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The
following account of MAF finance manager Steve Marx is courtesy MAF-US.
My name
is Steve Marx, and my family and I live in Shell, Ecuador, where we serve
with MAF in the area of finances and administration.
My
principal responsibility is doing the monthly bookkeeping in support of
our fleet of six Cessna 206 aircraft and staff of 18 families.
Ordinarily the word “crunch” doesn’t have a good connotation related to
flying airplanes, but my job involves “crunching numbers”. I spend
many hours each month at the computer in my office in our hangar inputting
financial data to our software program with the goal of producing timely
monthly reports to send to MAF (US) headquarters in California as well as
for our use in budget, accounts receivables and cash flow controls.
Some of
my other tasks are being responsible for the payroll of our 12 hangar
employees, handling parts and other local payables, and trying to be sure
we comply with the regulations and tax laws of Ecuador’s IRS agency which
at times can be confusing.
In 1974
at age 25, single and anxious to use my recent aviation training from
Moody Aviation, I joined MAF and was assigned to Honduras. After two busy
years operating alone at a base under difficult flying conditions, I
suffered a severe landing accident with resulting spinal injury.
Five
years later, as a partial paraplegic, having retrained at MAF’s California
headquarters office in bookkeeping, now married, my wife and I were
reassigned to Honduras where the operation had grown to seven aircraft
with the resultant need for a full-time bookkeeper.
Nine
years later, in 1991, with the addition of three children and the death of
my wife to cancer at age 39, MAF requested that we move to Shell, Ecuador,
where I have been involved in an expanded role as Finance Manager. In 1995
I married Ann, a missionary teacher I met right here in Shell. Our son,
Ryan, was born in 1998.
My daily
schedule involves tracking flight income through the daily flight sheets
received from our pilots, controlling cash flow and collecting accounts
receivables. My job was simplified several years ago when Ecuador switched
to the U.S. dollar as its official currency.
Without
organized and timely accounting and cash flow control to provide
consistent funding for fuel, parts and other operational expenses, we
couldn’t reliably continue to operate day after day, meeting the
transportation needs of the jungle dwellers of Ecuador. We feel blessed to
be able to participate in this way in MAF’s ministry here in Ecuador.
Blessings!
Steve
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a day in the life of... an MAF business & finance administrator
