Ever since he can remember, Titus Matheny has envisioned a future in missionary work. Titus and his family moved to Africa when he was six, where they lived for five years providing foster care and formula ministry (feeding babies formula) for children in orphanages.
“Growing up there is where I got my love for mission and travel,” said Titus.
Titus first became interested in aviation around the time he began high school. He started flying drones, eventually earning his commercial drone pilot license.
“I was going to try to start a business flying drones. That didn’t happen. But I had to study a lot for that test — and I learned a lot about aviation.”
The more Titus learned about aviation, the more he realized he “didn’t just want to watch aviation from the ground.”
“I wanted to be up there flying planes,” he said. “That’s how I decided I wanted to be a pilot.”
This past spring, Titus spent the last semester of his senior year in high school working as an intern supporting the SOAR into STEM program at Wings of Hope. Titus participated in the program as a student in the spring of 2025.
“The SOAR into STEM program was my first exposure to a real organization that did mission aviation work,” he said.
Titus said he learned a lot talking to the volunteer mentors about their experiences — and he especially enjoyed the hands-on activities. As an intern, he prepared activities for the students who participated in the program.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “I got to test out the activities, build drones, cut out wood pieces for a project where you build a wing rib, test out flight simulators.”
Up next for Titus is attending Moody Aviation in Spokane, Wash., where he will spend five years training to be a missionary pilot. While he’s not exactly sure where he’ll end up after college, Titus said he will probably work for a large mission aviation organization flying humanitarian missions, such as search-and-rescue and medevac flights.
“It just seems like a really cool way to combine my faith and my passion for aviation,” Titus said.