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Imagine that today was the day you saw a car for the first time.

Imagine that you wanted a mobile phone service but would have to pay about £1,500 just for the SIM card.

Imagine today was the day you first saw a TV – an event so huge that your entire village came out to watch.

For Mimi, these things have only happened in the last 12 years!

‘My life was very, very hard,’ says 24-year-old Mimi. ‘Early in the morning, I’d wake up and go to the river to get water – 20 minutes there and back.

‘After that, we’d run to the school. We’d come back around 3pm, then go to the river again. Every day!

‘I’m the eldest in the family, so I also had to cook for my brother and sister. Sometimes I needed to feed the pig, the cow and the chickens. That was Monday to Friday.

‘On Saturday, early in the morning, we carried the water from the river again, then worked in the field to help our parents. The only time we had to study was at night. That’s how I spent my childhood.’

Lailenpi is located in a region called Chin State, the poorest and most difficult to access of all Myanmar’s states. Pipes now bring water from the river to central points in the village. Although this removes the need for a

F I G H T I N G F O R E D U C AT I O N I N M YA N M A R

long walk to the river, there’s still no water in people’s homes.

Mimi is only one of 3 students in a class of 90 to graduate from grade 10. ‘Many parents cannot support their children’s education, so some of the children drop away at middle school. It’s too expensive.’

Mimi is studying for her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Shillong in India with the financial help of Health and Hope, an organisation started by Dr Sasa, one of her own people.

She’s the first in her family to go to university, but it has been difficult. When Mimi began, the classes were in English

– a language she’d never heard before reaching India.

‘I didn’t understand. I just sat in class, but then after two or three months, I somehow came to understand. That’s how I learned the English language, but it’s still very difficult for me.’

When Mimi graduates, she hopes to return to Lailenpi and teach high school science.

‘Here, people are uneducated. I love my village too much. If God blesses me and I graduate, I want to live in Lailenpi and help my people as much as I can.’

Because teachers from the cities don’t want to live in a place as remote as Lailenpi, the villagers’ education continues to be neglected.

This is one of many reasons why MAF is planning on opening a programme in Myanmar to provide air access to places such as Lailenpi.

We believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to receive a good education, a medical lifeline, and a way out of poverty. Everyone should have the chance to dream big.

‘I know the trip is very, very long and difficult, and very hard to reach here,’ explains Mimi. ‘But if the plane is here, it would be so wonderful and amazing – a real life-saver.’

2 MAF Youth E-Magazine 2016 www.maf-uk.org/youth

T H I S P R O J E C T WA S F U N D E D W I T H U K A I D F R O M T H E B R I T I S H P E O P L E

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in which we become more Christian along the way.

This means that, at the beginning of our walk with Jesus, we’re still likely to have parts of our old self in the mix, waiting to be changed. This can be old behaviours, sins, habits or ways of thinking.

O L D v s N E WMAF’s pilots and personnel often come into contact with communities that still embrace old religious or tribal practices such as the worshipping of ancestors, alongside their new-found Christianity.

In some ways, it’s a particularly vivid example of how the old self can and does mix with the new – a problem that’s not confined to people living in developing countries. In the West, we often have our own hang ups – including the love of money and material things.

INSTEAD OF IT BEING A WRESTLING MATCH, KNOWLEDGE AND EXPRESSION SHOULD BE ON THE SAME TEAM BECAUSE THEY COMPLIMENT EACH OTHER!

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T H E C R U X O F I TBecause God is knowable, it’s possible to get so obsessed with knowing about Him that we lose sight of how to express our worship to Him. It sounds odd, but it’s true.

Flip it round and you have the opposite problem – super-expressive worship to a God we may know little about. Neither situation is very healthy!

On the one hand, knowledge can be seen as something that makes us proud (1 Corinthians 8:1) but on the other, how can we worship a God of whom we’ve never heard (Romans 10:14)?

In other words, how can we worship someone we know little or nothing about?

E N C O U R A G I N G Y E T R E A LMany of the communities MAF serves have the beginnings of a church, which is really exciting! To see isolated communities coming to know Jesus is so encouraging, but there are issues – as there are for any new Christian – that still need to be worked through.

M O R E C H R I S T I A NBecoming like Jesus is hardly an overnight experience. When we become a Christian, from then on there’s a sense

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The way we break out of our old ways is through the Holy Spirit helping us to know Jesus more and love Him more through what we discover about Him in His Word.

Y E S T O K N O W L E D G E , B U T…So knowledge is important, yes!

