Congo-Kinshasa (MNN)–There’s been a surprising turnaround in a case involving Mission Aviation Fellowship, their fleet in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the courts.
In August, MAF’s Fran Derocher urged prayer as a dispute led to the whole fleet’s impounding. He explained that each time a government official inspected their property, the staff had to show paid receipts of past taxes. Different government officials demanded different taxes, and some decided the taxes were delinquent.
As MAF tried to straighten the matter out, Derocher says government officials impounded a two of their aircraft and one vehicle. That left three in use, forcing a cutback on the services the team could provide to support missions work.
Fast forward to today. There’s been an election since the last report and unrest over the winning and losing candidates.
Violence broke out around the house of one of the main presidential contenders, while UN troops brought evenutal order.
Derocher says the local election unrest actually played a small role in what happened next. “It just so happens that day there was a little bit of trouble in town, but our guys still went to court. The judge was there. But guess who wasn’t? the other side.”
MAF’s team was ready to answer charges, but, “…the guys that were bringing the case against us didn’t show up and so we were able to present all this (evidence and receipts showing tax payments).”
Having no counter argument to consider, the judge took the evidence and, “It just took about two weeks and he came back with his decision.”
Derocher says God’s hand moved to time an election with their court hearing. “It just so happened at that time as well, after things calmed down after the elections, we got the planes freed, and the van and they had all planes flying that week. The timing was excellent for the program. Yes, we could have used the planes before, but we just think this was a tremendous answer from God.”
Mission Aviation Fellowship provides missions and humanitarian agencies the means to minister to the people of East DRC. Some of the organizations that depend on MAF services to carry out their ministry efforts include Christian Blind Mission (CBM), Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), Doctors Without Borders, MEDAIR, Coopi (an Italian organization addressing malnutrition in children), and Worldwide Evangelization for Christ (WEC).
