43 Years of Aviation Ministry

It was Hank Scheltema's personal interest in aviation (he and his older brother taught themselves to fly) and vision for a gospel outreach to inaccessible areas that gave birth to ABWE's aviation ministry. In those days, access to remote villages of the Amazon was conducted primarily by houseboat, and Hank successfully made a case for the cost-effectiveness of aviation.

A year after arriving in Brazil, Hank flew an Aeronca Sedan float plane to the Amazon, stationing the aviation outreach for the Amazonas region in Benjamin Constant and marking the start of ABWE's aviation ministry. At the beginning of their second term, Hank flew a Cessna to the Amazon to aid in reaching the remote villages around Benjamin Constant, Fonte Boa, and Betania.

A few years after Hank was appointed as ABWE's International Aviation Coordinator in 1977, ABWE was given property and an airstrip in Concord, Georgia, from which to coordinate aviation efforts around the ABWE world, and a place to refurbish aircraft for missionary pilots.

In the 1980s and 1990s Hank surveyed possible ABWE aviation ministries in Paraguay, Togo, Kenya, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Ghana. Hank refurbished - with the help of many volunteers - more than a dozen aircrafts that were used in Amazonas and Bahia (Brazil), Peru, the USA, and Togo.

See the early days of aviation ministry on the Amazon in ABWE's Flight Plan Amazonas, from the Classic Film Series (VHS format).