A FAMILY FLYING TOGETHER
It started with a man named Mohammad. In April of 2024, he was trapped by the kind of persecution that broke his bones, and left fear and torment lingering long after his body healed. He had found the Lord, but he had not yet found a flock. When he stumbled into a prayer gathering in East Africa, for the first time he felt surrounded by people who carried the same freedom he had been chasing. As the community prayed over him, the fear lifted, the pain left, and Mohammad testified boldly of the freedom he experienced. A caged bird had learned to fly.
The community that welcomed Mohammad in was led by Nadir and Fadia, who had already spent years training young adults for ministry across the Middle East. This had been fruitful but lonely work, carried largely on their own. Through missions trips into other regions in the Middle East, they encountered extended prayer and worship gatherings trip after trip, finding out later that what they were experiencing was other like-minded communities at MAPS Global Missions Bases. Something clicked into place that a decade of solitary labor hadn't been able to give them: a family flying in formation. When a MAPS team came to support their prayer and worship gathering, not only was Mohammad healed, but Nadir and Fadia also experienced camaraderie in their shared vision for the region. But more than camaraderie, the relationship was built on love and trust.
Recognizing their need for further training and with a desire to grow this blooming relationship, they came to train at the MAPS Global School alongside others doing the same work in other nations. Nadir and Fadia left feeling strengthened and empowered: “We went from running a lonely race, to belonging to a family. From running fast to learning how to run deep. We went from feeling overwhelmed by the vision, to being equipped.”
They went home with more than new tools — they had a plan to join their life's work into what would become the East Africa Missions Base. But there was still one more problem: they didn’t have the space to facilitate this vision. Nadir and Fadia and their team needed somewhere to land. Since 2022, they had dreamed about a building with room for prayer, discipleship, and housing - all under one roof. For four years that dream remained just a dream. Doors closed that seemed sure to open; funding seemed impossible; and the team was discouraged. As the MAPS family surrounded them, they began to dream again about a facility that could house everything together…just like they had planned in 2022. Through prayer, fasting and searching, a door flung open for them to lease a building that matched the whiteboard sketch from 2022 nearly line for line. The promise was fulfilled and it confirmed God’s commitment to build His house in East Africa.
A flock that had been training and flying together for years finally had a nest built wide enough to hold all of them, and room enough to keep growing.
Nadir and Fadia’s time flying solo is officially over. This summer, they completed the process of being adopted into the MAPS Family as the East Africa Missions Base. What felt like flying against the current for years finally turned into an updraft that caused them to soar. The team in East Africa is preparing to send ten of their leaders to train at the Middle East Missions Base, so they can carry what they learn back across the Arab world. Trained, equipped, and no longer flying alone, the East Africa team is spreading its wings now, and soaring.