The circle began on September 9, 2019

It started with a shudder. A muffled bang. Then silence.

Three feet in front of me, the crankshaft had snapped in two. The propeller spun freely—no power. Oil pressure dropped to zero. A red light flashed. We were gliding.

To our left, volcanic ridges and valleys. To the right, a flat, sandy expanse—deceptively calm, but deadly. We banked right, toward what we hoped was salvation.

What we didn’t know then was that our Cessna was descending into a place sparsely inhabited, a place caught in a cycle of isolation, violence, and revenge. No churches for miles. But that was about to change.

Sarah, the other pilot flying N827DG, walks towards the helicopter that flew us out of the valley.

We touched down hard, swerving to avoid bushes and dunes. No fire. We were upright. We were alive.
Three hours later, we locked up the plane and climbed into a rescue helicopter. Two pilots, our patient on a stretcher, and two of her relatives—all squeezed in. As we lifted off, church leaders were already calling relatives in the valley below, asking, “Is the airplane okay?” “Yes,” they were told. “Let’s check.”

The next day, pastors arrived. The Cessna was intact. But the real discovery was the people. No longer just warriors and herders—there were families, children, entire villages. But no churches.

“We think the airplane came down to show us all the people who live here,” one pastor said. “They need a church!”

A pastor named John and two other pastors began the journey—riding down into the valley every Sunday to teach about Jesus. A year later, we returned. An elder greeted us:

“I remember when your airplane came down. We couldn’t believe what we saw. People had come out of the plane and was walking around. They were not injured. There’s no place here for a plane to land. We said, ‘They must have a big God.’”

In 2023, AIM AIR hosted a missions conference in our hangar. Thirty-five churches came. One elder from a large church asked us to hold a similar event in Eldoret. We didn’t know how to organize it easily—but they did it themselves and invited us.

That event brought together leaders from the same dangerous Suguta Valley. As we talked, my friend, Pastor David asked me, “Why can’t these church leaders come to Korr and see what’s happening here?”

The drive from the Pokot tribal area to Rendille tribal area takes two days—backtracking almost to Nairobi, then turning north again. But by air? Just 70 minutes.

On May 31, 2025, David’s ministry, Tirrim Trust, celebrated a milestone: 204 Rendille adults graduated from the adult literacy program. Many had spent years learning under the training trees. Some took weeks just to learn how to hold a pencil. Most were women—mothers and daughters who had missed school to care for family.

Now, they could read. They could help their children. They could read God’s Word.

“When I started to read Mark,” shared Nareyo, a Tirrim literacy alumnus, “I saw—this God is not like the Rendille god. This God is kind. This God loves His people.”

Usually, we fly representatives from Nairobi churches to Korr for the ceremony. This year, we changed it up. David invited a friend from the Kenyan government—Josphat, a cabinet member responsible for marginalized communities. He’s also from a nomadic tribe – the Turkana.

We sent a second airplane to pick up the bishop from Pokot and his wife. “Nomads helping nomads,” David said. “It’s nice when southern Kenyans help, but they don’t know what it’s like to be a nomad. If nomads can learn from each other, that’s best.”

Josphat agreed:
“Today, I’ve seen a model that works. We can replicate this in many areas.”

The Pokot bishop brought someone else: Pastor John—the same John who rode two and a half hours every Sunday to the site where we crash-landed. Now, for the first time, he saw nomadic churches transforming communities through literacy and faith.

There’s a forgotten art of flying, called pilotage. It combines knowing where you think you are on the map and matching it to the scenery below you. Modern satellite navigation systems have mostly made this skill obsolete, however, it can avert disaster at AIM AIR.  

A few years ago one of our Cessna 206 airplanes stopped producing electrical energy to charge the battery. The pilot, flying over the swamps of South Sudan, knew he was hours from the capital city and decided to power off as much equipment as he could, including the GPS. He flew most of the way back using his compass, watch, and pilotage. 

Fortunately, he could readily turn to and follow the  world’s longest river, the Nile. 

A view from an AIM AIR Cessna Caravan of the Nile flowing out of Lake Victoria

If a pilot becomes lost, they look for a major landmark on their map, such as the Nile River, and turn towards that. They can get their bearings from there they know where to turn to find their destination. Using this old technique, a single flight becomes a series of course corrections from point to point plotted on the map. 

As a missionary we want to follow God’s course. Sometimes we wake up and realize we don’t see anything familiar to what we had mapped out. God needs to be our reference point. Sometimes the river of where He is working  bends as it flows over this land. If we hope to land at our destination, we need to follow that reference point.  

I myself have been momentarily ”lost” while pursuing God’s call. On several occasions in the past four years, it seemed AIM AIR’s role in mission work may be winding down. Over 90% of our flying is for missionaries coming from the developed world. Yet we know that the center of gravity for missions is shifting. More and more missionaries are coming from the Global South.  

