The Long Road to MAF- Part 3

September 8, 2017 Grant Strugnell

Back to the hut on the hill

On 30 March, 2015, Jane Marie Strugnell was born. As expected, she became the focus of our lives from the moment she was born. We spent all our time and energy learning how to look after her, how to change our normal routines to fit around this new and infinitely important being in our lives.

It’s recommended, for good reason, that you shouldn’t enter the mission field immediately after you get married. We took this to heart, knowing that Emily and I needed to work on our relationship and life together before we started thinking how our lives would reach outward into the world. We felt very strongly that the same should be true after having a child, specifically a first child. We needed to focus on her, and the rest of our lives just kind of rolled on by as we grew and adapted to life as a family.

I enjoyed the flight at the flight school, but needed to use it for something more

By mid 2016, however, we started to feel something changing. I was still a trustee of the charity that ran Pulane Children’s Centre, and knew that Jill, the director, was getting to a stage where she wanted to retire and start taking things a little more easy. With that in mind, and being at a point where I was growing weary of working in a corporate flight training setting, we began to feel more open to what might be next.

After suggesting to Jill that we would be willing to move to Lesotho for a few months, (I should have learned by now), she was supportive and happy to have the help. Our idea of being there to support her soon changed when she announced that she was stepping-down so that I could take over as director. Huh, Maybe I should have seen that coming.

Our truck fully loaded heading to Pulane

We were excited by this, rather than afraid. The chance to step-in and keep PCC going strong was energizing. The idea, still, was to do this for a set amount of time. We wanted to make sure that when Jane needed formal schooling, we were in a place that could happen.

One of the planes at the MAF Lesotho hanger when we visited to do our interview

One night, laying awake in our hut on the mountain, thinking deep thoughts about life, I found myself thinking again about MAF. And if I was honest with myself, that was what I really wanted to do in the long-term. The way I understood things, MAF USA and MAF South Africa were part of the same overall company, but they were responsible for different projects. Years before this, I had assumed that as I would have to go through MAF SA, that meant I wouldn’t be able to work at the Lesotho base. This, coupled with my desire to serve in Lesotho, meant that I had just about pushed all possibility of MAF out of mind.

But, I thought, why not just send them and e mail and see if it would be possible to at least try apply to the Lesotho project.

The e mail I got in response essentially said Sure, why not? The HR department in SA spoke with the fine folks in the US HR department, and said that theres no reason why MAF SA couldn’t lend me to MAF US.

This changed everything

Having worked in Lesotho so long, I had developed a love for the country, the mountains, and the people. I had seen firsthand the struggles they faced. I wanted to do something to help, in a practical and lasting way. Pulane Children’s Centre was part of that, but the dream of using my flying to help others, and specifically in Lesotho, was an opportunity I couldn’t turn away from. As a family, we chose, instead, to run toward it.

We started the MAF application process in December 2016, about 11 years after I first applied. In September 2017 we heard that we were accepted! And that’s were we are today.

The path ahead

One thing we want to make sure is clear, is that we are committed to Pulane Children’s Centre, and the move to MAF is made even more perfect in that we will be able to remain as the directors of the work at PCC, even if we are not living on-site. We have been working at PCC to set things up to run smoothly with the local Basotho managers in charge. They do a great job and fill us with more and more confidence each day. We know they can keep PCC going strong, with us providing them with the tools they need to do that. We are also moving forward with MAF preparations. This involves support-raising and training. Support-raising starts now, and training is scheduled for January 2018 in the USA.

The road for me to get to MAF has been a long one, requiring lots of patience. Looking back, I know that when I was 20 years-old, I wasn’t ready for that. But now, with Emily standing strong at my side, and Jane helping us keep perspective on what’s important, we are ready and excited for life with MAF Lesotho!

The Long Road to MAF- Part 2

September 5, 2017 Grant Strugnell

My treasure in a field

In 2008, while still working in Semonkong, a small group of American volunteers come to spend a few months at the Children’s Centre. One of the guys, also named Grant (but pronounced the American way), became a good friend of mine. When he left, he invited me to visit the USA.

In 2009 I was able to do that.

I arrived a few days before November in Salt Lake City, Utah, to spend a month doing a little fundraising for PCC, and also having some time off. On Halloween, Grant invited me to his house to hang out and watch a movie. Oh, and he invited his friend Emily too, was that ok with me?

As it turns out, it was more than ok with me

My first visit to Minnesota once we were dating.

