Would you interview for a position with Ethnos360 Aviation?

 Have you ever felt nervous about a job interview? Were you confident you wanted the job but uncertain what impressions you would leave as you interviewed for the position?

I still remember having similar feelings as David and I interviewed with Ethnos360 Aviation in January of 2019. We had already visited McNeal, Arizona once before and spent a week with the McNeal staff while David worked in the hangar alongside other mechanics. Eight months later, we had added our second child to the family and begun attending the training classes required to apply for membership with the organization. We came for candidate evaluation a little out of the usual order. Most candidates participate in evaluation before they attend the training center in Missouri and then interview for membership.

The Candidate Evaluation week at Ethnos360 Aviation headquarters isn’t a final interview. It is an official part of the interview process before you can become a career missionary employed with Ethnos360 and be assigned to serve within the aviation department. To start an evaluation week, Ethnos360 Aviation leadership at McNeal’s international headquarters spend a few days with the pilots, mechanics, and spouses explaining our ministry vision and purpose. The pilots fly with our instructors and complete specific flight challenges. The mechanics are given tasks to complete and are evaluated on their ability to problem solve, complete the task efficiently and quickly, and resolve the maintenance issue correctly.

In the midst of the meetings and technical evaluation, a candidate spends time getting to know the aviation staff who serve Ethnos360 from McNeal, Arizona. Our staff families, and members in training, are given the option of hosting candidates and their families for lunch or dinner. Many staff host a different family each day. The candidates and their families begin relationships with the men and women who form the “home” team of missionaries and support the global team we send overseas. Relationships are monumental within the body of Christ and candidates are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord willing, we will continue serving his body, the global church, alongside these pilots and mechanics whether they become members of our organization or serve with a different aviation ministry someday.  Our family looks forward to hosting and building these relationships every year. Some years, we make friends we will welcome back to McNeal in a year or two. Sometimes, we make friends we will not see in McNeal but can support through prayer though we do not know a time and place we will fellowship together again.

Our desire is to welcome these candidates with open hearts and arms. We want to see how God is directing their steps in pursuit of aviation ministry and help encourage them on the way. One of the blessings we experience as we host candidates is the opportunity we have to share our viewpoint about the ministry of Ethnos360 and its distinctives. We have the privilege of telling these men and women how God led us through making the decision to join Ethnos360 for our professional career. We enjoy sharing our life experiences and biblical convictions with other believers who carry similar convictions. 

This year, we were able to answer the questions our guest was asking about God’s direction in our choice of ministry. In the process, we were able to encourage this candidate with two assets we appreciate about Ethnos360 Aviation. First, we expressed our appreciation for how God has given our leadership a clear commitment to a stated vision and purpose. Second, we shared how God has guided our leadership to remain faithful to that vision and purpose. We feel privileged to serve with an organization that has not compromised or deviated from the purpose God set before its members. Another quality we appreciate about our organization is the atmosphere of connected community within the teams in each field overseas and here in the US. The members of the aviation department love one another well, and the candidates feel welcomed into that community! What a privilege to be part of this community and ministry team.

Our leadership continually seeks to invite qualified individuals to attend our evaluation and consider joining our team. We need more employees for multiple reasons. Only God knows when a missionary might need to step into a different role. We have coworkers who needed to change their location or even end their career in missions for medical reasons, family needing additional care, visas being denied, a pandemic, or simply because God transitioned them to a different ministry.

One reason we need to increase our staff in McNeal and overseas is that our committed and faithful team includes leaders and members who are well past retirement age. These men and women are capably continuing in their positions of leadership and ministry. Somehow, the positions will need to be filled before the roles become suddenly vacant because God decided to “retire” someone to a home that is not in this world. Our leadership has been diligently pursuing those who need to step into their leadership positions. Transitions have begun. However, every man or woman who steps into a position in leadership on the McNeal staff has to leave the position they were filling previously. Who will step into those roles and fulfill those responsibilities whether in the US or another country?