We became so focused on keeping the old model going that we began drifting off course. We became limited in what we would do; worried about protecting our little corner of missions.  

I noticed a clue we were off course 12 years ago. A seasoned American missionary asked the question that haunts me to this day. “Why are you driving with us all the way up here [into a remote region of South Sudan] to survey an airstrip? We won’t be putting any western missionaries in this location.” 

The river was bending. 

Course Correction in 2022: AIM AIR can serve our missionaries?

There seems to be a growing desire among influential churches here in Nairobi, Kenya to get involved in missions.  

I learned that middle class Kenyans and westerners have more in common than I thought. Time is precious to both groups and they both share deep seated concern about traveling into the unknown. Especially when the unknown is a harsh desert in the rural parts of Kenya or the undeveloped areas of South Sudan. The difference is most Westerners are aware of the role of the missions aviation ministry. Many of the Kenyan church leaders I’ve talked to had no idea we existed nor that we were here to serve their missionaries and missions initiatives. 

I asked several church leaders if they knew of a missions conference in Kenya that crossed denominations. In the US we have a massive event around New Year’s called Urbana. However here in Kenya none of the church leader could think of an equivalent. The wheels started spinning. 

AIM AIR had a hangar which could serve as a large space to meet. As a bonus, the airplanes on display could spark interest. Maybe church leaders and missions pastors would catch the missions vision. 

Course Correction 2023: Mabawa Ya Injili 

We invited 70 churches from a dozen denominations to attend our mini missions conference in the hangar last March. 35 churches sent representatives. 

The airplanes and a sightseeing flight may have drawn them in, but it was the joy of hearing Kenyan missionaries that fueled their enthusiasm. Many beamed! They had no idea that this kind of work was going on around them. 

We called the event: Mabawa Ya Injili – a swahili phrase which literally means Wings of the Gospel. The event sparked something, and it started growing.  

 A few months later, in February, a large church in Eldoret Kenya, called AIC Fellowship launched their inaugural missions conference. 

Course Correction 2024: Missions Mkononi / Mabawa Ya Injili 

AIC Fellowship was founded in the 1940s, and today has a congregation in the thousands attending every Sunday.  They extended an invitation to 400 churches in the Eldoret area. They invited an AIM Missionary to be one of the Keynote speakers. They also invited the AIM AIR Mabawa Ya Injili team to attend. 

The two-day missions conference culminated with several of us sitting under the stars.  

We sat enthralled as the missions chairman proposed a bold plan: to send 10 missionaries to the Silale region within the year. The region is known as a hotbed of violence. Youth from the area have attacked neighboring tribes and even the police forces.  

Civil servants admitted they knew this area was a problem. They also admitted that a government only solution would likely end in more bloodshed. Various stakeholders stepped up. Christian business leaders proposed ways they could share profits or come up with innovative strategies to care for the missionaries. They were united in believing that the good news of Jesus must go to Silale.  

I struggled to know what to say when it was my turn to speak, but the enthusiasm from those gathered was infectious. 

The chairman started saying a phrase after every speaker ended: “Missions mkononi, Mabawa ya Injili (missions in hand, wings of the gospel).” 

In addition, a number of members admitted that wasn’t enough to just send missionaries.  We needed to care for them too.  

I had witnessed Kenyan missionaries who had lost loved ones due to a treatable disease, but were unable to reach a hospital. Others shared how insecurity related stress and anxiety affected them. They shared how they felt  being so far from home.  

If the community would build an airstrip, we would make every effort to be there if their lives (or their children’s lives) were in danger. 

I don’t want to leave you discouraged with some of the challenges I mentioned.

We’ve also been on the front lines, have seen some God sized wins in our ministry, and I wanted to pass this on so we can celebrate together.

One of the big ones was an opportunity to evacuate several missionaries and also some local families that were fleeing from the chaos in Khartoum. We were able to pick them up right near the border and bring them down home or down into Uganda, where they caught international flight and were able to arrive home safely.

Another big win was the event that happened in March. We called it Mabawa Ya Injili, which is Swahili for Wings of the Gospel and using the attractiveness of airplanes – everybody wants to come and be up close and personal with airplanes. About 35 churches came represented by missions, pastors or senior pastors and the bishops gave their blessing for this to happen. So it’s very encouraging to see them coming here. Some firsthand reports from Kenyan missionaries and Kenyan pastors that work and some really remote areas. I’m excited to be able to be, you know, a small part of that just hosting that event so more churches could catch the vision of sending missionaries or sending teams out to encourage missionaries in this area. Very few Nairobians know what life is like outside the city when you talk about the desert up in the north or to the east or South Sudan. In fact, we’re hoping to repeat an event next year and this time we’re going to partner with other parts of AIM who are working on mobilizing churches as well. So I’m excited to see where God takes us.

