Heroes in the Alaskan Bush

  1. Share
8 2

I’m in the heart of Alaska in a cabin nestled in the Talkeetna Mountains.

They are majestic. But the real inspiration comes from the people I have the privilege to be with this week… the missionary families who live in the bush villages of Alaska.

They not only face the harshness of the winters and the darkness when the sun barely rises during the day, if at all, but they face the challenges of the bush village, where alcohol, drugs, abuse and suicide devastate the people they love. Often, tribalism and some justified skepticism toward the “white man” have created a wall that is sometimes impenetrable, leaving the missionary family in isolation.

Arctic Barnabas exists to provide spiritual and physical support to these dear folks throughout the year, and in the fall brings them together for a week of rest and renewal (a great ministry you should consider supporting).

This is the second time I’ve had the opportunity to be with them and, again, wondering what in the world I have to offer these heroes of the faith. Personally, I really have nothing, but we are taking tours gazing upon the face of God and the “Crown Jewel” in His nature, refreshing ourselves with the criticality of divine relationships and how they are rooted in the social complexity of our Triune God.

Every session ends with a time of testimony and sharing from the missionary families. Each brought tears as we heard of the trials, the heartaches and the miracles where God had showed Himself mighty in a time of great need.

If you have a moment, please pray for them as they now head back to their villages. For some, it will take days, in bush planes and ferries, to get back to the reality of their call.

This was for their rest and renewal, but it always renews something in me. It reminds me to diligently pray for those who have been called to the hard places in the world. It reminds me of how much we need each other as we walk this road. And it reminds me of how much the enemy seeks to isolate us and destroy the relationships that God has designed.

In the bush, families are kept as an outsider, making it difficult to form relationships. But for the rest of us, it is plain self-centeredness that destroys relationships as we seek to satisfy our own desires. True, deep relationships require sacrifice and self-sacrifice is growing scarce in our culture.

And, of course, the smartphone sucks us deeper and deeper into the isolation of its screen. We “contact” others while we grow increasingly lonely. This will eventually lead to the demise of our culture.

The bush missionary families have a tough life, but I can tell you that their families are fully intact.  In this way, although they lack most of the physical niceties that we enjoy, they are more healthy spiritually and physically. Would that we might “disconnect” from the entertainment and smartphone vortex consuming us and reconnect with our families and with each other.

The Lord wants us in deep relationships; the enemy wants us atomized.

The former brings blessings and life; the latter, curses and death.

Choose you this day…

 

 

Community tags

This content has 0 tags that match your profile.

Comments

To view comments or leave a comment, login or sign up.

Related Content

4
Cultural Leprosy
Just when you thought our culture couldn’t get any crazier, we now have a 47-year-old father of seven who wants to be identified as a six-year-old girl. But the really crazy thing is that our culture is gushing over him. Why? Well, it’s primarily because of the Covenant of Tolerance, where we discard the notion of absolute, transcendent Truth, substitute the individual as it’s source, and then affirm each other’s absolute right to follow our heart. The Covenant then says that I will affirm you if you will affirm me. And we are going to affirm ourselves into a cultural abyss. By affirming the increasingly absurd, we are hoping that we will, in turn, be affirmed in our own absurdity, our own self-centered desires…so that nothing can be denied us…no desire, no want, no need…absolutely nothing can be called into question because there is no absolute truth, only individual truth. And the Covenant assures that we will affirm each other...a solidarity of self-centeredness, if you will. This leads us to see pathology as healthy, selfishness as praiseworthy, and evil as individual righteousness. This is cultural leprosy. We can no longer feel pain--a natural sense of danger; no longer feel when our hand is on the hot stove; no longer hear or see the warnings of lies and evil. We have made a Covenant to hear no wrong, see no wrong, speak that there is no wrong. Cultural leprosy will lead to death. Over time, each evil and lie that we close our eyes and ears and voices to, kills another part of our culture until we become the walking dead. We may still exist, but as a culture, we are dead. We will have literally destroyed ourself through selfish stupidity. So now we applaud Paul Woscht, ('please call me Stefonkee'), who has left his wife and family and has been embraced by an affirming Covenant family who has taken him in as a 6-year-old girl. He dresses in dresses and colors and no doubt plays house with his new “mummy and daddy’s” grandchildren. And to call this insane or deranged, demented or loony, or just plain sinful to abandon one's family for selfish desire, is to be called hateful, bigoted, narrow-minded, and trans-phobic. Because we have become cultural lepers. I would call you again, Remnant, to join together to pray for repentance, Tuesday, noon eastern. Put it on your calendar. Pray that the Lord would strike us all with repentance that we might come to our senses and escape from the trap of the devil who has taken us captive to do his will.  And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. 2 Timothy 2:24-26  
9
A Republic--If You Can Keep It
After the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “What have you given us?” His famous response was, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Most focus on the fact that the Founders had established a Republic—a point that needs to be continuously made. But seldom do we ponder seriously his wise admonition that it must be “kept”, for the reality is that in a fallen world, it requires toil and sweat to grow and maintain both crops and Republics. Just as weeds will take over an untended garden, so will the relentless tide of political and societal weeds destroy our liberty and freedom if we are not diligent to tend our Republican garden. If one were to step back and assess the health of our nation today, it would be easy to bemoan what appears to be a loss of rational civility—witness the recent call by a congresswoman to personally and publicly harass anyone in the current administration. That call was immediately carried out as an administration’s family was harassed and refused service in a public restaurant. Personally, I am increasingly fearful of the unchecked hatred that is openly seething in the left—with absolutely no accountability from the blue media. These are tenuous times for the Republic. So what do we do to “keep” it? Well, other than the obvious: prayer, which the Scripture calls us to, the number one task that we have is to insure that our children are well schooled in the principles of liberty and freedom, which I believe are biblical principles—God’s design for the state. And, we have a responsibility to speak of them to our neighbors. “These are the things that you shall do: speak the truth to your neighbor...” Zecharaiah 8:16 And third, we need to speak of them in the public square. When you can, write an attractively winsome letter to the editor or use some other public forum to graciously speak the truth. There was a time when most of the nation understood these principles—but now they are no longer taught in our schools. Instead, political and societal weeds are sown in our children’s minds throughout all academia. Those weeds are sown continuously from every quarter as well—especially from the media and the morass of entertainment—the fountain from which teens consume 9 hours/day and adults six. That’s a lot of weed seed. Teach and promote the foundations. Resist the false notion that the “keepers” are the elected officials or the cleric. We are the keepers of the Republic... if we can. P.S! addendum. Facebook refused to let me "boost" this post (Facebook doesn't release posts to all followers of a page, charging a fee to "boost" it to more followers). They refused because it was "political". Here we are, ironically on the  4th of July, facing the increased hostility towards those who express opinions from a biblical or conservative perspective. I believe Facebook has the right to refuse service to anyone, but if they censor this one, which is so benign, what will they do when I speak directly against things I believe are biblically wrong? Take note, we are going to have to find other means to communicate with each other as Internet companies like Facebook and Google use their worldview leanings to only allow postings favorable to their worldview.