When David and I came to candidate evaluation, we had already committed to serving in missions for the remainder of our lifetime as God allowed. We already had invested years in training to gain skills and develop qualifications for serving as part of a team of aviation personnel. The candidates we welcome to this evaluation week each January are on a similar journey. They have made decisions to commit to and invest in a lifetime of serving our Savior, Jesus Christ. They have a desire to grow as individuals whose qualifications as a professional (pilot, mechanic, accountant, nurse, teacher, etc) will enable them to partner with other professionals in delivering a message of hope and life. They have followed God’s word in making a commitment to know Jesus and the one who sent him and to tell the world that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father [God] except through me [Jesus].” John 14:6

Will you pray with us for our staff who are involved in recruiting professionals to join our ministry? Will you pray for the candidates who are pursuing the necessary qualifications to join our team? Please pray with us that God will continue to direct our organization and those who are interested in joining the ministry to provide pilots, mechanics, IT personnel, and any other professional whom God might choose as his instrument to reach the unreached people of the world through aviation ministry.

What defines who I am?

 How many times have you had to fill out the “Employer/Job” line on medical paperwork or answer the question, “So what do you do for a living?” I think our culture has a history of valuing work. Often, it can become the part of your life that defines who you are. Identity is defined as “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual” by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. Identity. What defines your character or personality? I have heard another question that seems to pair with our need for something or someone to define our identity. Where do I belong? Is it my job, a sport, my friends or family that define my identity?

Ten years ago, I felt a strange shift in where I found my identity. I left my family, my hometown, the church I had attended since I became a Christian and was baptized, and my job to join my husband in the pursuit of his calling to become an aviation mechanic. I have moved every couple of years since, calling new towns my home. I have made new friends and left them behind or said goodbye as they left me behind. I have three children who were each born in a different state. I lost my place in the church- the way I was used to fitting in and serving others. None of these changes in my life circumstances changed who I was, but it was easy to feel like I had lost my identity.

When I am asked what my job currently is, the technical answer is “I am a missionary with Ethnos360 Aviation.” What is a missionary? Does that mean I live in a country different than the one in which I was born? Do I speak more than one language? Do I spend my time planning evangelistic outreaches, Bible studies, or build wells for poor communities? The truth is my life as a missionary doesn’t happen to have those distinctions. I live in rural Arizona with cows out to pasture right down the road from my house (ok sometimes the cows are ON the road). The only language I speak fluently is English, the language of my passport country. I have never participated in a building project for longer than one week and I don’t provide humanitarian relief or clean water as my typical work responsibilities.

What work does fill my time? I work from home on my computer part-time and function as a stay-at-home homeschool mom full-time. I know planning outreach events, Bible studies, and other programs are activities other moms have time and energy to accomplish in addition to their home and homeschool life. I have found my capacity to be much more limited than my dreams. Each year, I train my children and prepare them to have a little more responsibility and a little more independence in the hope that slowly my capacity to serve outside/beyond my family’s needs at home will increase.

Does who I work for define my identity? Ethnos360 is a non-profit organization with a vision to see a thriving church established in every people group around the world. I work for this organization because I share the vision and believe in the methods this organization chooses to accomplish the vision. However, I am not directly involved in living among an unreached people group to learn their language and culture or providing their supplies and transportation as a pilot and mechanic. I am not teaching the Bible as one continuous story written and preserved by God to people who have never heard from the Bible in their own language before. I am not translating God's word into the heart language of another ethnic group so they can understand God's word clearly. What distinction of character or personality can I derive from who I work for?

Do I even qualify as a missionary or a church planter with Ethnos360? Do I belong within an aviation ministry? Is this ministry, this job what defines me or give me a place to belong? The answer is NO. My identity cannot be found in what I do for a living or who I work for. My identity cannot be defined by the way I participate in a church program like VBS or what Bible study I lead. My identity does not come from my friends, my family, or my hometown. My identity has to be placed in someone or something constant and unchanging. My life is a good example of all the changes that can disrupt the way you view your identity. I have to look for my identity outside of myself and my changing circumstances. 

