International (MNN) — A popularity contest is helping aviation mission groups get the support they need.
A helicopter makes perfect sense for NTM’s Aviation ministry in the Philippines. (Image courtesy NTM)
Lightspeed Aviation Foundation’s Pilot’s Choice Awards allow voters to pick one group to receive a $10,000 grant. If New Tribes Mission Aviation (NTMA) wins, Phil Koop says there’s already a place for it.
“We’re hoping to apply that grant to our helicopter needs in the Philippines,” he says.
NTMA supports church-planting teams working in the world’s most remote and rugged locations. Without access to a neighborhood grocery or pharmacy, these teams need equipment, medicine, medical evacuation and mail to be supplied by air.
“Providing these kinds of services…is really expensive,” Koop notes. “We’re really asking the Lord to provide the funding that we need in order to…serve each of these missionary outreaches.”
NTMA pilot Brian Schaadt says a helicopter makes perfect sense in the Philippines.
“Most of the indigenous people we work with…are in very mountainous areas, remote areas,” he states. “It’s taken very little to no work to get a place suitable for landing our helicopter, whereas it would’ve taken years, possibly, to build an airstrip…for our aircraft.”
The voting deadline is November 1, cast your vote here!
The Pilot’s Choice Awards accomplish other goals too. Koop says the contest helps people become aware of groups like NTMA.
“Our efforts are in church planting among the most primitive unreached people groups around the world,” says Koop. Their main goal is usually accompanied by several other tasks.
“It’s translating Scripture into those languages, it’s carrying the Gospel, it’s medical evacuation; all of these things become part of the ministry, and assisting some of these really remote areas.”
Recruitment and funding are two of NTMA’s biggest challenges.
“We’re locating people, really, at the edges of civilization,” says Koop. “It’s a difficult [job], but it’s really rewarding…to extend the reach of some of these very, very dedicated missionaries.”
Click here to learn more about NTMA and how you can become a missionary pilot.
“We always look at the money we have and the money that [projects are] going to cost, and we never seem to have enough. Yet, we continue to see God provide,” Schaadt notes.
“He never seems to drop the money in a basket from heaven, but He always uses individuals to give.”
Come alongside the work of NTMA financially by clicking here.