Knowledge about Jesus is essential to us in preventing our non-Christian

attitudes from existing alongside our more biblically based beliefs.

Unfortunately, it’s really easy to go over the top with this knowledge thing.

The Pharisees in the New Testament were a graphic example of religious people who knew about God, but didn’t really know Him. If they had, they would have known that Jesus was God.

In a similar way, it’s possible for us to also go overboard. We can end up knowing about God without really knowing Him – becoming like the Pharisees who were cold, hard-hearted and failed to express love to either God or man.

So where’s the sweet spot, and what’s the key to finding it?

Unfortunately, this would be a whole lot easier if we were perfect and holy, but we’re not there (yet).

W H E R E D O E S E X P R E S S I O N F I T T H E N ?A helpful thing to remember in all this is that what we know about God should inform or inspire our expression of worship!

Instead of it being a wrestling match, knowledge and expression should be on the same team because they’re supposed to complement one another!

It’s the knowledge of God that should be the petrol that fuels the car of expressive praise and worship to Him.

G I V E I T A G O !So, the next time you’re in a time of sung worship, think about all the things you know to be true about God and begin thanking Him for them. Ask the Holy Spirit to cause those truths to warm your heart towards God.

This should hopefully help you to ignite and engage in informed worship and a truly meaningful expression of worship to God!

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F O R T H E K I N G D O M O F G O D I S N O T A M AT T E R O F E AT I N G A N D D R I N K I N G B U T O F R I G H T E O U S N E S S A N D P E A C E A N D J O Y I N T H E H O LY S P I R I TR O M A N S / / 14 : 1 7

LAILENPI // MYANMAR

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W H E N M A F Y O U T H M E T // K A N C H A N A G A M A G E

W H O A R E Y O U T H E N ?I’m Kanchana Gamage and I’m the founder of The Aviatrix project.

W H AT I S T H E A V I AT R I X P R O J E C T ?We go into schools, colleges and universities to try and encourage and inspire young people about aviation.

We work particularly with girls, but also with boys; we want to encourage young people to take science, maths and technology subjects for A-Levels and GCSEs.

We have engineers, pilots and air traffic controllers who go into schools to speak to young people.

W H AT C A U S E D Y O U T O S TA R T I T U P P R O J E C T ? I’ve worked in lots of different schools as a teacher and a head teacher, and I remember working with young people — particularly with girls who would say, ‘I can’t do that’ or ‘That’s not the sort of thing that girls do’.

The role models they have in the media are fantastic, but girls and boys have never even thought about being a pilot or air traffic controller. It’s not something that society shows as an accessible career for them.

Knowing how life-changing it is to learn to fly, I really wanted to give that to young people.

My two passions are aviation and education, so this is a great way to put the two together.

H O W L O N G H A S T H E A V I AT R I X P R O J E C T B E E N R U N N I N G ? It’s our sixth month! Yep, it’s that new!

A N Y S U C C E S S S T O R I E S S O F A R ?We have visited 65 schools since 1 November 2015!

For me, it’s not necessarily about the number of schools – it’s about the number of young people we can inspire.

It’s great getting emails from parents and young people, after I’ve visited, to say how inspired they are – not necessarily to be a pilot but to go for their dreams and go to university, try something different, or maybe join a science club.

W H AT C A N T H E P R O J E C T O F F E R Y O U N G A N D A S P I R I N G P I L O T S ?We’ve got seven young people at the moment, who are being mentored by EasyJet and British Airways pilots in applying and starting flight training. The parents are very much involved in that as well.

There’s scope to meet commercial pilots, to really find out what it’s like.

H O W D I D Y O U G E T I N T O F LY I N G ?I grew up in Sri Lanka. My dad was in aviation, so we were always around

Colombo Airport. I grew up thinking how much I’d love to fly across oceans.

It took quite a long time for me to save up to get my Private Pilots Licence and the other ratings. But that’s where it came from. It was a childhood dream.

A N Y P A R T I C U L A R I N S P I R AT I O N S ?Yeah. I’m inspired by both Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson who are both really famous, but there are lots of others – male and female aviators.

I read about MAF pilots too, who are flying in some incredible places around the world.

So it’s not necessarily just people, but different stories that inspire me to take up adventures.

W H AT ’ S T H E S T O R Y B E H I N D H O W Y O U B E C A M E A C H R I S T I A N ?I grew up as a Christian, but it wasn’t until I was 21 that I really came to know Jesus, have a relationship with Him and really live the life that I live now.

