As a young boy growing up in northeastern Ohio, Daniel Geaslen was familiar with the idea of missionaries and working overseas. He first participated in short-term mission trips in junior high school and at the age of 13 started dreaming about becoming an overseas missionary pilot, serving people in remote areas of the world.

He read everything he could get his hands on about flying during his high-school years, and began his formal flight training while in college at the Moody Bible Institute in Spokane, Wash. He graduated in 2005 with a degree in missionary aviation, and both commercial pilot and mechanic licenses.

Three years later, Geaslen joined Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), a nonprofit organization that serves more than 1,000 humanitarian and Christian organizations through aviation and related technologies in isolated parts of the world. During that time, he agreed to take an assignment in Indonesia.
But in the fall of 2008, while visiting relatives in New Hampshire, Geaslen met Joy McCahon of Rindge. McCahon served for five years on the campus ministry staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Franklin Pierce University where she started the Agape Club.
“When I met Daniel, and we talked about maybe dating, I really had to seriously consider, would I like to move to Indonesia for much of the rest of my life or not and really kind of feel peace about doing that,” said Joy.

She decided to join Geaslen in his missionary work and the two married in August 2009.
“I don’t want to just live the American Dream and just try to amass wealth and have a nice comfortable safe life here,” Joy Geaslen said. “There are some things really attractive about that, but I’d rather be living in a way that we could really be serving other people.”

Both 29 years old, the Geaslens have traveled to more than 30 countries combined, including places in Africa, South and Central America, Europe, and Asia both as missionaries as well as tourists. Now, they are set to travel to Indonesia for the first time, beginning a mission together in late January or early February.
Once he arrives at an MAF base, Daniel Geaslen works as a pilot and mechanic, operating and maintaining small aircraft like the Cessna 206 — a plane that can carry a pilot and five passengers.

“We fly in and out of airstrips that are like 12 to 1500 feet long and in and out of the jungle. These are airstrips that people have made by hand — taking out the trees and clearing the jungle a little bit,” he said.

An airstrip can serve several different villages with a variety of purposes from medical evacuations to access to supplies. Often, the planes also export products created in remote villages via community development programs to the wider world, and, of course, transport missionaries and relief workers in and out of locations that don’t have roads.

“An hour flight can save up to a month and a half of hiking through the jungle or riding in a canoe,” said Joy Geaslen. “Especially with a medical emergency, peoples’ lives are being saved and that is really exciting.”
Joy said that her hope is to work with local communities, reading to kids in the neighborhood, teaching English classes for people of all ages, and helping out at an orphanage or relief center.
A term with MAF is three and a half years overseas and then six months back in the United States on furlough, during which missionaries visit with mission donors, churches, family and friends, and get any extra training that might be necessary. Each staff person or family with MAF must raise a portion of the total funds for ministry support. MAF then uses the money to cover staff-related expenses, including health insurance, travel and salaries.

“We’re thinking if this all works out we’d like to be there until we’re maybe in our mid 50s or 60, but we don’t really know,” said Joy. “There has been so much training that has led up to this — especially for Daniel — that it wouldn’t make sense to go for three months. This is really a long term investment.”
The Geaslens will be living in one of the few towns or small cities in the province of Papua — the western half of New Guinea — that have airports and MAF presence.

“We’ll just be blessed so much by what we’ll receive from them and learning from their culture. I think it will be great. We don’t have kids yet but I hope to have children there,” she said.
During their first 10 months in Indonesia, the Geaslens will be going to a language school in Salatiga, located on the Island of Java. They are excited about the opportunity to learn about the culture and look forward to developing relationships with the locals.

Through his mission work, Daniel Geaslen has learned just how important language is to a society and one’s survival.

“I suppose I used to think that learning the language might have been just kind of a barrier to actually getting to fly or to be there and actually do the work, but now I see it’s incredibly important to be able to communicate with people on an everyday basis,” he said.

“Americans tend to expect everyone to speak English, but when you make the effort to learn their language and learn it well that puts value on them as people,” he said. “I feel like they see that, and it means something to them, especially as you’re going through the process of learning.”

Although Joy Geaslen is nervous about making mistakes and struggling with the language, she is determined to overcome those difficulties with the goal of immersing herself in the broader community.

“I’m looking forward to the point where we we’ve learned enough of the language and the culture to have Indonesian friends - where I realize that these relationships are actually getting deep,” she said, adding that it will be rewarding to be a part of something beneficial to others on the other side of the globe.