MAF explores airborne BibleBox for inflight “Evange-tainment”
Peter Higham, serving with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory Australia, has started the conversation with pilots and engineers on the viability of running a BibleBox in MAF aircraft during flights to provide inflight access to digital Christian resources.
MAF, a global Christian aviation organisation flys in some of the remotest areas of the planet. MAF pilots choose to do what they do in order to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Fly AND share the Cross.
They are researching and exploring the impact of running a BibleBox in the aircraft during flights. Consider the potential here – an MAF aircraft has a BibleBox running making digital resources available over wifi to passengers – who can access the resources on their smartphones, tablets, laptops. Inflight “entertainment”? No, how about “evange-tainment”!
Or maybe the aircraft already has a couple of tablets attached to the seat pockets that passengers can access?
Passengers accessing the BibleBox wifi could be browsing a variety of content – from evangelistic material, Christian video and audio, articles and texts, to information and video about MAF and the work it does around the world. Perhaps reading or listening to the Bible during the flight?
With a battery life of 4-5 hours a BibleBox in a small protective case could deliver resources to passengers for most of the day. If it were plugged into a USB battery pack or even a mobile charging system in the aircraft it would remain charged all day.
The wifi range of the BibleBox is around 25 metres. So if a pilot were to run a BibleBox from their aircraft, resources would also be available to people in the villages once the aircraft landed. “The plane is here and so are some new resources!”
United Airlines delivers inflight entertainment using wifi to devices now – is this initiative of Peter’s an opportunity for MAF to share the Cross in the same manner? This is a great idea and it would be great to see it technically approved and selected by the pilots as a ministry activity they could incorprate into their already busy day.
The BibleBox Project is trying to raise funds to provide 40 BibleBoxes to MAF families around the world. To support or contribute to this project visit FaithLauncher.