Tired Campers

This was the second day of Camp in Togiak.  I wanted you to see these precious kids.  They were so tired that night.  Ask the Lord to give you a real heart for these little ones.  God has a true plan for their lives and it will take divine intervention for it to be realized.

Back in the Lower 48

We got home last Friday afternoon.  Truly a spectacular trip to Togiak, Alaska.  I can't do it justice in a few words here, but let me wholeheartedly say thank you for praying and for all your support.  It is really encouraging to know that you are reading the blog.  That means that you are interested and also praying.  To see that maybe 100 people were reading this everyday really meant a lot to us out there.

Togiak is quite the place.  When you talk about remote places in the world, this is one of those places.  800 people live in this little village.  There is no way in or out except via small aircraft.  For a local to go to the next town it costs them $200 in airfare.  They obviously, don't get out much.  Almost all the people who live there are Yupik and they have lived there for generations.  We spent much time with the kids.  And God has opened up nearly unlimited future opportunities to minister.  If you are looking for a chance to minister to the "forgotten" people, see me and we can hook you up.

Next year we plan to run a full fledged camp up river.  This is a vision that Joe and Lucy (two natives) have had for years and they watched it birthed right before their eyes.  What a privilege to be part of their dreams.  We loved the kids.  I will just include a few pics so you can see their precious faces.  

I will write more thoughts throughout this week, but for now I wanted to just get this updated.

River Camping Trip

Just a quick update. We had an incredible time out at Camp which is 12 miles up river. The kids were awesome. We had 25 kids and boy did we have a blast. It was an impromptu camp. What I mean by that is that we were just planning on just going up there and getting the land prepared for their future camp. But when we went up to the land on Saturday, they instead decided that we could get the camp ready and run a camp for kids. So, we threw together a camp. Tim and I provided the programing and Jim ran the chain saw and kept away the grizzlies with the rifle. (No, we didn't see any bears, but Jim did have a rifle.)

We went up Monday afternoon. We built an outhouse and got the place ready. Jim even carved out some benches. That guy is pretty handy with a chain-saw. The kids came in on the boats at about 8 pm. Man, were they excited. We had an awesome. I will put a couple pics up now and they tell a pretty good story. I will update this when I get back to Anchorage and have a little time to reflect. We are very tired. I think in the two nights out there, we got a total of 7 hours sleep. Last night we went to bed about 12:30 and I have to say it was the only time I have ever gone to sleep where I could have used sunglasses :-)

Some of the pictures are of the kids swimming. It was no more than 50 degrees out and the water was extremely cold. The kids begged to let us swim. We just had to monitor how long they were in. There's that thing called hypothermia, you know.

We are leaving tomorrow morning at 11:30 and we get home sometime Friday afternoon. This has been truly a great trip. There is much to share when we get back. We feel that we must maintain a strong link with Marian and her people up here. Be praying about what that will look like in the future.

Heading Up River

We will be unavailable for a couple days.  We are heading up the river until Wednesday afternoon.  What an adventure this could be.  This morning the three of us along with two guys from here will be going north and getting the spot ready.  Then in the early evening three boat loads will come up with the kids.  There will be some adults coming with them.  We hope  :-)

The kids are soooo excited about this.  It's all they can talk about.  And, I can imagine what a treat this is for them.  It would be much like a kid back home going to summer camp, but even greater here because there is nothing for these kids back in Togiak.  I'm not sure what we will be doing the entire time up there, but I'm sure God will show up in wonderful way.  Be praying that these kids would get flooded with the Amazing Love of God.

The Spirit is moving in the lives of these people.  Yesterday one of the guys came to the three of us and wanted to repent of some sins he had been involved.  We spent some time with him and I am convinced God is delivering him.  He was a different guy from the morning to the evening.  Then last night after our time with the church people we gave them the gifts we brought.  They loved them - maple syrup, honey, cups, and other stuff.  Well, one of the ladies who sometimes comes wasn't there and she heard about the honey and syrup.  She came over late last night to get them.  She has been staying pretty distant because she is a little back slidden.  At 4 am she called Marian and was overwhelmed by the conviction of the Spirit.  She repented and is ready to get her life back on track with Jesus.  Wow!!!

The camp is named Ngoo wha dah lik  which means "Where There is Life."  It comes from a song that also says there will be streams of living water flowing from them.  We have to go now and get ready.  Please pray for the kids, for our safety, for God to move, for good weather.  It would be nice to have a little sunshine.  The last 3 days, the weather has been raining and in the 40's.  We love you and will hopefully be back in touch on Wednesday.  We should be back in Togiak in the afternoon sometime.

Baptism

I have been involved in a lot of baptisms over the years and they are all special.  In my opinion, it's one of the greatest things a pastor gets to do.  Well, today was maybe the greatest baptism I have ever seen.  There were 8 adults that we dunked.  You can see by the pictures that we used a box that was in the shed.  Fortunately, it still held water.

Each of the candidates gave a testimony and wow was it amazing.  You should have heard what they said.  In fact, you will.  We recorded each of them.  I will post them sometime when I get to higher speed internet.  

One of the very significant things was how much they were impacted by the ISOM school that they are involved in.  Each of the ones who are in the school got baptized because they came to an understanding of the truths of scripture that they never have had and they now understood the significance of baptism.  It was really great to hear them talk about how much Jesus has used ISOM to change their lives.  Be encouraged Dr. Rich and Berin.  Afterward we played some fun games with them.  They are a blast.

Tomorrow we head up river again.  This time we stay for two nights.  We first need to build a latrene and construct our tent.  It is just a canvas.  It's a very nice, high quality tent, but doesn't have any of the structure.  It would be very easy to do at home, but up here our resources are pretty limited.  We are feeling like such boy scouts.

I will write more later.  God bless you all.  We really are blessed by the fact that you are reading this and are praying for us.

Morning service

What a great time we had this morning with Togiak Assembly of God.  This is such a great body of believers.  I think there were 15 of them in attendance this morning an it was such a wonderful fellowship together.  Tim led some worship songs and they also led some.  I love hearing their songs in Yupik.  Very rythmic and happy sounding. 

It was very great to present the students from the Bible School here with their certificates.  The 6 of them felt very special as we brought them up front and made a big deal about what they accomplished.  They have now finished their 4th semester, so there is one more until they graduate.  This is very exciting.  Good job Rich & Berin.  You both would have been very proud of all that going on in the ISOM curriculum up here.

I taught on adoption and how we are defined by our Father.  They responded very well.  We prayed for them and had a great time together around the Lord's Table.  There is something very right about taking communion with people of other tribes.  

We have a quick break now and then we will baptize.  After the baptism we will have a pot luck supper.  This is when we are having some of the real native food.  We will do a few more building projects this evening and then get ready to head to camp tomorrow.

River Camp

This is the view up river where we will be camping with the kids. It is absolutely beautiful! The place where we will put the camp is like a beach area, but it is gravel. We are going back up Monday morning to clear some land and build a latrine, and then they are bringing the kids up later in the day. The plan is to stay up here until Wednesday.