Texan Children Fly to Mission Field Every Sabbath

A model airplane makes mission stories come alive for children at a small church.

By Andrew McChesney, adventistmission.org

Children at a Seventh-day Adventist church in the U.S. state of Texas don’t just listen to the mission story — they also fly to faraway countries to experience the story firsthand.

Every Sabbath this quarter, the children are checking in at Missionary Airlines when they arrive for Sabbath School at the Grandview Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has a membership of about 30 in a town of 1,500 people.

Each child presents a passport — marked “Grandview Sabbath School Passport” — at the airline’s registration desk to receive a visa for the destination country. Last Sabbath, a guest speaker from Adventist Mission had prepared a mission story from China, so an airline representative — Primary class teacher Luly Wicklund — stuck a home-printed sticker of the red Chinese flag into each passport.

Each child also can receive stars in the passport: for showing up on time, for bringing a Bible, and for inviting a friend.

The first children who arrive early are issued first-class boarding passes, which allow them to choose their seats in an airplane in the next room. Others receive economy boarding passes with assigned seating.

The children also have frequent-flyer cards with the quarter’s 13 memory verses on the back.

The large plane, constructed by church members, consists of a metal and wooden frame covered with white plastic canvas. Oval windows line the sides of the fuselage, and a curved door with a realistic-looking plane handle swings open and shut.

Once the children are seated, Luly plays a recorded message over a loudspeaker.

“Thank you for choosing Missionary Airlines, where a new adventure awaits you every Sabbath!” says the male voice of the plane’s captain. “Please remain in your seats as one of your attendants has prayer before our flight departs.”

After the announcement last Sabbath, Luly asked the 11 children onboard for their prayer requests. A boy pointed to a gaping hole at the back of the plane and exclaimed, “Let’s pray that we’re not sucked out of this plane during the flight.” After the other children laughed, the boy added seriously, “Please pray for my dog. She isn’t feeling well.”

Other children also asked for prayers for ill or lost pets, and then the plane took off for China.

En route, Luly and two other teachers, Madeline Dyche and Diana Cavender, wheeled out a cart with refreshments. The teachers had considered bringing egg rolls but settled on three Chinese-made desserts: coconut candy, durian candy, and small cakes stuffed with flower petals. 

The children willingly sampled the goodies, but several expressed dislike for the flower cakes.

“This is gross!” said one little boy, wrinkling his nose.

He whipped open his passport to the page with the Chinese visa and, with a pencil, circled a nauseated face. Passport pages feature three faces with various expressions that children can circle to evaluate the airline food.

Upon landing, the children exited the plane to listen to the mission story from China.

Afterward, they reboarded the plane and flew back home to Texas. During the return flight, a teacher asked four questions about the mission story. The children chose from multiple-choice answers in their passports.

Luly developed Missionary Airlines at the suggestion of her 11-year-old son more than a decade ago. Her son now works as a graphic designer for Adventist Frontier Missions.

Luly said she has found it useful to develop a theme each quarter, similar to how Vacation Bible Schools have a theme every year, and to make the mission stories part of that theme. Currently, the airplane is the 13-week theme, and then it will be replaced by a submarine. Previous themes have included a cave and a rocket to travel the world.

Luly said the airplane trip personalizes the mission stories for the children.

“They see that these are normal people who go to these places,” she said. “It's not just a missionary or some other person out there that nobody knows. I want them to see these are normal people.”

Read next Sabbath's mission story for children

For extra materials for the children's story, visit the Facebook page of the Mission quarterlies