Community Involvement

Yukon River Looking East. Still frozen, but expected to break up this week.

I have often speculated over the passage in Matthew 5 that says "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." What a difficult thing to do. Too often our pride in our 'good works' hinders others' ability to 'glorify our Father'. They only see US in the good work. How are we to do this then? If we give the cliche' Christian answer that "Well its not me but God", it comes across as shallow and really doesn't make any sense to an unbelieving ear. I think the answer comes from Jesus' previous explanation of what it means to live 'happy'. He says "Blessed are the...", or rather "Happy are the..." in the Greek understanding. Good works then become not so much 'special' works, but ordinary works done 'happy'. Do we live our life in such a way that the world knows that we are 'happy'? Happy to live, happy to serve, happy to follow Christ, happy to love God and people.

A look out our Kitchen window. Compare this with one of our first posts here.

This week was one of community involvement for Shell and I. Tuesday, the school hosted an Activities Fair where they highlighted all of the sports, arts, and clubs that are offered in the community. For a community of this size it is remarkable what is offered to students. Several of the students that attend the Bible Church were given awards for their involvement in these activities.

Thursday afternoon I participated in the Galena Wellness Council which is a volunteer group of community members who are seeking to stem the tide of suicide in Galena and villages represented at GILA. Many good ideas were presented, and we are praying about what we can do to support the efforts.

Friday night, I popped in to see if transportation was needed at an event for seniors and teens. They ate traditional native food and watched a movie called "Spirit of the Wind" which is a story of a local native man named George Attla. Shell went to the Ladies' Lunch on Friday to fellowship with ladies in the community.  Saturday, we attended the Open House for the Civil Air Patrol unit which is part of the aviation program offered at GILA. My kids loved seeing all the airplanes that had been flown in by local pilots and it was a great opportunity for us to spend time with members of the community.

Things you can be praying for this week:
- Galena Bible Church will be hosting a Baccalaureate service for 35 seniors on May 19th. Pray that we have an opportunity to share the grace of Christ with these students and their families.
- Pray for the river's break up. This week the ice should be moving in the river, and this is always a very dangerous time because of the swift ability of the river to flood. Pray that God would protect us and that the break up would be uneventful.
- Praise!! - We had a church that gave $1250 toward our Summer projects, which brings our donated total to $3650. We still need about $5000 more to complete all our projects so please keep this in prayer.