I'm learning to look to God for my identity. I trust what the Bible says about my identity because it is God's very words recorded to reveal who God is to mankind. The Bible says a lot about identity. I have learned that I was created by God. God gave me life and purpose. God established the way to work and the way to rest from work. The Bible also teaches that I was chosen by God and adopted into his family. I belong to God. I belong with God. Jesus Christ traded his life for my life so that I could belong in God's family.   I don't have to wonder about where I belong or what my identity is in because my identity is defined by God, not me. God is constant and unchanging. He chose to identify me as his own. His beloved child. 

I still get confused and try to define my identity by what I do or which group I belong to. But when I bring my thoughts back to the truth of what God says about my identity, I don't have anxiety, stress, and emptiness anymore. I don't feel the pressure to belong or try to fit in. I don't have to prove my worth and demand my rights. I am who God says I am: valued, loved, priceless, HIS. Are you?

Beautiful Wings

 The kids and I sometimes sing the classic song, "One in the bed and the little one said, "Roll over!" Do you remember how that song goes? 

At the end of this counting song, the "little one" who keeps announcing that the others should roll over finds himself or herself all alone in the bed. I normally think that final verse is a triumphant declaration that the "little one" enjoys no longer sharing the bed with all the others. In McNeal, our staff often feels a little of that transition as the team "rolls over" one family after another to fields of service overseas. Our staff at the international headquarters in McNeal has welcomed an average of three families for the past several years. Families arrive in late August for orientation and most families complete their training within nine months. Some pilots are invited to complete additional training as a helicopter pilot once their fixed-wing training is complete.

Our family has been able to rejoice with three families each of the last two years as they completed training and raised the needed financial support to move to their field assignment overseas. We recently enjoyed a sermon from Acts 12 in which the church which Barnabas and Saul (Paul) served as teachers and leaders were given the instruction to send these men on God's mission, to bring the gospel to those who had not yet heard. The pastor recognized the hard task of investing in the life of another for the purpose of sending them to bear fruit somewhere else.  Every time another family becomes a part of our lives and leaves for another field of ministry, a part of our hearts travels with them.

This month, we celebrate the one year anniversary of dear friends arriving in the Philippines. We miss the Thursday morning playdates and deep conversations about parenting.  A few weeks before, another family arrived in Papua New Guinea to join five other families - all of whom completed training and began serving the field within the last three years. These are pilots and mechanics who worked side by side with David every day. These are moms who homeschooled their kindergarteners alongside Allison and cheered when Joelle learned to enjoy reading. These are the "best" friends with whom we celebrate birthdays in person now and then we let go and let them meet new best friends.

Each summer we let go and each fall we open our hearts again knowing that it will be worth the investment. It isn't easy being called to be a "sender", a trainer, a mentor. It isn't easy being a youth leader, a coach, a teacher, a parent, a pastor.  It would be easier to focus on the tasks of the training and leave out the part in which we share lives, dreams, faith, hope, and love. If we live like that, we will miss out on the rich privilege God has given us: to be part of his family, a temple made of living stones (1 Peter 2). If we close our hearts to the people God brings into ministry through training with Ethnos360 Aviation, we will miss the privilege of praying for these pilots and mechanics, their wives, their children. 

We are joining together in the spiritual war of advancing on enemy territory with the good news about freedom from sin and darkness.   David and I are reading with our kids through the book of Romans. In chapter 10, Paul writes, "But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?  And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”  Our teammates are traveling to places that are extremely difficult to reach by foot, but the fruit of their labor is still very beautiful. What a privilege to partner with them and encourage these families as we send them to bring good news so many can call on and believe in our Savior, Jesus.

So when the end of this year's training comes and we face another "roll over" of graduates in May and new families in August, we will still open our hearts and our homes to the people God sends through McNeal to the ends of the earth. Why? Because Jesus is worthy and we want to see "a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb". Together, we will worship Jesus who has been with us through every transition we have faced and has never left us singing alone.