Liberty student-pilots receive advanced training with JAARS missionary aviation group

Students from the Liberty University School of Aeronautics have benefited this fall from an ongoing partnership with JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Relay Service), a missionary aviation organization that operates in the Green Band, the most densely populated rain forests around the equator.

Part of JAARS’ mission is to inspire, recruit, and train the next generation to reach people in isolated places around the world with the Gospel. Staff often work with translators to deliver Bibles in their language. JAARS has ongoing outreach efforts to Brazil, Cameroon, and Papau New Guinea.

For the third year, JAARS sent an instructor and a Cessna U206 aircraft, commonly used by missionary aviation organizations around the world, to Lynchburg in October to lead the flight training component of AVIA 442: Advanced Aircraft Flight Operations, a weeklong intensive course. JAARS Experience Director Rachael Stoner offered her expertise that included ground school and flight lessons during a four-day module conducted out of the Lynchburg Regional Airport.

Over Fall Break, 11 students from the school’s SOAR (Serving Others using Aviation Resources) Club and two staff visited JAARS’ base in Waxhaw, N.C., to see the organization’s operations firsthand. The students participated in the Last-Mile Challenge, a simulation with boats, taxis, four-wheel drive trucks, helicopters and fixed-wing Helio Couriers, a Cessna 206, and hiking by foot.

“JAARS actually exists to cover the last mile of missions, so that unreached people groups have access to the Gospel and God’s love where they are in the Green Band,” said senior Julia Cagasan, a JAARS advocate and experience intern who will graduate with her B.S. in Aviation Maintenance Management in May. “There are many cultural barriers and language barriers to sharing the Gospel, so JAARS does the best it can to eliminate those barriers, and airplanes and helicopters can help cover the last mile.”

She noted that missionary aviation saves one hour per every one minute of flight compared to other modes of transit.

“People have to ride in trucks and buses and forge access through the jungles and rivers for days over distances that could be covered in a 15-minute flight.”

This fall, Cagasan shadowed a JAARS pilot and Bible translators on a one-hour, 20-minute flight in Brazil that would have taken eight hours by bus and three days by boats on branches of the Amazon River.

On Oct. 26, 18 students volunteered at the annual JAARS Day in Waxhaw, serving as greeters and aircraft loaders and assisting the organization in offering more than 100 ticketed vision rides to the public in JAARS helicopters and other aircraft.

“It was such a good experience for all of them to see firsthand the difference that aviation makes in transporting missionaries, Bible translators, church planters, and any supplies they need throughout their travels,” Cagasan said.

Dr. Jonny Hewitt, Executive Director of Training & Innovation for the School of Aeronautics said he is grateful for the longstanding partnership with JAARS.

“We have been working with JAARS for many years, and we are thankful for their help in providing this high-performance flight training. The partnership is a tremendous encouragement for our missionary aviation focused students. As a world-class Christian aeronautics program, serving others through the use of aircraft should be at the forefront of all that we do.”

Liberty’s School of Aeronautics offers a four-year B.S. in Aviation Technology — Flight & Maintenance that helps equip missionary aviators with the skills to fly into hard-to-reach areas of the world and perform mechanical repairs on the aircraft. During this training, students learn how to incorporate their Christian faith into an international aviation career spent helping people around the world.

“This is a rapidly growing program within the School of Aeronautics, and many of those enrolling feel led to be future missionary aviators serving the Lord overseas,” Hewitt said.

“It’s just such a beautiful partnership, and I’m so excited about what God is doing,” added Cagasan, who also serves as a maintenance controller for Liberty’s Flight Operations and is a recipient of the National Association of State Aviation Officials’ 2024 Henry Ogrodzinski Scholarship. “Several students who have traveled with me to visit JAARS are graduating this year and are looking to work with JAARS after they graduate. They made connections and already have their foot in the door. It’s really all about who you know in every single field, especially aviation.”

Senior David Caldwell, an event planner with the SOAR Club, shares JAARS’ passion for communicating the Gospel to people who don’t have God’s Word in their language.

“We want to spread awareness for missionary aviation and provide community and help encourage and spur on like-minded students who desire to eventually go overseas to serve,” he said.

Several Liberty aeronautics graduates have participated in the JAARS Fellows program, an 11-month professional internship that allows them to get immersed in missionary aviation to ease the transition into their first career positions.

On a domestic level, JAARS has been operating in the mountains of western North Carolina to conduct its advanced mountain tactical training for more than 40 years, so it was particularly well-suited to provide aircraft transport and relief supplies to the area in support of Samaritan’s Purse’s efforts in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene. An R-66 Helicopter owned and operated by JAARS was the first to touch down and provide disaster relief in Avery County, one of the hardest-hit areas..

“It has been amazing to see local missionary aviation organizations serving their own communities that were impacted by the hurricane,” Hewitt said. “Seeing them operate in these locations as they do around the world was eye-opening and very encouraging to our students.”