Here's some of the ways our employees are helping to make a difference in the the world around them! 

Help Save The Nuba People

One of Preferred Airparts founders Brian Stoltzfus flew a DC-3 doing food drops to refugees who are fleeing the fighting that broke out in the Nuba mountains in Northern Sudan, Africa. Brian was a part of Samaritan's Purse relief efforts of the people fleeing to South Sudan. These people are fleeing their own villages, only to face the harsh environment surrounded by swamps! Before SP learned of these people they faced starvation resorting to boiling grass and drinking the water to get any nutrition they could. Watch the videos here to get a better understanding of the needs of these people.

Tuscaloosa, AL - Rebuild

The week of March 12-16, 2012 Justin Starett, Tom Romey, and myself had the privilege of going to Tuscaloosa, AL to help build new homes and remodel homes that were damaged by the devastating tornado that hit the area on April 27, 2011.  We had the opportunity to work hands on with Samaritan’s Purse in this rebuild effort.  I was very impressed with what a professional organization SP is.  The first two days we worked on remodeling the home of Mr. and Mrs. Snoddy.  Their home was heavily damaged and unlivable after the tornado, and they have been displaced for over a year.  It was awesome to see their excitement about being able to move back into their home very soon.  The next two days we started new construction on a home that will be lived in by Ms. Virginia.  Her home was completely destroyed by the tornado.  In just two days we had most of the framing completed.  Because the new homes do not have basements, Samaritan’s Purse builds a safe room in the middle of each house.  The safe room doubles as a bathroom, but has solid block walls and a concrete poured ceiling.  It is a great design to help protect the family from any future natural disasters. It was a great trip, I learned a lot, and it was awesome to share Jesus' love with these families.
-Ryan Mathys

Garca, Brazil

In June of 2011, my wife and I had the opportunity to minister to the people of Garca, Brazil. We took a group of 7 adults and 34 teenagers  from our youth group at West Hill Baptist Church. We ministered in schools and churches in that area through drama, music, and testimonies. It was an awesome time of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with thousands of Brazilians. As this was our fourth trip to Garca, it was also a time of nurturing relationships we had made in the past. One highlight of our trip was meeting the town mayor and spending time with him and his family. They even came to our last church service. Please pray for the people of Brazil, and the churches we were able to minister with.

---Chris Brown

In June of 2010, my wife and I took a group of teens to Jamaica to share the Gospel of Christ. We spent the first day ministering at the local orphanage. We helped make beds, held vacation bible school, and spent time loving on the 70+ orphans at the home. It’s great to see how loving kids that have nothing can affect our own teens. The rest of the week was spent at Victory Christian Fellowship Church. We moved gravel and sand, painted, cleaned, and poured a second story floor by hand. With the temperatures in the 90s and humid, this made for a very hot job. We did take a break each afternoon to do vacation bible school for the pre-school at the church. We did skits, games, crafts, snacks, and shared Christ’s love with them. What an awesome experience! Throughout the week, we saw 38 people come to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior. We continue to pray for the people of Jamaica, and also for our teens that were impacted through this trip.

---Chris Brown

All Across the U.S.

Tom Romey is an employee that has been on many different mission aid project all across the U.S. for a number of year. Below is some of the places he has made a difference by helping those in need.

Donaldsonville, LA 9-08

Clean up from Hurrican Gustauf

Donaldsonville, LA 8-09

Still cleaning up from Hurrican Gustauf a year later

Yazoo City, MS 3-10

Clean up from Tornado

Nashville, TN 5-10

Flood clean up

Port Alsworth, AK 9-10

Build and remodel camp for new wounded warrior retreat for
Samaritan's Purse.

Nashville, TN 4-11

Rebuild homes after flood. Tom, his wife Sherry, and another Preferred Airparts employee Jason all went on this trip.

Long Beach, NY 12-12

Clean up from Hurrican Sandy

Red Bird Missions, KY 12-12

Reroof a home and built a handicap ramp.

CAMO, OH (Central America Medical Outreach)

Help load semi trailers with new medical equipment for Honduras.
There are 4 to 6 trailers a year!

Island Park, NY 4-14

Recently I was given the opportunity to go out and help serve with ATS and Samaritan's Purse in Long Island NY. It was a rebuild effort after Tropical Storm Sandy hit the coast over a year ago. A total of 8 of us got to go with the group and 3 were from right here at Preferred Airparts. Justin Starrett, Tom Romey, and Dan Head. While we were there we got to work on tiling an entire bathroom from start to finish. It was very rewarding to know that we completed this task in His name and in pretty fair time. We got to do a lot of finishing work on the house as well, but the main project for my smaller group was the bathroom. The other team members went to work at a Church a couple blocks away that was also filled with water from the storm. They were hanging doors and trim and painting. They were also making very nice fixtures around some rounded windows. Overall it was a great opportunity to go out and help those who were in need and do some great work with even better people. I wanted to thank the Stoltzfus's again for giving me the opportunity to go out and do this all over the country to whomever is in need.