That was the first time I saw Emily. And nothing groundbreaking happened that night. Our eyes didn’t lock in realization that we had both found our soulmate. But what did happen is that the foundation of our friendship formed in the joint activity of avoiding Halloween costume parties.

During that month in the USA, I spent time with Emily, and we started building our friendship. At the end of the month I left, as planned, and returned half a world away to Africa.

We kept in touch, and we didn’t grow apart. Things stayed on a friendship level for around 2 years. Through our continued connection as friends, I joyfully opened up an email from Emily one day to read the words OK, I’m confused about our relationship.

And she said it in a way that made my face light up. I had hoped for this to happen. I had thought of Emily for a long time as my treasure in a field. Jesus talks about a parable where a man find something of great value hidden in a field, and he goes out, sells all he has, so that he can buy the field. Emily felt like my treausre.

We started dating and from there things moved fast. During this same time, I decided to redirect my focus to flying, and accepted a position at a new flight school as a senior instructor pilot. Living in South Africa, earning a salary, and having a slightly more normal life, allowed Emily and I to develop our relationship and get married, which we did in 2012.

Lucky for me, Emily followed me to South Africa, having left her job in campus ministry a few months earlier.

We began our married life in Oudtshoorn, South Africa, where I worked at the flight school, and Emily adapted to life in Africa.

We knew at that stage that we wanted to move into mission-type work sometime in our lives. We didn’t know when, but it was something that stayed in the back of our minds.

I would still think about MAF from time to time, but I felt that I had an attachment to Lesotho, and if I served anywhere, I would ideally like to go there. MAF Lesotho fell under the US program, and if I applied to MAF SA, Lesotho wasn’t an option. Or so I thought.

Keep reading for part 3

The Long Road to MAf- Part 1

September 3, 2017 Grant Strugnell

Young and unaware

When I was a young pilot, just 20 years old, I was driving around the back streets of Lanseria Airport in Johannesburg, trying to get a sense of what companies were out there and where I could drop off my resumé.

That’s when I first learned about MAF.

Being young and full of wide-eyed optimism, I applied to MAF. Over the next few months I went through all the stages of application and testing, not quite thinking what I would do if MAF actually accepted me as a pilot.

As it turned out, they did. When that day arrived, the CEO of MAF said to me ‘Ok, we want you in MAF, but are you sure you’re up for this?’

This was probably the first time that question was real to me. I was 20 years old. Was I up for this?

This, at the time, would have been Papua New Guinea, a world away from everyone and everything I knew. Through some advice from people who care for me, and many days spent pondering what to do, the decision at that time of my life had to be No.

‘No,’ I’m not ready to go deep into the jungle, flying in an extremely dangerous environment, away from everyone who loved and cared for me. I wanted to use my flying for the greater good, but I wasn’t ready for this.

I was ready for something else though.

My first few days at Semonkong Children's Centre

At the end of that year, with the idea of ‘mission work’ fresh in my mind, I joined an outreach to Semonkong, in the Lesotho highlands, where we volunteered at an Orphanage that had been set up to care of orphans and vulnerable children. During the week-long outreach, I started to feel a strange, challenging feeling deep in my bones. A mixture of excitement and anxiety, constantly in battle with each other. The excitement whispering to me ‘Hey, what if I worked here at the orphanage for a little while, to get an idea of what mission type work is like.’ The anxiety screaming, ‘Nope! You can’t give up flying and live here in the middle of nowhere! It’s not an option.’

Through weeks of thinking and praying, I found myself listening to the excited, hopeful voice rather than the loud, anxious one.

I moved to Semonkong Children’s Centre, the same orphanage where we visited, in 2007, with the intent of taking a year off of flying to get some other experience. Before I even realized it, that year was over, and I had no plans to leave.

In fact, Jill Kinsey, who ran the Centre, and I had branched out and started another one, Pulane Children’s Centre.

Having been a founder of that centre, it became my main focus over the next few years. Jill and I worked together to get a brand new children’s home up and running, in an effort to assist families who were struggling with the huge problem of orphans and vulnerable children in Lesotho.

Visits like this from MAF to Semonkong made me long for this type of flying

All this time, I still dreamed of altimeters and airspeed indicators, longing for a time when I might once again be behind the controls of an airplane.

But for now, this was my place. And until I felt something moving me away, I planned to stay.

The thing that moved me away, was not a thing at all. Her name was Emily… Read Part 2.