April 2. Mark Palm. What young boy doesn’t dream of flying an airplane? Mark Palm is no exception.
But young Mark had a second passion, and that was to help people. In August of 2000, Mark founded Samaritan Aviation, a ministry that provides flight-related medical services to people who live in the remote jungle regions of Papua New Guinea. It took him 10 years to raise enough money to buy his first float plane—a flying ambulance—but on this date in 2010, Mark made his first Samaritan Aviation flight.
Since then, he has added three more planes to his squadron. Hospital trips used to take 5-7 days by canoe. Now those trips require just one hour by air. From complicated pregnancies to cases of severe dehydration to routine broken bones, Mark and his team serve and encourage people that the rest of world often overlooks. And they do it for free.
Think you can’t make a difference? Anyone can help someone.
Mark Palm wanted to make a difference. He was a third-generation aviator, and he dreamed of seeing the world through a career in the military or commercial aviation. He looked for opportunity; he saw needs.
At age 16, a youth trip to Mexico to give people roofs sparked an idea—go where no one else had gone. At age 19, Mark first visited Papua, New Guinea. When he returned to the United States, he met Kirsten.
On their first date, Mark shared the desire of his heart—to serve people no one else could. The Southern California girl from the big city didn’t run away. Instead, she said she’d share his dream. Mark proposed marriage. Kirsten said yes. They said I do. And for ten years, they struggled to do what seemed impossible.
Mark found odd jobs to support his family, while he learned skills he’d need as an aviator—engineering, navigation, mechanics. Success came neither quickly nor easily, but his labor of love built the imaginable. Mark founded Samaritan Aviation (SA). He and Kirsten and their three children moved to Papua New Guinea, ready for SA’s first flight.
Good Friday, April 2, 2010 marked the first medical mission in the only floatplane on the 700-mile long Sepik River—a call to help a pregnant mother.
In heavy labor, Antonia had one hope. Without help, her baby would die, and the mother might die, too. With a nurse onboard and a medical team waiting at Boram Hospital, a grateful woman gave thanks for her healthy son—and named him Mark.
“Life in Timbunke Village made me understand the needs,” he says. “Flooding, sickness, lack of medicine, lack of access—the things that are normal for us don’t exist here.”
Over the eight years that followed, Mark expanded SA from one flight crew to a team of four pilots and six families to serve some 220,000 villagers—almost half the population of Papua, New Guinea. They turned what would otherwise be a weeklong canoe trip into a 45-minute flight-for-life.
Delivering more than 100,000 pounds of medical supplies to 20-some aid stations, Mark and company also provided vaccinations that reduced infant mortality, midwife training, and hands-on education for better nutrition and hygiene.
Mark realizes that not everyone will go to remote places as he and his family did. He believes anyone can make a big impact anywhere. “It starts with small things. Look around your neighborhood.” Mark is convinced the mission field isn’t only in on foreign soil; it may be as close as the yard next door.
“I am convinced that my God will fully satisfy every need you have, for I have seen the abundant riches of glory revealed to me through the Anointed One, Jesus Christ” (Philippians 4:19 TPT).
How will you use your gifts? Think you can’t make a difference? Anyone can help someone.
https://www.themanual.com/culture/samaritan-aviation-mark-palm-interview/.
https://samaritanaviation.org/organizer/president-mark-palm/.
https://samaritanaviation.org/.
https://www.falconfieldairport.com/my-community/falcon-field-stories/samaritan-aviation.
Story read by Blake Mattocks