Thank you for praying for my recent trip to Koyuk, Alaska, where I attended the annual convention of the Evangelical Covenant Church of Alaska (ECCAK). Koyuk is located on the South Eastern Edge of the Seward Peninsula, where the Koyuk River meets the Norton Sound. If you follow the Iditariod, Koyuk is where the mushers come back to land after crossing over a large frozen expanse that is part of Norton Bay.
The Evangelical Covenant Church has about 20 churches in Alaska, and the majority of them are located in either the Yukon-Kuskoquim Delta or the Norton Sound area of the state. They rotate their yearly conference between the Road System (anchorage, Eagle River, and Fairbanks), the YK Delta and Norton Sound. An annual conference is always a big logistical challenge, but you can imagine how the challenge compounds when the conference is hosted by a village, where no one can run to KFC to pick up chicken or SAMs to get some paper cups.
Koyuk has about 300 people in it. The Evangelical Covenant Church of Koyuk in the only church in town, and has about 35-40 regular attendees. A very healthy church in a very friendly village. The weather was pretty warm, somewhere around zero, but the winds in from the sea were pretty ferocious.
Arctic Barnabas Ministries focuses in on a few Covenant Villages in our ministry and we are considered by the them to be "Friends of the Covenant." As I have said many times before, it is SO Expensive to do everything up here, including pastoral care. They welcome our assistance and we are pleased to help.
Most of my trips out are to visit single families and to spend time doing whatever I can to encourage and assist. That means alot of listening and praying, dreaming and crying. But this trip was simply a joyful time of fellowship, singing, and challenge from God's word (and most of it was even in English, although I enjoy a familiar tune sung in Yup'ik just as much - - even though I can't understand 99.9% of it!)
What this does for us in our personal ministry is to remind us of the importance of a healthy local body, and the role a local meeting place plays in the health of a community. As many times as I am in places where I do not see that, it's exciting to be somewhere where I see it flourishing! Praise the Lord for Pastor Chip Swanson, his wife, and the people of the Koyuk Evangelical Covenant Church for their gracious hospitality. I got my fill of Muktuk and even some Black Muktuk. But thanks to a fine host named Grace, I also got sourdough pancakes and bacon!
Kris and I will be attending the Family Life Conference "Weekend to Remember" Conference this next weekend. Please pray that it will be a great time for us as we focus on or marriage for a few days. We are both looking forward to it.
Also, our Pathfinder is acting up. Our Van has almost 150,000 miles on it and just isn't worthy enough to take out of town, and now our Nissan Pathfinder (with nearly 100,00 miles) seems to be having transmission problems. So, pray that we will continue to get where we need to go!
Please also pray for our staff meetings on Thursdays. If only you could see all the stuff we cover in two hours. And to complicate things, we aren't always there all the time. The nature of ABM is that everyone of us are traveling at different times. It's a real challenge to keep us all on the same sheet. But praise be to God for bringing the organization this far. Please pray for his continued guidance.
Gary
