January 2009

One of my New Year's resolutions is to send out a prayer letter every month.  Of course, I've never kept a New Year's resolution in my life, so the odds of your receiving twelve letters this year aren't especially encouraging, but as I've heard many times, "If you aim at nothing, you're sure to hit it."  We'll see.

We had a great year last year.  We hosted groups literally from coast to coast:  Greenville, SC to Santa Maria, CA and a few places in between.  The folks who came up to lend us a hand were wonderful, and were a great encouragement.  We'll never be able to thank you enough.  We love being able to "show folks around" and to let them see the ministry up here firsthand.

Without any doubt, the biggest thing to happen up here last year was the arrival of Dr. Daniel Sastic and his wife, Cheryl.  We've been praying for several years that the Lord would put together the right team to accomplish His purposes here in Fort Yukon, and the Sastics are clearly the beginnings of the Lord's answer.  The Sastics moved here from Elmer, NJ.  Dr. Sastic was our family doctor when we were in Newfield.  I won't take the time to give the details of their call to this ministry, but it involved a mission trip with their home church, First Baptist Church of Elmer, two summers ago.  Anyway, Dr. Sastic is now the medical director at the new clinic here in Fort Yukon, and Mrs. Sastic has been substitute teaching at the school.  They've both been a huge help in the church-- Cheryl is now our church pianist, and Dr. Dan has been coming over to my office on Saturday mornings to pray with me.  I didn't realize how starved we were for fellowship.  How many missionaries do you know who have their own personal physician?  We have it pretty rough up here.

We had a bit of excitement shortly after the Sastics arrived:  Dr. Dan narrowly escaped a gruesome death, or at the very least, a gruesome maiming, but I managed to save his life.  Modesty and deep humility prevent me from giving you the details; I suppose you'll just have to use your imaginations.  Sometimes life is cruel.

One of the first things that we began praying for when the Lord began moving us in this direction was that the Lord would demonstrate His power through this ministry.  Actually, it became apparent early on that the Lord would have to do that if we were going to accomplish anything.  Acquiring land and an airplane, putting together the right team to do the work, starting up a youth camp-- all of these were huge obstacles (opportunities?) in the way of reaching the goals we believed the Lord wanted accomplished, and frankly, we ran into a number of folks who were very skeptical about our chances.  I even talked with a pastor once who flat out told me that he didn't believe that God could possibly be calling me to this ministry.  Well, we started praying that God would show everyone how big and powerful He really is.  The Lord has been answering that prayer in some wonderful ways.  Let me tell you a short story.

I found out that there are others who are praying for the same thing in their lives.  There are many people praying that the Lord would demonstrate His power through them; that He would be glorified through their lives.  One man in particular asked me to tell you his story.  He wanted me to tell the story so that he could remain anonymous, but still make sure that people find out how great our God is.  He has been praying for the past few years that the Lord would bless his business so that he could give to missions projects.  When he began praying about this, his business was barely staying afloat, but God soon began to do some amazing things.  His company began to be awarded contracts that normally were reserved for much larger companies.  He soon had so much work that he had to hire more and more people.  God has enabled this individual to give over $40,000 towards the camp property, and he told me that he is anticipating being able to give possibly three times as much this next year to some ministry.  He wasn't boasting in any way.  He recognizes that his success is completely the Lord's doing; he simply wants people to know what God has done in his life.

Am I saying that God intends to make all of us rich?  Of course not.  My point is that nothing is too hard for God, and if we will set out to live our lives for His glory, we never know where He might take us, or what He might do.  I called all of you "vicarious thrill-seekers" at the beginning, and of course I was just teasing a little, but the truth is that the ministry really is a thrill, and I truly hope you get a thrill out of hearing what God is doing up here.  Even more than that, I hope you are getting a thrill out of what God is doing in your own life.

We already have a busy schedule planned for this year.  Andrew is getting married May 31st, so we'll be flying out to Manchester, New Hampshire for a few days; we have a couple of groups scheduled to visit during the spring and summer, and we will be flying down to take a short furlough starting about the middle of July and going until the middle of September.  During that time, we are hoping to visit all of our supporting churches, and give an update in as many as possible.  We only have thirteen supporting churches, so it's possible to visit all of you in eight weeks though it's going to be busy.  We'll also be dropping off Rachael and Stephen at Pensacola Christian College during the trip.