Monthly Archives: December 2019

PNG Updates, Prayer Requests

Listen & Silent…Use the same letters…

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I read the above statement this week and it really caused me to reflect. It was in combination with a devotional thought taken from Isaiah.

Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?

Isaiah 41:19 (NASB)

And in just a few hours from now the sun will rise and 2020 will spring forth here in the South Pacific. A new year will be underway. New visions, new projects, new plans, new expectations. But whose will they be? Ours or the Lord’s?

The reason we are here, to help New Guineans understand what Christ did for them on the cross!

I’m praying that this new year we can become SILENT before the Lord so that we can really LISTEN! “We have been conditioned by the religious, cultural, and social values of our time. Attitudes, reactions, goals and thought patterns have been inadvertently ingrained into the fiber of our natures.” – L.J. Ogilvie. It’s time for us to submit to Christ’s scrutinizing renovation and it means that we must spend time listening! May each of us be listening and discerning His voice as we enter into this New Year.

Connie and I want to thank you for your continued prayers, encouragement, support and partnership over this past year. God’s hand of protection has been on our team in countless ways.

  • Five times in December, unknown individuals gained entry under the cover of darkness, and in plain daylight, to steal property from one of our residential compounds, but there were no injuries. Praise God!
  • On 22 December, I (Todd) was out for a bike ride, getting some exercise and meeting and greeting people in the community. Within just five minutes from home a man (for reasons we’ll probably never know) tackled me off my bike and then attempted to hit me in the head with a rock. But God was there and the man fled into the crowd. The Lord’s hand of protection was there, only a sprained wrist and knee…again… it could have been much worse.

Please commit to continue praying for us and the team here in PNG in 2020.

  • New Young Pilot in the making!
  • Kudjip Mission Station – Kid’s Christmas Program
  • Todd & Ricky (Exec. Admin)
  • Medicines, Vaccines, Supplies – all in a day’s work!
  • Prayer Circle – Fleet Dedication – Ready to Go Out!
  • A Great Pilot Team!
  • You write the caption…for our Pilots – another day in the bush!
Just a few fun pictures

Please Pray For…

  • Safety and protection of our team.
  • Favor with the government as we seek work permits for various new team members.
  • Those the Lord is calling, that they would be sensitive to the call.. Pilots, Engineers, Finance Professionals, Information Technology Professionals, and others who are desperately needed for the ministry here. Click here for International Job Vacancies in Papua New Guinea.
  • Vision, that we would be able to discern who the Lord would have us partner with and which communities of the hundreds with airstrips, all with needs, that are on His agenda for this year.
  • Our Hearts, that we would continue to see the people around us as the Lord sees them. Sometimes it’s so easy to just look at the ones who are challenged by addictions or with propensity to violence and to become “compassion fatigued”. Pray that our hearts would not be hardened.

We do believe as Isaiah proclaimed, that the Lord is going to do something new in 2020! We want to be Listening so that we can discern what it is and how we are to respond!

Yours and His for the harvest,

Todd & Connie Lou

Our Official MAF Biography and Giving Page

Current News, PNG Updates, Praises

Together we can do so much more!

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It was late in the afternoon on Tuesday, 11 December when Dr. Erin Meier from Kudjip Nazarene Hospital called my phone, “Todd, what are our options for a medical evacuation to Port Moresby? We have a very critical patient!”

The rugged mountains and rain forest of the highlands of Papua New Guinea do not lend themselves to safe single engine night operations.

Dr. Erin would go on to describe a young man around 25 years of age who had suffered what appeared to be a significant heart attack while playing rugby. As Dr. Erin described the case my mind was weighing the facts. It was already late in the afternoon. The rugged rain forest jungle over which we fly does not allow for safe operations at night, and given the 45 minute drive from Kudjip station to our airstrip, a late afternoon departure for the two hour flight to the capital city was already out of the question. Dr. Matt Woodley (ER Doctor at Kudjip) and his team had already resuscitated the patient four times. Would he be able to survive the high altitude non-pressurized flight that is required to clear the high mountains of the highlands on the way to the coast? We agreed that at this point, the best plan was to see if the patient could remain stabilized through the night at Kudjip and then plan for an early departure on Thursday morning.

The red line denotes the route to be flown by P2-SDP from Mount Hagen to Port Moresby.

Shortly after 0600 on Thursday morning, Dr. Erin called. The young man had stabilized through the night and although still critical, they felt he could survive the flight. They would be on their way shortly. Quick calls to our Flight Operations Manager, Captain Brad Venter and Church and Community Partnership Manager Godfrey Sim put the plan in action. P2-SDP was readied and the base team awaited the arrival of the patient from Kudjip.

  • Kudjip Ambulance arrives at the MAF Mount Hagen Base.
  • Dr. Matt Woodley from Kudjip Nazarene Hospital arrives with the patient.

