Hello again from beautiful, frosty, white Bethel! I hope you're all having a wonderful start to your New Year! I wanted to start by apologizing for the wide gap between updates, but we decided it was ok as we were back in PA in November to update most of you in person. Having said that though, it's time to get back on track!
Fall Recap...
So to back track just a little...Probably the most exciting
event of our fall here (really maybe our whole time here so far) was a wedding
at our little church. Two of our good friends Angel and Pedro got married on
November 3rd, about 1 week after our anniversary! They blessed us by allowing us to be a small part of planning
their special day. Colby and I have been so thankful for their friendship over
this first year here and it's been amazing to see them both grow in their
relationships with Christ and each other.
Kings kids started up again this fall as well and will
continue until spring time. We've continued to have between 12-20 kids coming
regularly on Wednesday nights. God has been doing great things in our time
there, both in Colby and I, and in the kids. Children's ministry is definitely
not where either of us would have thought we would end up as we were preparing
for our move up here, but through quite a bit of prayer, God has opened our
hearts to these kids even more over time. This year Colby is using a curriculum
for the lesson time that walks through the New Testament. It has been
incredible to see how much the kids remember from week to week! Pray that God
will continue to open their hearts and minds to come to understand how these
facts and stories they're learning relate to them personally and that He would
bring them to saving knowledge of the Gospel.
Side note...after seeing these pictures, who thinks Colby needs to at least trim that beard???
One other slightly crazy occurrence this fall is that we became Alaskan homeowners! Through some amazing events, God opened the door for us to buy a home from a lady in our church who felt God was calling her to leave Bethel for a time. The house needs some work, which has given Colby an outlet for his endless energy, but we have already been able to use it to host several guests and Bible studies. We're still unsure of how long God will have us in Bethel, but we hope to use this space He's given us for his glory. One of my personal favorite parts about where we live is that there's a beaver hut right in the back yard!
Thanksgiving
As I mentioned, and as most of you know, we were able to make a trip back across the country to spend a few weeks with family around Thanksgiving. We left slushy/icey/snowless Bethel in late November and were welcomed back to the east coast by a lovely winter storm complete with ice and about 10 inches of fresh snow. As beautiful as the snow was, it made the drive from the DC airport to Richfield pretty stressful. Thankfully, Colby's dad is a pro at driving in crumby weather and we made it without any issues.
The rest of our time at home was about as good as it could possibly be. We had some great game nights with friends, caught up over coffees and breakfasts, and celebrated Thanksgiving with both of our families. Because Pennsylvania rifle season opens the Monday after Thanksgiving, we were also able to enjoy hunting with family, which happens to be one of our favorite things. God was so good and blessed both of us with deer this year! So we were able to freeze and bring back 50# of venison to add some variety to the protein in our diet which has lately consisted of a rotation between moose and salmon with the occasional entrance of musk ox.
We can't say enough how thankful we are for all of the love and support we've felt from all of you during our time here. It was so good to spend time recharging and reconnecting. It was amazing how easy it was to pick right back up in our friendships after over a year away. I have to admit, coming back was pretty tough, probably harder than leaving the first time. But God was so good and dropped us right back into situations that took our minds off of ourselves and the things we were missing and allowed us to focus on what He was doing here instead.
Alaskan Christmas
Soon after we stepped off the plane, Bethel slid into real winter weather. Temperatures dipped below zero and decided to hang out there through Christmas. As cold as -20 degrees sounds (and don't get me wrong...it's COLD) we found we kind of liked the sub zero temperatures. For quite a few days there was no wind, just clear, white cold days. We've come to appreciate that winters here are just supposed to be cold. Cold weather means any snow that falls sticks around forever, making much less of the nasty slushy ice that makes walking difficult. One of the first cold days we had fog, which causes tiny ice crystals to form on absolutely every surface, giving the world a beautiful frosted look. I think it's one of my favorite things about winter.
Something about the white really does help a person get into the Christmas spirit. Christmas here was much quieter than a Pennsylvania Christmas would have been, but as much as we miss family on that day, we've found it's nice to have a day to focus on Christ and spend time together. We went to a really nice Christmas Eve Candlelight service at the Covenant Church in town and then spent Christmas day playing games, calling family, reading, and snow machine riding. The fresh clean layers of snow this Christmas keep reminding me of Isaiah 1:18. It's amazing how a blanket of snow can cover so many of the imperfections of a place. To be honest, most of the year the city of Bethel does look just a little (or a lot depending on who you ask) dirty, but a blanket of fresh snow and frost makes it a truly beautiful place. I'm so thankful that through Christ all of the ugly, dirtiness of our sins is covered completely, and that "Though (our) sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."
