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Episode 31 with Mike and Christy Brown
November 29, 2025 · 55 min
On this episode of From the Hangar, host Lem Malabuyo sits down with MAF missionaries Mike and Christy Brown, who spent their entire overseas career in Papua. Mike and Christy talk about how God placed missions on their hearts at an early age. From there, their lives have been a journey of ministry work in Indonesia, with God being with them in every moment.
Enjoy and be inspired by Mike and Christy’s story on this episode of From the Hangar!
Series From the Hangar (audio) November 29, 2025 · 55 min · From the Hangar (audio)
On this episode of From the Hangar, host Lem Malabuyo sits down with MAF missionaries Mike and Christy Brown, who spent their entire overseas career in Papua. Mike and Christy talk about how God placed missions on their hearts at an early age. From there, their lives have been a journey of ministry work in Indonesia, with God being with them in every moment. Enjoy and be inspired by Mike and Christy’s story on this episode of From the Hangar! ...more Show the full description Show less On this episode of From the Hangar, host Lem Malabuyo sits down with MAF missionaries Mike and Christy Brown, who spent their entire overseas career in Papua. Mike and Christy talk about how God placed missions on their hearts at an early age. From there, their lives have been a journey of ministry work in Indonesia, with God being with them in every moment.
Enjoy and be inspired by Mike and Christy’s story on this episode of From the Hangar!
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Bringing help, hope and healing through aviation so that isolated people can experience Jesus's love.
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In this video 0:00 Called to the Skies: Early Influences and Path to MAF14:05 Pioneering in Papua: Single Pilot Base and Family Life25:21 Transformative Service: Bible Translation and Daily Ministry37:56 Faith Sustained: Lessons, Transition, and Legacy
Called to the Skies: Early Influences and Path to MAF 0:15 Hey. Before we begin this episode, I wanted to let you guys know that in December, we're gonna do a q and a session with David Holston. So if you guys had any questions about MAF or this podcast0:27 or an episode that we already released, that would be awesome. You should totally submit that to podcast at m a f dot org, or you can look us up on, like, social media platforms, Facebook or0:38 Instagram. You can DM us over there to your questions. Looking forward to that. But for now, let's begin the episode. Hey, everyone. Welcome to From the Hanger podcast. I am your host,0:50 Lem Malabuyo, and we are sitting here with Mike and Christy Brown, who are legends. Should I just say living legends at at MAS? That's scary. Oh, too much1:02 too much too much lamb. But we are here in a hangar, that I always love to to point out because it's such a unique thing that we get to do. Yeah. Film a podcast, but also do it in a hangar with an airplane behind us.1:15 And, there's a Kodiak behind us. And, Mike, you you flew that quite a bit over where where you guys served. So Yeah. We're just gonna get right into it. Right. If that's okay. So why don't you guys introduce yourselves1:26 and kinda just tell us, where you've served at MAF?1:29 Okay. Mike and Christy Brown, and, we've spent our entire MAF career over in Papua, Indonesia. But that was serving at 3 different locations. So we were at 3 different bases
1:42 and starting out from a single pilot base to then our big base in Womin and then down into Syntani where we finished our time.
1:48 So Yeah. Where was the so I didn't know this about you. I thought you guys were in Syntani this entire time. No. What other what were the other oh, you mentioned Wamina. What was that first base?
1:58 Montaquari. So that was a single pilot base Okay. Off on our own. Yeah. Had my own plane, did my own maintenance.
2:04 Wow.
2:04 Made my own schedule. Yeah.
2:05 It was safe. At that time, what was the airplane that you guys were
2:08 2 0 6.
2:09 2 0 6. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll circle back to this because I don't wanna jump jump straight into. But why don't you guys talk about how how you guys kinda just got into mission work and and missionary
2:21 aviation and and all that stuff?
2:24 Mhmm. For me, it started back when I was, in elementary school. Our church was real big on mission conferences, and so every year, we would have missions around in the fellowship hall, it was called. And so
2:36 we'd have booths. And you'd always find me at the MAF booth, looking at those planes landing in the jungles and just, seeing all that. And it was like so from a very early age, felt the
2:48 Lord leading me to to be an MF pilot. And, from that time until joining, that was my goal. I mean, through high school, I didn't have any other thoughts. It was just like, this is where I'm gonna go.
2:59 And so after high school, just went and got my A and P license to, to be able to work on planes. Course a requirement that time. And then just billing my flight time. And so, yeah. So from that time,
3:11 from that background at our home church and we both were at the same home church. Oh. And so yeah.
3:17 Yeah. Yeah. So we grew up together in the in the same church. And like Mike said, it was very mission minded. So I also was influenced by that, mission mindset at our church.
3:29 And my cousin was a missionary in Japan, and so when I was a little girl, we would write back and forth. We were pen pals, and that really influenced me. And
3:40 That's cool.
