Mission Niche: Transporting the Gospel

I recently learned about a faith-based mission organization that prepares people and planes for worldwide mission service. This blog post comes from an interview we did with Keith Dodsen, the Mobilization Manager at MMS Aviation. http://www.mmsaviation.org/

So tell me more about what MMS does and why it exists.
We prepare people to serve as missionary airplane mechanics through a thirty month, hands-on aviation maintenance apprenticeship while maintaining, modifying, and repairing missionary aircraft from ministries all over the world. After completing service with MMS, and gaining their Airframe & Powerplant mechanic’s certificate, our apprentices join one of the many mission aviation organizations operating in remote locations around the world furthering the Gospel through the use of aircraft.

MMS exists to meet the ongoing and critical need for competent and confident certificated mechanics to ensure missionaries, national workers, and other precious cargo are transported by safe and airworthy aircraft. This is accomplished by having our apprentice mechanics maintain, modify, and repair actual missionary aircraft for just the cost of parts and materials. This allows aircraft, some of which might otherwise have been scrapped, to be returned to Christ’s service saving The Kingdom hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Last year we worked on 25 airplanes from 11 different ministries, sent 4 Rapid Response Teams to repair missionary aircraft in the US and in Africa, and completed major restorations of airplanes sent to service in Brazil and Gabon. Current aircraft projects in the hangar represent ministries operating in Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, and a unique ministry that uses airplanes to reach the isolated pockets of non-English speaking Chinese across the US and into Canada.

Based in Coshocton, Ohio, MMS plays a direct role in fulfilling the Great Commission through the provision of the personnel and the airplanes necessary to carry the Gospel to the most remote and dangerous regions of the world.

Do you have any good examples of how you were able to see God using MMS to advance the kingdom?
Every ten minutes, somewhere in the world, a missionary airplane that MMS has worked on takes off on a mission of Mercy and/or Majesty. We just finished a 7 month restoration of a missionary Cessna 207 operated by Air Calvary in Gabon, Africa. The airplane was severely damaged during a landing accident in Gabon.We sent a team of mechanics over to disassemble the airplane and put it in a shipping container for transportation back here for repair. The airplane serves as an air-ambulance for Bongolo Hospital, which is a Christian hospital facility in the bush of Gabon. The airplane takes a 12 hour drive (on a road so bad it can kill a sick or injured patient going to the hospital–or coming home from the hospital after surgery) and turns it into a smooth 90 minute flight. The 207 is now back in Africa and recently completed its first mission flight since our restoration.

Another restoration project we recently completed was taking a Cessna 206, purchased disassembled in Alaska, and preparing it for river-based amphibious operations in Brazil with Asas de Socorro. Now in Manaus, the airplane will soon be used to advance evangelistic outreach along the Amazon River in support of 450 churches.

What is hard about being a non-traditional missionary?
Right or wrong, there are special challenges being so far “behind the scenes” in a Stateside-based international support role. We’re not on the “front line” so to speak even though everything we do here ultimately has a dramatic effect on what happens in the deepest trenches of the spiritual battlefield. Even though the world comes to MMS through aircraft projects and international apprentices, many churches in the “first world” have a hard time understanding the transportation challenges, risks, and realities involved in living and serving Christ in the rest of the world.

It’s important for us to take every opportunity to help educate our brothers and sisters about the unique application of aviation within the Gospel expression. Once most folks understand how God is working through MMS, they get pretty excited about the process.

How are you all supported and how can we pray for you?
Each of us is required to raise a team of ministry partners to meet our everyday living costs and ministry expenses. Please pray that God would keep our support teams strong and vibrant. Pray for wisdom as we prepare men and women mechanics to serve on the mission field, awareness as we maintain and repair airplanes to transport missionaries across the mission field, and for courage and endurance for our staff as there is a cost to the battle we wage against the powers and principalities of darkness.

You can read more about MMS Aviation here as well as see some videos of their work here.