A world away, I sit in a hospital bed in Nashville, TN. I lay my hand on my swollen belly and think about this woman, pregnant like me. But unlike me, she wasn’t able to drive to the nearest emergency room. She was stranded. Even though I’m in the midst of a very high-risk pregnancy, I have access to every resource available to help my unborn twins survive. There is nowhere else I’d rather be. My thoughts drift back into the Amazon…

Before long, the trail opened up to a tiny village where Chad found what he was searching for: an exhausted woman struggling in labor. She was carried back to the airstrip and onto the plane. In no time Chad set off once more toward Shell. Twilight settled by the time the woman was lifted from the plane and brought to the nearest hospital, just in time for her baby to be delivered safely via emergency C-section.

Like Chad, my husband, Erick, is an MAF pilot assigned to Ecuador. But we aren’t there quite yet. We are raising the financial support required first. As I write this my husband is sharing with a small group about how MAF carries hope to the ends of the earth in its back-country airplanes. I pray that someone in that small group will catch the vision and join our support team.

While Erick is out sharing about the mission of MAF, I have plenty of time to imagine my twin boys one day watching their dad fly home from the jungle, bringing one more expectant mother to safety. May we all be ready to share with the world the hope that we can all-too-easily take for granted.

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That was five weeks ago.

My husband, Erick, and I are brand new MAF missionaries, called “pre-fielders.” It was just this January, at the frosty MAF headquarters in Idaho, that we were officially accepted into MAF. We were assigned to serve in Shell, Ecuador, with Erick as a pilot and mechanic. Before we could hop a jet to South America, though, we had to build a support team and harvest the funds required to do the job.

We were stoked. Right away we drew out our plans for how we would quickly raise the $8,400 in monthly and $55,000 in outgoing support. We set out across the country meeting daily with individuals, small groups, and churches, telling about MAF’s mission to share the love and gospel of Jesus with the isolated. It was an overwhelming blessing to see people’s hearts respond, passionate to join in this great cause through giving. We were well on our way to meeting our time goals. Then, at an ultrasound appointment in a Nashville clinic, God let us know that He had his own plans.

We’re learning that we are on His timeline, not ours. His plans were drawn out from the beginning—and they’re actually better than ours! We will leave for Ecuador later than we thought, but God is providing for us in miraculous ways. He has brought many generous partners that we didn’t even know onto our support team, due to no effort of our own. He has generously provided for us a safe and beautiful home (free of charge!) in Tennessee for us to nurture out twin infants before we head overseas. And we are confident that He will guide our family, according to His will and timing, to Ecuador and beyond.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” —Isaiah 55:9

To learn more about the Paradizo’s ministry with MAF or to partner with them, visit maf.org/paradizo.

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