3:41 Yeah. And just the Lord placed it on my heart that I loved, I wanted to serve people that were not from America, like, just from
3:53 another country, and so gave me a heart for that. And I didn't know what that would look like as I grew up until I met Mike. And on our first date, he said to me,
4:05 I need you to know I'm gonna be an MAF pilot, and I'm gonna serve overseas with Mission Aviation Fellowship. And I was like Wow. Oh, well, look at that.
4:18 Good for you, mate. Yeah. And he said Chase. Yeah. And he said, though, the person I marry is gonna have to wanna do the same thing. So I really felt like that was the Lord saying, I've been preparing you for this as
4:29 as a young child since you were young. So that was pretty cool.
4:33 So, I mean, I I kinda wanna talk about this the missions. I'm I don't it's a lot of missions conference, like, a missions week or something like that. Like, what what really resonated with you guys?
4:46 Was there some kind of message that really resonated with you about the heart of missions itself that you remember?
4:52 Yeah. For me, I think it was just thinking, you know, a little bit more outside the box of, like, oh, being a pilot, I can be a missionary, and I can do something that's maybe not the traditional what someone would say.
5:04 Oh, maybe a preacher or True. An evangelist where that was not a gifting I felt. Well, at that time, I don't know what my gifting, I thought. But, oh, I could I could do this and still serve the Lord. Yeah. And
5:16 it was like, that's a cool combination to me and just loved it ever since. Yeah. So yeah.
5:22 That's that's awesome. I love it.
5:23 How about yourself? Yeah. Back in those days, we would see, like, slide shows of, you know, missionaries from overseas. And I just thought, what a cool thing to be able to tell people
5:35 about Jesus in another part of the world. So that's what resonated with me in those missions conferences.
5:41 And Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I I kinda wanna ask, like, did you leading up to that, right, you didn't you didn't go overseas until adulthood. Like, was this something that like, telling people about Jesus
5:53 in your own context at that time, was that something that you guys thought about doing or or did in your everyday life? Yeah. Oh.
6:00 You know, we we had a couple it wasn't overseas, but it was over the border Yeah. Experiences. So we did have some mission trips in our junior high. I remember going down to Mexico
6:12 and doing some of these kind of VBSs for kids and stuff. And so Yeah. That kinda was in there already Yeah. As something that, oh, yeah. This is this is part of it. Sure. But then using the plane, oh, on top of that was
6:23 just like
6:23 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like you said, Christy, about your first date with Mike too, but, like, sounds like God was Yeah. Preparing you through the years to to be ready for actually
6:35 going over an ocean Right. To to a place to to do missions work and
6:40 Yeah.
6:41 You'll have to it was just it's just really neat when you can experience how God can transform people's lives, but at the same time, he's he's preparing you for something else. Right.
6:51 You know,
6:51 and you get to you get to, I don't know, just be a part of the kingdom up to the point where you guys are like, I've arrived. This is what I've been waiting for so long and yeah. That's just really neat. Okay. Well, you
7:02 guys mentioned that you guys grew up together in the same church and I that you talked about this first date thing. Was there? I guess I just wanna ask, like,
7:14 at what point did you guys start or I guess, Mike, when you started getting interested in Christy and, like, what Okay. What was that?
7:21 Mhmm. So first off, I didn't date till I was outside of high school because I was just more interested in sports and things like that. So Totally.
7:29 So honestly Totally. Yeah.
7:30 It's like, oh, yeah. Yeah.
7:31 He was. Not not really interested in that scene at that point. And so yeah. But then when I got out of high school and into college, it's like, okay. Now now is the time. And so yeah.
7:42 Yeah. We started going to the same college, bible study class, and that's how we kind of, started dating. And we'd known each other. Our families had known each other all our growing up
7:53 years. But, yeah, we just didn't connect until after after I graduated from high school, and we started going to college. Yeah.
8:01 Well, what
8:02 college was was that?
8:03 So I went to Azusa Pacific University. Mhmm. Yeah. But the college class was in our hometown.
8:10 Oh, I see. Okay.
8:11 It was many different church churches that didn't really have a big enough college group for themselves, so they kinda combined and had it at someone's house.
8:18 Oh, I see. And
8:19 so but it would be 30 30 college students together Okay. Hanging out.
8:23 Yeah. And did you do you where did you go for for studies?
8:26 So I went to a local college, it was just San Bernardino Valley College for 2 years to do my A and P and then another junior college to get my general education stuff. And I did some, the
8:38 requirement for Bibles
8:39 Yeah.
8:39 Online, some auditing courses, and stuff like that. So Sweet. Not the standard way. Maybe like a Moody or someplace like that.
8:46 But Yeah. Well, that's why I was asking because I was like, I wanted to see if if that was if it was the kind of the similar track to many others that we've interviewed before where
8:56 No. And it wasn't. But but the 1 thing is MF headquarters was 10 minutes away from where we grew up. Yeah. So in Redlands back in that day. So Okay. I had lots of influences from MAFers, and and then I ended up working
9:08 for them under their profit organization, Redlands Aviation. So
9:11 Yeah. Oh. 0. I didn't know about this this Yeah. For profit thing. Is this still going on? No.
