The Last Mile of Missions

About This Episode

On this episode of the Built For This podcast, our host, Dr. Steve Mason, president of LeTourneau University, is joined by Steve Russell, the president of JAARS. JAARS stands for Jungle Aviation and Relay Service, a missions ministry that focuses on covering the last mile of missions using special-purpose aircraft, boats, and off-road vehicles – relaying God’s Word, his missionaries, and vital supplies across age-old geographical barriers. As the Christian Polytechnic University, LeTourneau has the privilege of working closely with JAARS from temporary mission trips to employing our future aviators.

 KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Serving the Lord how you're wired: Military command, national politics, and late-in-life flight training all became preparation for a role Steve never applied for
• Small obedience precedes big assignments: A one-week volunteer trip to scrape paint led to leading an entire mission organization four months later
• Mission Aviation: JAARS closes the last-mile gap in missions. Bringing the Word of God into the most remote parts of the world.
• Character opens doors competence can't: Technical skill matters, but a good testimony and a heart for people are what sustain someone in the field long-term
• Availability Over Ambition: Over decades, the prayer moved from "bless what I'm building" to "show me where you're already working"

SERVING THE LORD HOW YOU’RE WIRED

Growing up around veterans, no one in Steve Russell's neighborhood was surprised when he chose the Army. He was wired that way. At the age 13, Steve Russel heard the Lord through His Word, leading him to accept Christ. From that moment, he knew he was called to ministry. That calling came with a dichotomy he had to wrestle through: "Can you serve the Lord in how you're wired, or do you have to do it as a minister if you've surrendered to ministry?" As Steve put it, "I felt God wanted me to serve him, and I wanted to serve him in any way I could." Without the means to go to college, he took an Army scholarship to study ministry — a decision that would set the course for everything that followed.

Once he received his commission, Steve approached base chapels the way Paul approached synagogues in every Greek city he visited — a starting point for faith, and a place he'd always find ways to serve. But his ministry wasn't confined to the chapel. He was also a skilled infantryman, and he believed the two were connected: "You have to have a good testimony and be good at what you do." That combination of expertise and character, he found, opened doors and built credibility across every field he worked in. Steve went on to command at every level, from a platoon of paratroopers to a thousand-soldier task force in Iraq.

Then came December 13, 2003 — the day Steve, alongside the work of a couple of special operations teams, captured Saddam Hussein. That moment changed the course of his life. After publishing his memoir and spending years speaking on military leadership, Steve decided to run for Senate. After years in politics, he lost his final campaign in 2019, he was asked to step into full-time ministry. While in ministry he was able to complete his flight training. Five months later, at 56 years old, Steve earned his pilot's license. From there, he simply prayed: "Okay God, where are you working in aviation, where can I participate?" He had no idea what that prayer would become.

That question led Steve to found Redeemed Flying Corps — a nonprofit bringing together people with talent or resources and people called to missions, so they could get the training needed to do the work of God. It started small, with just a couple of young pilots finishing flight training. But it didn't stay small for long, soon growing through donated airplanes and tens of thousands of dollars given to help cover flight hours.

JAARS: MISSION AVIATION

Steve Russell’s path to JAARS began, fittingly, with a mission trip to scrape paint. In February 2022, he and a small group spent a week on a manlift scraping sludge off a Helio Courier aircraft in JAARS’s hangars. It was meant to be a one-time connection for his nonprofit. Three weeks later, Steve got an email saying his name had been submitted to JAARS's presidential search committee. Despite not having experience in missions aviation, only four months after that paint-scraping trip, JAARS asked him to lead the entire organization.

Today, Steve Russell leads a ministry spanning four continents, working primarily in rainforest regions to deliver God's Word to some of the most remote, under-reached people groups in the world. In places like Papua New Guinea, with 125 languages still needing literacy and Scripture, or Vanuatu, with 118 languages across a scattering of islands, the need for mission aviation remains as urgent as it was when JAARS began in 1948. Russell sees his own unlikely path — military, politics, ministry, and a volunteer paint-scraping trip — as proof that God wastes nothing, using every experience to prepare people for work they never saw coming.

Russell pointed to a mix of political, cultural, and financial pressures shaping JAARS' work in 2026 — unstable governments in the regions they serve, tribal pushback rooted in spiritual darkness, and even international tariff disputes disrupting aircraft deployment. Rising fuel costs, paired with falling donations amid broader economic strain, add another layer of difficulty. Yet Steve doesn't see these obstacles as discouraging — if anything, he views resistance as confirmation that JAARS is exactly where God wants them to be.

Steve is encouraged by the passion and innovation of the next generation of missionaries, and believes the key isn't for older generations to hold the reins too tightly, but to equip and release younger workers to lead. Drawing on Matthew 13:52, he described the ideal as new and old working side by side — youthful energy paired with seasoned wisdom.

When it comes to recruiting new aviators, Steve emphasized character over checklists. Technical skills can be taught, but a heart for people and a call to serve are what truly sustain someone in the field. Russell believes LeTourneau builds people perfect for this type of work. Equipping them with the technical and heart.

Availability Over Ambition

Dr. Mason posed a question that gets at the heart of Steve's whole story: how much of his path was setting his sights on something and pursuing it, versus being summoned into something he'd never imagined?

Looking back across his 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, Steve noticed something remarkable: the things he cared about seeing impacted, God used. But the prayer behind that impact had changed over time. In his younger years, it sounded like, "Okay God, I'm going to do this — would you please bless it?" As he matured, it shifted to something far different: "God, where are you working, where I can participate in how you've wired me?"

That shift — from asking God to bless his plans to asking where God was already at work — became the defining posture of Russell’s life. "Our greatest ability is availability," he tells Dr. Steve Mason. He never planned to be part of capturing a dictator, serving in Congress, or leading a worldwide missions aviation organization with zero background in missions. We have agency, and God does extraordinary things through people willing to participate in his plan, but only if they're available.

His counsel for anyone, at any stage of life, is simple: ask God where he's working, where you have a passion to participate; and go do it. That availability doesn't always look like leadership. Sometimes, Russell reminded us, it looks like scraping sludge off the bottom of an airplane. Small, unglamorous acts of obedience are often exactly how God positions people for something they never applied for and never saw coming.

It's a lesson LeTourneau students are learning firsthand — through internships, vision trips, and hands-on ministry experiences that don't wait until graduation to put faith into action. Just as Steve's willingness to show up for a week of manual labor put him on a path toward leading JAARS, LeTourneau's hands-on approach to mission preparation gives students the same kind of opportunity: to build real skill, gain real experience, and stay available for whatever God has next — even when it looks nothing like what they imagined.

Dr. Steven Mason is President of LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas. This article is adapted from a conversation with Steve Russell on the Built for This podcast. Listen to the full episode on LeTourneau University's YouTube channel.