Missionary pilot promotes safety in Africa
3/22/2001 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York NOTE: See related UMNS story #86. By United Methodist News Service Stephen Quigg may be grounded from the Congo, but he is temporarily donning wings this year to provide safety instruction to other pilots and mechanics.
A veteran missionary pilot with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, Quigg and his wife, Gail, are on loan to Mission Safety International (MSI), a nonprofit ministry founded in 1983 to assist mission organizations and related agencies with safety and security matters.
In late February, the couple was part of an MSI team leading safety seminars in the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda at the request of Mission Aviation Fellowship (Europe). For the first time, MSI also led a safety seminar sponsored by Kenya's Division of Civil Aviation, which drew participants from airline, government, commercial and mission operations.
For the Quiggs, who began their missionary service in 1979 in Nigeria, the trip also marked a return to the continent they reluctantly had left because of recurring warfare in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Between 1991 and 1999, they had been part of the Wings of Caring aviation department of the United Methodist Central Congo Annual Conference.
The Congo provides the ultimate example of why aviation remains crucial to Africa. "Its infrastructure has been disintegrating for decades," Quigg explained. "You just cannot effectively move from one place in the country to another, especially in the interior, without an airplane."
Whether to bring people together for church-related meetings, to move supplies or to get the sick to medical care, "an airplane is just a tremendous benefit and makes a difference between life and death, both spiritually and physically."
Although a missionary pilot remains in Nigeria, the primary area of service for United Methodist pilots has been at the three main aviation bases in the Central Congo, North Katanga and Southern Congo conferences of the Congo. But warfare has made it impossible to continue. In Central Congo, for example, the Wings of Caring base in Kananga is in government hands, while most of the United Methodist church area is in rebel-held territory. "That has effectively shut down the program until hostilities can be put to an end," Quigg reported on his Web site.
He is encouraged by recent peace efforts under Joseph Kabila, the Congo's new president. Quigg said that two Congolese pilots currently are in the United States for more training, while another two are in orientation in Atlanta to become full-fledged missionaries.
He added, "There are a lot of people waiting and ready to go back in when the (political) situation rights itself."
More information can be found on Quigg's Web site, www.geocities.com/quiggquotes.
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