9:18 No. No. That was for a time back when they were in Redlands. And, yeah, it was, yeah, for a season. But, it's just how I got into basically working
9:29 for MAF under this other name. Sure. And building my maintenance time. And then eventually, I had MAF instructor as my as my instrument commercial pilot. So I I mean, what better to get instruction from
9:41 a MAF pilot?
9:43 Do you well, I'm curious now about this. Just real quick. We don't have to go into a deep dive or anything. But, like and you may not know this, the answer to this question, but do you do you know what
9:55 the the the thought was to having a for profit wing? Did it on purpose. Wing of m a f? Was that to help, like, if people needed to build hours, they could do it
10:07 by Yeah.
10:08 That's a that's a good question. Honestly, in my mind, it was kinda we at the Redlands airport, we kinda controlled the airport. The fueling, the fueling station was under us at Redlands Aviation. We
10:20 we rented out all the hangars, so we kinda had the control of that. And but and there was a flight school through Redlands Aviation. That's actually my first instructor was not an MAF pilot, but just general
10:32 aviation. So they had flight instruction for others, and they brought in other, instructors, not MAF instructors to do that. So it was something at the airport. All the reasons why
10:44 and behind it, I I don't have all that. Okay.
10:47 Yeah. I just like to ask. Yeah. I know we're, like, 10 minutes into the episode, but I think we're probably just gonna have to cut it cut it here, because I found that Christy went to APU, and I went to Biola. So
10:59 Oh, competition.
11:00 Or I guess Christy can do that. For you. No.
11:05 Did your school have a giant Jesus mural on its wall that just we get to look up to Jesus?
11:10 No. It did not. Wow. Wow. Impressive.
11:15 Actually, a lot of Biola students made fun of that Jesus mural. I just felt it felt strange very strange to have that on there. So it was also very white, which was also Right.
11:24 I can remember that. I went to a basketball camp at Biola when I was in junior high. And so I'm a little I'm in your Hey.
11:32 Hey. Hey. Biola. Yeah.
11:36 Also, I I do apologize for anyone who actually went to Biola. Good. And but I I went there too. So I feel like I can trash talk it. But my wife graduated from Biola and I transferred out after 2
11:48 years to go to a photography school. And so she she always calls me a a Biola dropout. I'm not actually a a real alumni and I'm like, hey, I went there for 2 years.
11:56 That's right. That's right.
11:58 So anyway, lovely people have gone and gone come out of APU. Absolutely. Yeah. It's it's I
12:06 would agree. School.
12:08 But I do wanna Christy, I wanna ask you, like, what did you study at APU? And then was it, again, with that mission's mind, looking
12:15 into it? I was, an elementary education major. Yeah. So yeah.
12:19 Perfect.
12:20 Yeah. Involved in that. And I was also involved in the choir for 2 years at APU and loved that, being a part of that. Mhmm. Yeah. Ministry was, the choir there
12:31 at APU. That's cool.
12:32 Yeah. That's awesome. Mhmm.
12:34 And, yeah, I I imagine you're, like, thinking, like, teaching is something that you really love.
12:39 Totally. Yeah.
12:40 Definitely take this into a missions context. Absolutely. That's cool. Yeah. That's great. And so we'll circle back now to that, like, how you guys got together and everything. Christy, were you interested in Mike at
12:50 that time?
12:51 Oh, yeah.
12:52 I mean
12:53 What? What's not?
12:54 Absolutely. Yeah.
12:57 So you're just waiting you're just waiting for him to ask
13:00 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
13:01 And all that stuff.
13:01 And Yeah.
13:02 And then when he brought up the, I'm gonna be in MF. Oh, I guess he did talk about how how, like, oh, I guess this is this is it.
13:10 I really felt like this is the Lord saying, I've prepared you. Make a choice. Yeah. We'll make a choice, but I've prepared you for this, and this is how I'm gonna bring it about in your life.
13:21 Yeah. So
13:21 it was pretty cool.
13:22 That's cool. Yeah. I mean, not to make it awkward, Mike, but did you go on any other dates where you brought that up and it was like, yeah. That's not for me.
13:28 You know, I I've only dated 2 2 gals and this is the second. And I don't remember no. I didn't do that on the first 1, I don't believe.
13:38 So Yeah. I mean, it's really smart to just hey. This is Lay it out. Yeah.
13:43 I was already down a track, and it's like, oh.
13:45 Well, I mean, you're doing Christy a huge favor too. Like, what if what if that wasn't what you wanted to do? Mhmm. And Yep.
13:51 Yeah.
13:52 But, Yeah. Okay. Well, I love that.
13:57 Mhmm. I
13:57 think it was just I just needed to to ask you
13:59 guys how that
14:00 sometimes you get some really great stuff.
14:02 It sound like
14:03 I got some really great stuff out of that. So, but let's let's kinda fast forward because you guys were assigned to Indonesia. Mhmm. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about, how did you say that firstShow more
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