which helped excite them for what lies ahead for us.
3. MAF is forward thinking—We heard about new and exciting things going on in the ministry, and new ways of reaching others with the love of Jesus. We were blown away to learn of all the different kinds of work MAF is doing around the world. It doesn’t all look the same. Each regional team is tailoring its unique skills with aviation and technology to be most effective for the Lord right where they are, even if it’s outside the box.

So that’s been our experience with MAF so far. We are so thankful for this time and could not be more excited to be a part of the MAF family!