Monday, October 31, 2011

The weather outside is frightful...but the fire is so delightful.






To all that gave toward us being able to purchase the wood stove for the parsonage...THANK YOU!! What a blessing! We've been able to run the wood stove for about 2 weeks now and have not had to burn any fuel oil yet. This will help save the church thousands of dollars every winter. Those savings will help the church be able to do much more intentional ministry outreach.

Last weekend we hosted a SEND North Galena team building workshop. I have mentioned before the partnership that Galena Bible Church has made with SEND North in helping to equip potential Alaskan Bush missionaries in the ability to live and do ministry in rural Alaska. The vision of this partnership is three fold:

1. Providing an opportunity for missionaries to ease into the difficulties of living in rural Alaska (lack of supplies, difficulty of travel, DIY projects, extreme living conditions, etc.) so that they are able to transition from city life to Bush life.
2. Helping prepare them to minister in a different culture and context than they have before.
3. To have them in Galena means that they are exposed to students and adults from villages all over the state through GILA, Kokrine Hills Bible Camp, and Galena training events. This provides opportunities for them to develop a heart for a specific village before they go.

There are currently three SEND missionary families in Galena, and one couple 90 miles north in Huslia, Alaska. During the workshop, we met together to learn more about each other's gifting and to pray for God's leadership in church planting in Alaska. Galena Bible Church hopes to become a sister church to these new church plants and to be a support to their growth and development. In the coming weeks, SEND will be stationing a plane in Galena and we will begin to use it to support a group of believers in Ruby, AK, which is about 50 miles up river. We are so excited to see what God has in store for the interior of Alaska!
The Galena Bible Church has been doing very well. We finally remembered to take a picture at potluck. The church has been doing a great job of providing enough food for everyone. We've had some people donate paper and plastic ware, and that has been a huge blessing. THANK YOU for helping us serve these teens and our church family! For our newer readers: We do a potluck every Sunday because students from the dorms only have two meals on weekends. Brunch 11-12:30 and dinner. If they chose to come to church they basically opt out of Brunch. So Galena Bible Church decided last year to do a potluck every Sunday to remove that hindrance. As such we have seen our student body grow at the church.

 This past Saturday there were 5 guys and one young lady that helped rebuild a set of stairs for a family that is a part of the bible church. The existing stairs were dangerously rotten and went from the ground up to the house which was elevated about 9' off the ground. This would have been quite a fall if the stairs had failed. We worked in the driving snow and 5F temperature to get it finished in one day. It was such a beautiful thing to see God's people taking care of one another.

Things you can be praying for this coming week:
  • Tomorrow night we kickoff our Youth Group. Pray for the volunteers (myself and Shell included) that we would be effective at discipling students.
  • This coming weekend, ChangePoint Church in Anchorage is sending 3 guys on a mission trip to Galena. Please pray that we can utilize their time for the most impact.
  • Safety - The weather is cold and we've had more snow than usual for this time of year. Pray that as people begins to navigate the land via snow-gos (snow mobiles for non bush speakers) that they would be protected.
  • Spiritual Protection: The enemy is keenly aware of what God is doing here, and I have seen signs of attack. Pray for courage, and steadfastness for us and the rest of the believers as we continue to serve in spite of challenges.

1 comment:

Nonna said...

Enjoy reading your posts but please keep the cold weather there. We don't want you to share that.