To become a pilot is expensive, especially the flight training. There is no standard way for a missionary pilot to finance his training, everyone has to find his own way fitting for his personal situation.
I financed my Private Pilots License working part time as an software engineer. After that, I took a loan that has been specifically tailored to the needs of the pilot's training and reduced my working time to a 450€ job (that is a special limit for so called "mini job"s in Germany up to witch you don't have to pay income taxes). At that time, I thought this best since the cost for the loan were about the same amount I had to pay in social welfare contributions if I had kept working the 75%.
Then I began to question my financial concept. For a wile now, I decried the habit of trying to insure ourselves against every contingency that Christians in the western world have taken over from their societies, instead of trusting in the many promises that God gave us in His word. But didn't I do about the same trying to work out Gods calling in my own strength an with my own possibilities? Did I trust that He would give me all that I needed to do His will? I had made the mistake of not really searching God's Word for guidance in this matter before making up my mind to the loan.
I began to read George Mueller's "Narrative of some of God's dealings with me" where he describes how he decided to live without his regular income as a pastor and never ask any human for support but God alone. He refused to go in dept even if the orphanage needed something badly. He never made any need public, but published only how God had met their needs. And thus he experienced daily how God cares for His children, how He sometimes tests their faith but never forsakes them.
The goal of my life is not to meet the physical need of people and not even the spiritual needs. The goal of my live is to glorify God, to lift up His name. And if I finance my training with my human possibilities and "earn" it all myself, the people around me might see that as a great commitment and determination on my part and marvel at it. But if I only pray and my Lord gives me everything I need, they praise Him.
I don't want to be seen as very determined and devoted, for I am not. I don't want to just support the spreading of the Gospel with my training and future service, but most of all I want to honor Jesus Christ with my life and then I want to prove to my brothers and sisters that God still cares for His children today. He does not turn us adrift in the humanly possible and only act upon the things that surpass the human possibilities.
I want to show with my life and my experiences that God can be taken at His word, that He provides for all our needs if we seek first the God and His righteousness and give Him the glory, in making known His dealings with me.
So I have decided not to draw upon the rest of the loan. I won't make any requests for support either, publish no donation projects as convenient they might be for both sites. I won't hide them in prayer request either. Rather, I will ask for what I need in prayer alone and trust that God will send it to me. I don't want support from people that just like the humanitarian part of mission aviation. But I want to give those Christians the possibility to take part in my ministry, that have it laid on their heart by God to participate in the spreading of the Gospel by supporting a brother that is serving that cause.
For those brothers and sisters is the following information:
As an individual person, I cannot issue a donation receipt, the donation will not be tax-deductible. The German tax law sees such a finiancal contribution as a gift that has to be reported to the relevant tax office by both sites (if living in Germany). Gifts up to 20 000 € per donor (the total of the last ten years is considered) and any gifts "for the purpose of adequate sustenance or education" are tax free. So it makes sense to specify the intended purpose of education ore sustenance to make sure I don't have to pay taxes for it and of course I will use any gift according to its purpose.
The two easiest was to support me financially probably are:
A transfer to my training account:
IBAN DE21500105175410761376
BIC: INGDDEFFXXX
Send Money with PayPal:
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Both options are free for me. Transer fees for the donor are dependent of the relevant bank. Sending money by PayPal is free for the donor, too, except if he sends from another currency than Euros. In that case, there will be a change fee that should be displayed during the transaction or can be looked up at the PayPal website.
Thank you very much for your support (and may it be ever so small)!