On a wing and a prayer: Grimsby pilot volunteers services in Mongolia

Amaraa and Temujin are cherub-faced toddlers, boys with rosy cheeks. They might be easily mistaken for girls, with their long curls. This is deliberate. The boys, aged three and two respectively, will be dressed as girls for the first few years of their life, a Mongolian tradition meant to confuse evil spirits. Soon, they will both receive their first haircut, a major event and cause for celebration in the life of a Mongolian child.

Recently, the boys and their families marked an even more notable celebration. Amaraa and Temujin and their mothers, Odnaa and Batchimeg, received the gift of life from Canadian physicians who repaired defects in their heart. The boys and their mothers were living in the Grimsby area during this process. They were there through the work of Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian aid organization, working in partnership with the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). The Samaritan’s Purse paid for the surgeries and paid to have the boys and their mothers brought to Canada. The MAF, for its part, carries out ongoing work in Mongolia to deliver medical aid and support to remote communities in Mongolia.

Former Grimsby native Ryan Van Geest and his family spent the last few years in Mongolia, where Van Geest works as a pilot with the MAF. Van Geest is unpaid, and relies on financial donations to cover the cost of living in Mongolia. He learned about the MAF five years ago, while working as a pilot in northern Ontario.

“We heard about the MAF through one of the pilots who worked in the same community. He’d worked in Papua New Guinea for a number of years,” said Van Geest.

Once he learned about the MAF, Van Geest said he felt led by God to dedicate his time to the organization, with the support of his wife Amanda.

“God laid it on our hearts. He’s directed us to be there. Certainly I would have never thought of being a missionary. I’d thought of a missionary as someone who goes to a church and wears old, traditional clothes, who goes out, never thinking a missionary could be a pilot. It was a such a foreign concept,” said Van Geest.

Mongolia is a land-locked nation, surrounded entirely by Russia to the north and China to the south. It was a Soviet republic for several decades. While the communist regime limited political and personal freedoms, Moscow’s support allowed a strong centralized government that was able to provide a basic level of health care and education to most Mongolians. This Russian support meant the Mongolian government was also able to connect remote villages with regular flights.

“With the social assistance they provided, it was better in a lot of ways… every small community was served by an airplane,” said Van Geest. “They forget the bad things.”

When the Soviets left, these services crumbled and collapsed. Many remote Mongolian communities now have no formal connection to the capital Ulan Baator. Without airplanes, getting to the nearest hospital can take a week of driving in some of the most desolate areas and remote areas of the world. Local clinics can handle basic injuries or illness, but for serious problems Mongolians must travel to Ulan Baator or go abroad.

“Doctors could travel fifty hours one way. There are flights in some of these communities, but you can’t go from one to the other. You have to fly there, come back,” said Van Geest.

Flying doctors to remote communities and bringing patients back are not the only thing Van Geest does. As a missionary organization, the MAF also flies Bible teachers and ministers to the outposts of the burgeoning Mongolian church. And, fiscal realities mean that many MAF flights are undertaken for commercial ventures.

“We do 50 per cent mission work and 50 per cent commercial work, because it’s a big country and expensive to operate in. Of the commercial half, 60 per cent is for the mining industry, 20 per cent is commercial medical evacuations,” said Van Geest. The remainder of the work is charitable, either free medical flights or missionary work.

Despite the commercial side of the MAF, the rising cost of fuel and expense of operating in an undeveloped country mean the MAF spends more than it takes it. According to one recent report, the organization is more than $2 million in debt, though it continues to operate. To help reduce costs, Van Geest and the other pilots are responsible for raising their cost of living expenses and travel costs, as well as anything they can bring into the MAF.

“You’re there for two years, back for one month, there for a year and a half, and back for five months to raise funds. We’re going back for a two-year term this time,” said Van Geest.

He and his wife Amanda have three small children below the age of four. The children have lived most of their lives in Mongolia.

“My son and youngest don’t know anything else. My daughter thinks of it as home. We travel a lot, and they enjoy meeting with people. They experience a lot more in life, and they’re ready to go back to Mongolia. They think this is normal,” he said.

The Van Geests are heading back to Mongolia for their next jaunt in April. They will remain there for two and a half years. To help raise funds for their work, Ryan and Amanda are speaking at Mountainview Church in Grimsby on March 24 at 5 p.m. They will also speak on April 2 from 7:30-9 p.m. at Compass Point Bible Church located at 1500 Kerns Rd., Burlington.