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White guy (and girl), dark faces, brown huts, and lush green jungle |
Allow me to invoke a military parallel. Sun Tzu (The Art of War) wrote “The line between disorder and order lies in logistics.” Without the myriad of clerks, quartermasters, troop transports, medical staff, training personnel, and so on, the battlefield would be a mass of disorganized, self-destructive chaos in a state of constant collapse. If the soldier firing his M4 Carbine in the midst of a firefight is the tip of the spear, the rest of the weighted spearhead and shaft are the bits that get him there.
It’s also been said that an army moves on its stomach, meaning, if the beans and bullets can’t get to the front line, the front line is forced to withdraw to where the beans and bullets are. Therefore, if you improve the means of moving and supplying the warfighters, you suddenly jump in your ability to wage war. The same is true, to a great degree, in mission work.
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Betty Greene, MAF Pilot |
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Samaritan's Purse DC-8 Cargo Plane |
We, the Ledfords, are simply servants, our role falling somewhere between the sender (many of you), and the sent. Together, you, we, and they are partners in the Gospel, the great news that the Son of God became a man to reconcile sinners to his Holy Father through his own death and resurrection.
I work 40 hours a week as a mechanic, a program director, a typist, an editor, or anything else that will keep our pilots flying the missionaries to where the people are. Lately, that work has included researching whether a helicopter is the logistical tool that will help us reset our operational limits. We believe it will, so I will be helping develop the program that will greatly expand our ministry to the Hoichol tribes in Mexico.
Hoichol Moms and Kids from a mountain village near Tepic. God so loved the Hoichol people, that he gave his only Son as the propitiation for their sin, and ours. |
Hoichol lady in desperate (life or death) need of transport being loaded into a small helicopter - the only type of aircraft that could reach her village in the mountains |
We’re still trying to figure out how this new lifestyle is going to happen, so please bear with us as we learn the ropes. Every change has meant we learn a new way to live, from leaving our jobs in 2011, to benefitting from the G.I. Bill for a couple of years while at school in Washington, while adding new members to our family, to being Missionary Appointees with UIM International. Later this year, if the Lord wills, we will likely be hitting the road to explain our work and your contribution to the Gospel through your prayers and finances. We believe it is extremely important to have your partnership, and as our partners, you need to know what your work is doing to fulfill Christ’s commission. Please pray that we will successfully magnify God’s name as we do so.
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Tarahumaran man being carried to the nearest airstrip for evacuation; the man and his family have been very receptive to the Gospel |
In the service of the King,
Gabe and Bonnie Ledford