At 0850, the ambulance from Kudjip arrived at the MAF Mount Hagen Base with the patient, family members and Doctor Matt Woodley along with Anesthesia Specialist Officer (APO), David Wan. The team quickly went to work to prep the patient for the flight. Simultaneously, our team at MAF headquarters continued to do their part – praying for the patient, family, doctors, and pilot team as they prepared to launch.

  • Team transporting patient to the aircraft.
  • Arriving at the aircraft with the patient.

At 09:49, pilots Brad Venter (South Africa) and Andy Symmonds (UK) lifted off with their valuable cargo on the wings of P2-SDP and much prayer from both the Kudjip Nazarene and MAF teams. Touching down 1 hour and 59 minutes later in the capital city of Port Moresby, the patient was transferred to the waiting ambulance and rushed to Pacific International Hospital.

  • Pilot Brad Venter and Dr. Matt prep patient in the plane.
  • Dr. Matt preps patient.
  • Dr. Matt and APO David work with patient.
  • Final preparations.
  • Pilot Andy Symmonds makes sure that family members are properly secured.
  • Church and Community Partnerships Manager, Godfrey Sim, helps to make sure all is in order.

On Friday morning our Mount Hagen team met for morning devotions as we do every morning. When it came time to list our praises and prayer requests, Nancy from our operations team said that she had received news from the family. Our patient had successfully undergone surgery, was in the Intensive Care Unit, and it was expected that he would make a good recovery.

“Seeing isolated people physically and spiritually transformed in Christ’s Name.” This is why we do what we do in one of the most remote countries in the world. Accomplishing this Vision requires a team. Doctors, nurses, pilots, ground operations, flight operations, finance, IT, engineers, and on an on. It also requires you!!!

Thank you so very much for praying for and partnering with us as a family, and our greater MAF and Nazarene Team!

Together we can do so much more!

Thank you to Mandy Glass for the photo journalism!

Current News, PNG Updates

It's Why we do what we do…

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It was just after 2 o’clock in the afternoon on the 24th of April 2019, when the call came in.  In the remote village of Kol, a small girl had stumbled into a cooking pot of boiling water outside the haus kuk (separate bush house for cooking).  Pilot Luke Newell immediately launched from Mt. Hagen in one of our new C208s, P2-MAJ.  Arriving at Kol, he was met by the father who had been carrying his small daughter for two days through the jungle to the nearest air strip.  After only one hour forty minutes from the time the call was received, Luke, the child, and her father were landing at Mt. Hagen.  The child was rushed to Kudjip Nazarene Hospital.  How tremendous it was to receive the news that although skin grafts would be needed, the child would survive.

This Saturday morning ,7 December 2019, as I find myself in the office at the airport, capitalizing on the tranquility of an early morning to get a backlog of work accomplished , yet another medical evacuation is underway.  This time Pilot Mathias Glass will launch in just minutes to fly to Maramuni to rescue a man caught in a crossfire hail of bullets. The man’s life hangs in the balance of whether or not MAF can make the flight.

Yesterday I received a photo and story from MAF pilot Paul Woodington.  He is training MAF Pilot Ryan Cole on the new Cessna 208 Caravans.  Flying into Huya at the foot of the O’Malley Peaks, they retrieved a small boy who, the day before, had fallen from a tree breaking his arm.  Paul reports that in this first week of training, Ryan has flown five medical evacuation flights.  That’s just one airplane in one area.  In Papua New Guinea, MAF has nine of the Cessna Caravans flying some 40 flights per day!

Ryan and Paul Medevacing the boy with the broken arm

Each year in Papua New Guinea, MAF airplanes bring, hope, healing, physical and spiritual transformation through compassionate medical evacuation flights that serve the individuals and communities who live around the more than 210 airstrips served.

Papua New Guinea is one of the most geopolitical diverse nations in the world, with some 830 different languages spoken (20% of the world’s languages), hundreds of ethnic groups indigenous to PNG, and many remote Papuan tribes that still have very little contact with the outside world. Thirty percent of the population still lives below the international poverty line of $1.25USD per day.  Most people live on subsistence-based agriculture. The country has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the Pacific and meets the criteria for a generalized HIV/AIDS epidemic.

As in the cases above, many of the medevac patients are flown to mission hospitals such as Kudjip Nazarene Hospital.   Around three quarters of the medevacs are for women experiencing child birth issues. The rest are a wide range of medical needs; serious accidents, victims of violent physical abuse, serious tropical illnesses, etc.

And so…this is just one of the many reasons we do what we do, providing live-saving flights to some of the most isolated people in the world. Physical and Spiritual transformation in Christ’s name.

Thanks for helping us to keep doing what we do! We couldn’t be here without you there!