Another reason why cold is good here, is it allows the river to freeze which makes travel between Bethel and the surrounding villages much easier. The winter highway is officially open, as you can see in the pictures below.
Last But Not Least
This has been a pretty exciting week in our house. Because we've lived in Alaska over a year now, Colby was able to get an Alaska Resident hunting license. That means that for 45 dollars he can shoot 2 caribou and 2 moose (and some smaller game animals). Goal number one for this year was to get two caribou. The herd near our part of Western Alaska is known as the Mulchantna Caribou Heard, which is named after its traditional calving grounds, the upper Mulchanta River region. During these winter months, when there's enough snow on the ground to travel by snow machine, hunters can get out towards the mountains where larger concentrations of caribou are found. After several days of preparations, which included getting his snow machine and pull-behind sled ready to travel out and bring back game, Colby, Job and two of Colby's co-workers (and friends) Pedro and Carl headed out after the herd. The four of them left around 10 a.m. and traveled about 40 miles southwest of Bethel to a place near Three Step Mountain where they came to a herd of caribou. The exact number of animals in the herd is unclear...but there were lots...Colby says at least 200, maybe 500. The end result was 2 caribou for each of the four guys! Both males and females have antlers, and Colby got one of each. They skinned and cleaned their game in the field, placed the meat in game bags, packed it on their sleds and headed back to Bethel, arriving home around 6:30 p.m! It's a local custom (and one that I think is so good and very similar to tithing) for a hunter to give away his first catch of any game animal. In accordance with this, Colby gave away one of his caribou Thursday night, and the two of us spent Saturday storing away number two. We are so thankful that God blessed him with a safe and successful hunt, and provided us with a fresh stock of meat in our freezer!
Finally...
Near the end of this year I read the book "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom for the first time. First of all, if you haven't read the book it's one I would definitely recommend. It was lent to me by a friend and I had a very hard time putting it down, I probably would have read it all in one day if I had had the time. For those of you who don't know, Corrie was a Dutch watchmaker who worked with her father and other family members to help many Jews escape the Holocaust by hiding them in their home in Nazi-occupied Holland. They were eventually caught and arrested and Corrie and her sister Betsie ended up together in a Nazi concentration camp. The story is heartbreaking as it clearly portrays the horrors of that time in history, but what stuck me most was how clearly the book portrayed God's faithfulness in the midst of the suffering they experienced. One of Corrie's greatest desires during her imprisonment was for Gods word. In the earlier days after her arrest a nurse was able to give her small new testament tracts which she talks about reading over and over again. Later, Corrie and Betsie were able (miraculously) to smuggle a Bible into the concentration camp. As she is describing some of their final days at Ravensbruck Corrie writes,
"But as the rest of the world grew stranger, one thing became increasingly clear. And that was the reason the two of us were here. Why others should suffer we were not shown. As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of help and hope. Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God."As I read those words of hers I was convicted about the lack of value I so often show for Gods word. Surrounded by so many comforts and distractions I often hurry through my morning reading to get on to my breakfast or my work day or some other thing that seems important. I forget, or am just too busy to realize, that what I hold in my hands every morning is something so incredibly powerful it can pierce through the deepest darkness to warm and change hearts and lives. We live in a time and place right now where we do not have to smuggle God's word into our homes, but can read openly without fear. Unfortunately, at least in my own life, this causes me to take it for granted. My prayer for myself and for the people around me in Western Alaska (and you too) as we go into this new year, is that God would open our hearts to the awesomeness of his word again. That I would draw close to it again, truly desire it more than I ever have, and not waste the blessing of our current freedom. I pray that we would begin to see amazing power of Gods word transforming lives and pushing back the darkness throughout this part of the world.
"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Hebrews 4:12
Prayer Requests
- I already mentioned Kings Kids, but we would very much appreciate prayer for the little hearts that come out to that. Also pray for both of us, for patience for difficult situations and for God to give Colby wisdom and clear words as he leads.
- Continue to pray for the discipleship opportunities we have here, in small groups and one on one time.
- Pray for safety as we both travel this winter. For my upcoming travels to Hooper Bay, and for Colby's snow machine and flight adventures.
- And finally, Colby has been feeling a stirring to be involved in some other form of ministry here. We don't know what that looks like just yet, but be praying for opportunities for him and for hearts to be open in whatever direction that ends up being.
