Mozambique (MNN) -- After an eight-month pause, Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) has resumed its MozMed flights -- bringing life-saving medical care to remote villages in northern Mozambique.
"We're very glad to serve there because it's untouched. They would never see a doctor there," says MAF's Dave LePoidevin. "The more difficult cases we fly back to Nampula, the big city where we're based."
MozMed flights serve communities in the Niassa National Reserve, a vast, underdeveloped region of Mozambique where healthcare access is nearly nonexistent. MAF pilots fly teams of Christian doctors to these isolated villages, partnering with Bethesda Mission and local conservation groups that help maintain the airstrips.
However, the service had to be suspended for most of the past year. LePoidevin explains, "For quite some years, we've had the insurgents there -- a branch of ISIS -- and so they've been moving in from the north and attacking there. That's been a constant threat, and we were always watching, 'Is it safe to fly where we want to fly?'"
The danger only escalated when national elections last October brought political unrest.
"People wanting to make a statement or insurgents, they would just love to see a burning airplane," says LePoidevin. "So we got kind of nervous that we might be a target, so we pulled the airplane out."
Now that conditions have improved, MAF has returned to the skies -- carrying both medicine and Christ's compassion.
LePoidevin says, "We can love the people with medical help. Even small diseases or wounds or difficult pregnancies or something like that, [which] would be relatively small for us, is a big deal for them there."
The Niassa region is predominantly Muslim and animist, and direct evangelism is difficult. Still, LePoidevin says the love of Christ can be felt in every flight.
"We're focusing on material needs and medical needs, and we're glad to be doing that," he says. "Nearby here, we have had some opportunities to show the Jesus film.... Some went well, some not so well with objection from the local Muslim community. So we're focusing on loving our neighbors here."
Pray for continued safety as MAF flies MozMed teams into Mozambique's conflict-affected north. Ask God to open hearts among Muslim and animist communities to the hope of Christ.
"If anybody would pray for us in our work in this area in the north, to find opportunities to show Jesus in a respectful and kind way, we would appreciate your prayers for that."
Header photo courtesy of Dave LePoidevin/MAF Mozambique.