--Justin Starrett

Eldoret, Kenya

Our team left from Countryside Chapel with a mission to support and encourage the Thomas family. We spent six day in Eldoret, which gave Nate a good reason to take some time off work. The team helped with various tasks, like working with a pastor from Calvary Chapel and visiting a Kenyan orphanage/boarding school. I was privileged to the fly relief in the DC-3 with Brian in South Sudan. The team felt we accomplished what God had sent us there to do.

- Kyle Beachy

Tarboro, NC 4-17

Dan Head and Corey Chupp went on this mission trip with ATS. ATS partnered with Samaritan's Purse to send a group of people to Tarboro, NC. while in Tarboro, SP is building homes for people that were affected by the floods caused by hurricane Matthew.
This specific ATS group helped put a roof on a house. This consisted of trusses, sheeting, and tar paper. They also helped out at a host church for SP by creating walkways, doing some plumbing, and electrical work as well as cleaning up around the church.

- Corey Chupp

Des Moines, IA 7-19 

In July 2019 I spent a week in Des Moines, IA with a group from my church, Central Christian Church. We spent several days at the Central Iowa Shelter Services. They grow much of the food that they serve at the shelter at on-site gardens. We pulled weeds, planted, and repaired fencing. We also spent a day at the Food Bank of Iowa where we packaged 11,760 pounds of dried bean soup to be distributed all over the state to those in need. It was a great week of helping others, and time well spent. I would encourage anyone who gets a chance to participate in a service week to do so!

- Ryan Mathys

All Across the U.S.

Since starting at Preferred I’ve used my Service Weeks to volunteer at Christian camps repairing and doing maintenance work around the camp to get ready for the summer camping season.

This year I was at Camp Otyokwah near Butler, Ohio. Some of the items worked on were:

• Connecting a new 220V service to one of the buildings and removing the old service, overhead wires, and poles.
• Fixing a clothes dryer in the Staff cabin
• Fixing an auxiliary heater in a wood stove in the Staff cabin
• Removing the electrical service and all wiring and electrical items from a 70 year old A-Frame chapel. Assisted in bringing the building down. It will be replaced with a tent this year until a new chapel is built.
• Worked on a multitude of external lighting issues.
• Repaired two golf carts.
• Tried to help the staff find a leak in the camp’s water system.
• Completed the ground hog elimination program by taking out gh #11.

I would encourage everyone to use their service week! There are lots of needs out there.

- Steve Moffitt

For our Service Week, Andrew Rupp and I spent Feb 15^th thru the 19^th in Fort Pierce, Fl., working at Missionary Flights International, MFI. 

There, we installed and configured an Engine Trend Monitoring System (ADAS+) in N500MF and a modification to the ADAS system on N200MF. 

N200MF had its system installed while it was here over last summer. We had the opportunity to stay at the new MFI Hospitality Park in the cottages.

This was Andrew’s first time to MFI and Adam’s third time.     

- Adam Hile

Nashville, TN 7-19

One of the many perks Preferred Airparts offer its employees is a paid week off if we spend that week serving others. Preferred has a long term relationship with a local organization called After the Storm (ATF) and with Samaritan's Purse, an international organization.

I spent this past week as part of a team working with ATF and Samaritan's Purse.
About a year ago tornadoes destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in Nashville, TN. ATF has organized several trips to Nashville to aid Samaritan's Purse in rebuilding the homes of people who had no hope of getting back into their homes without their help. The opportunity to work along side the wonderful people with Samaritan's Purse and After the Storm is life changing. And the joy of seeing people, who had lost everything, have hope again makes it all worthwhile.

- Dan Head

I had the opportunity to go to Alaska for my service trip this year. The purpose of the trip was to help my friend Brian Lites with Kingdom Air Corp in Palmer to change the engine on their Cessna 206. We had to preheat the engine and shovel some snow away so it could be moved and run before starting the task.

The airplane is used to train missionary pilots in the Alaskan bush environment. In the summer, their busiest time of the year, they host several weeks of Bible camp for youth in the north. They fly to their villages, pick them up in this and a few other planes and spend a week interacting with them and sharing with them the good news of Jesus who alone can save them from the punishment for their sins.

Additionally I helped get their DC-3 running again so they could sell it. N400MF was used by Missionary Flights International for many years in the Caribbean. Kingdom Air Corp bought it with plans to use it in Alaska for ministry work and in 2015 I flew it with the KAC director to Alaska from Florida. Plans changed and it needed to be sold. It will remain in Palmer offering sight-seeing trips of glaciers and snow covered mountains.

- Ian Hengst