W H AT D O Y O U L O V E A B O U T M A F ?I just think it’s incredible. Not just because you’re able to fly to these amazing places around the world, but because you help people in those places to get to know God.

That’s an incredible thing to do, so it’s a privilege to partner with MAF.

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TA C K L I N G V I O L E N C E I N M A R S A B I TAs Euro 2016 will soon be upon us, along with the anticipation of whether the English side will actually bring back a good result, here’s an opportunity to see how football can be used as a brilliant tool to help communities!

We recently had the amazing privilege of flying Kerri Kelly, GOAL Kenya’s Country Director, to Marsabit. She’d been working in Kenya since October last year and joined us for a second flight to visit her colleagues in the north of the country.

GOAL is an incredible charity that began in 1977 on the streets of the cultural hotspot of Calcutta, India, and it has grown to serve 50 countries worldwide!

It’s the goal of GOAL (smooth) to make sure that the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, those who are most affected by humanitarian crises, get access to their most basic needs – food, shelter, water, sanitation, healthcare and education.

In 1983, GOAL’s work reached Kenya in response to the drought that struck the Horn of Africa and the increase in people seeking refuge there.

As part of a project called Integrated Action to End Child Violence, GOAL has been addressing the issues surrounding violence against children in Marsabit. So, once Kerri was safely delivered by MAF aircraft, we were able to see the project in action.

Although the protection and empowerment of young people is just one of a number of aspects to GOAL’s work, it’s an extremely vital one!

On this occasion, teamwork was used

P R AY ! P R AY ! P R AY !• A S M A F C O N T I N U E S T O

M A K E P L A N S T O S TA R T A P R O G R A M M E I N M YA N M A R , P R AY W E W I L L H AV E W I S D O M , S E N S I T I V I T Y A N D FAV O U R I N H A N D L I N G T H E VA R I O U S P R O C E S S E S N E C E S S A R Y T O S E T I T U P.

• C O N T I N U E P R AY I N G F O R O U R W O R K I N N E PA L . I T ’ S B E E N A L I T T L E O V E R A Y E A R S I N C E T H E E A R T H Q U A K E S T O O K P L A C E A N D M A F B E C A M E I N V O LV E D I N D I S A S T E R R E S P O N S E . P R AY F O R T H O S E W H O A R E S T I L L R E B U I L D I N G T H E I R L I V E S .

• P R AY F O R T H E W O R K O F G O A L I N K E N YA A N D B E YO N D. M AY T H E O R G A N I S AT I O N C O N T I N U E T O S E E T H E P O S I T I V E T R A N S F O R M AT I O N O F T H E C O M M U N I T I E S T H E Y S E R V E T H R O U G H O U T T H E W O R L D.

• W E ’ R E E X C I T E D A B O U T O U R PA R T N E R S H I P W I T H T H E AV I AT R I X P R O J E C T ! P L E A S E P R AY T H AT G O D W I L L B L E S S O U R I N V O LV E M E N T. P R AY T O O F O R C O N T I N U E D S U C C E S S F O R K A N C H A N A A N D AV I AT R I X .

• M A F U K S TA F F M E M B E R J O E Y R E D H E A D H A S J U S T M O V E D T O PA P U A N E W G U I N E A T O B E G I N W O R K I N G W I T H M A F T E C H N O LO G Y S E R V I C E S . P R AY H E S E T T L E S I N W E L L A N D F E E L S AT H O M E .

• W E ’ D LO V E P R AY E R F O R O U R E V E N T S T E A M O V E R T H E N E X T F E W M O N T H S A S W E ’ L L B E AT T E N D I N G B I G C H U R C H D AY O U T, S O U L S U R V I V O R A N D C R E AT I O N F E S T. P R AY F O R M O R E P E O P L E T O B E I N T E R E S T E D A N D I N S P I R E D B Y M A F ’ S W O R K .

to bring the community together to empower its members to address violence against 16- to 23-year-olds. In this instance, as part of that tactic, GOAL put on a 3-day football tournament which involved 320 young people!

‘We had a lot of fun during the tournament,’ says Jamal Toshe, who was one of the team captains, ‘and I’m so happy my team won. Some of the young men have been involved in or witnessed several cases of violence in our local community. So the messages we received during the matches have really taught us a lot.’

Violence caused by increasing levels of poverty, unemployment and idleness among Marsabit’s youth has a profoundly negative impact on all areas of life there, which is why GOAL is equipping young people with the tools to address violence effectively and resolve conflicts peaceably. Being able to not only witness this but to also be part of it has been incredible!

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