Another win was an RMS Trip (Remote Missionary Support). This is where we send some of our team on trips to support missionaries on the ground. And usually it’s been technical assistance, things like putting solar wiring up and panels and getting electricity in someone’s house. In fact, I was on a trip back in March and we were able to switch the lights on after about four days or five days on the ground. This is the first time this Kenyan missionary couple had ever had electricity since they moved up there seven years ago. So it was really exciting to be a part of that.

But this time, just back in August, we sent a team that wasn’t technical, instead it was counselors from our sister department called AIM Care and they went to do a team debrief for a team that had tragically lost one of their missionaries who passed away unexpectedly. But it was so cool to be able to see AIM Care and AIM AIR working together to make that trip happen and be able to do a debrief on location in the remote parts of South Sudan.

Finally, one of the unexpected wins that I didn’t think I would never hear myself saying. But it’s been opportunities to develop relationships with other people in the aviation industry here and and especially with the Kenyan government. It’s been something that God’s grown in my heart to be a part of. And the meetings are kind of long and interesting. It’s been a chance for me to represent not only AM AIR or mission work, but also the Gospel as well. And I just really enjoy that opportunity and inviting some of my Kenyan coworkers to come along and be able to have a chance to share as well.

By the time you get this video, hopefully there’ll be one more win we can share. Right now we’re in the process of organizing food relief to go to eastern Kenya. There’s been about 7000 people in this community where we’ve had a missionary for about 36 years now, they’ve been cut off from roads because of El Nino and all the extremely high amounts of rain have eroded a lot of the roads there. We’re hoping to deliver about five tons of food by the end of this week so that they have nutrition as a community. And if the weather patterns don’t improve, then we might have to do another five tons later on too. Hopefully the food delivery will happen without too many problems. But I wanted to give you a preemptive win to celebrate with us.

Thanks so much. We appreciate you praying for us and want you to be encouraged by some of these reports.

As I mentioned, we’re moving past the financial challenges that we had 3 years ago. This is a huge praise item! This year AIM AIR will be on really good footing financially. But we’ve had other challenges this year. I think God gives us just a little bit at a time, which I appreciate.

One of our big challenges this year was some struggles with the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority. We have an avionics repair station that allows us to do electrical work on our aircraft. It’s approved by the FAA. However, we’re not getting approvals this year from the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority. We’ve had some misunderstandings and disagreements about how to move forward. We could really use your prayer for wisdom on this. It’s left us high and dry as far as being able to fix our aircraft with electrical issues. We’re having to contract that out to another shop, but we’d love to be able to do it in our hangar again.

The other challenge is one of our Cessna Caravans was struck by lightning about four or five months ago in South Sudan. Fortunately everybody’s okay. We had the engine sent to Canada to the manufacturer. They just gave us a bill. It’s about $410,000. We’re trying to figure out what insurance is going to cover. We will hopefully be able to get some of that help from the insurance company, but we need prayer as far as the best way forward if we overhaul the engine or perhaps change it out for a different engine altogether. Those are some of the challenges we face for this year.

Hi everybody! I’m on my way back from Lokichogio, up in the northern part of Kenya, to the town of Lodwar – traveling with an AIM AIR colleague Starline in a taxi.

We were just visiting some friends in Loki and also had some meetings at the airport and in town to talk about how AIMAIR is doing up here and explore ideas for the future. So hopefully there’ll be some updates to share on that soon. The meetings went very well, and we were able to connect with a lot of good people and get some new ideas and a good sense of where things are going. And if there’s opportunities for AIM AIR to be based out of Loki in the future at some point. We’re going to take a flight from Lodwar back to Nairobi this afternoon.

It’s the 6th of January –  we’re into the new year of 2024. I just wanted to preface the videos coming up that were done shortly before Christmas. Unfortunately I didn’t get them done in time to share with you before Christmas. We have some updates I wanted to share with you from last year and just appreciate your prayers for us and also encouragement and  financial support that allows us to be out here using aviation as a tool for ministry in places like northern Kenya and in South Sudan.

Thanks so much appreciate each of you and we’ll roll the next video now.

Merry Christmas. We’re going to give you our highlights for the year in seven short-ish videos.

As you might remember, in 2020, I accepted the role of General Manager and it’s been a great learning lesson for me. And I felt God had us go into that role specifically to develop his work through us and in us.
And so I’ve learned a lot, and a lot of that work initially was just financial survival for AIM AIR. As you remember with COVID, we stopped a lot of flying that we were normally doing a lot of our flying for expatriate missionaries coming to Kenya stopped when people weren’t traveling here.

Without flights we struggled to pay our bills.

But God provided through many of you and we were able to find some key financial partners to help us get through those years.

And the exciting thing now is we’ve started a renewed partnership with our A.I.M. U.S. office, and they have hired somebody who we know and love who is going to walk alongside us in that fundraising initiative, which is a huge relief for me as my plate has been filling up with other things and the fundraising parts of it are often pushed to the side. So I’m grateful to have some help on this and I’m grateful for where God is taking AIM AIR into the future.