Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), Australia
Ben & Anne Sibthorpe worked with MAF for over ten years in Africa and in June 2010 moved with their family to Australia where Ben became hanger supervisor at MAF’s heavy engineering Centre in Mareeeba. Ben & Anne have five children Alice, Jack, Olivia, Estella and Edith, who was born in Australia. 
Mareeba is a farming community in Northern Queensland, where the outback meets the rainforest. Among other events it has an annual rodeo.
The base is responsible for engineering maintenance and overhaul services for their planes flying throughout South East Asia, among the isolated Aboriginal peoples in Arnhem Land, Australia, and to Papua New Guinea, where flying is very challenging due to the constantly changing tropical weather, dense mountainous jungle, and very underdeveloped airstrips.
Ben has also been involved in creating and completing a purpose-built paint spraying hangar, which is invaluable for the work, but also can be rented out when there is space. They have recently had a crop spraying aeroplane in, called an air tractor - it looked like a tractor too.
MAF conducts hundreds of medical evacuation flights every year, and delivers tons and tons of medical supplies. It also delivers a vast amount of freight for community development, produce to market such as in the case of PNG complete coffee harvests, as well as building materials for bridges, houses and schools, and it provides thousands of seats on flights for teachers and health workers in remote areas. It is also involved in emergency relief such as after the tsunami, and more recently after cyclones and floods, and it works with many governmental agencies and NGOs.
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