 We have had an amazingly busy past month. We began with shipping supplies and staff members from Circle to our youth camp (Camp Nahshii), located 60 miles down the Yukon River from Fort Yukon. From Circle, this camp is 150 river miles. We loaded up 4 boats and headed down at the beginning of the month. Since then, we've hosted multiple work teams, 18 high school students, and 25 middle school students from 6 different locations. We've driven, flown, and boated in order to get all the supplies and people that we need to make this camp happen. God has been so good to us, as we walk in obedience to His vision for the youth of the Yukon Flats region. We are looking forward to seeing what God has in store for these youth as they head home to live out the new found call of God for their lives.         
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 Enjoying our time in Springfield, MO, with our Alaska Ministry Network Superintendent, Pastor Bill Welch, and our AGUSM Intercultural Ministries Director, Malcolm Burleigh and his wife, Maria. We were tremendously blessed and honored to attend the Assembly of God U.S. Missions GO! Conference. This conference was a great encouragement for us and a signal that we had successfully raised up a support team to help sustain us in ministry. God has been leading and guiding us every step of the way, and it's only by His grace and power that we are not only living, but thriving where He has called us to minister. 
 We're getting ready for a CRAZY whirlwind of a summer! In less than a week, we will strike out on the Yukon River to begin working at Camp Nahshii. We are looking forward to an amazing year, with Kids coming from all over the Yukon Flats and elsewhere in Alaska.
We have a great Spring and we are looking forward to and even greater Summer! Here is what's on the schedule for this Summer, so far: * June 1 - 14: Preparation for Camp Nahshii * June 15 - 21: First week of Camp Nahshii (High School) * June 22 - 30: Second week of Camp Nahshii (Middle School) * July 1 -14: Camp Nahshii projects, clean up, prepare camp for winter * June 30 - July 2: Voice of Peace Ministries if Fort Yukon * July 7 - 9: Creation Camp (Grades K-5th) here in Fort Yukon  It seams like 2014 is slipping away, faster than I can blink! We've had a busy beginning to the year and we are excited to see what God has in store for us, this Spring. But, before I get to that, let me back up and fill you in on the last few months...  We had an amazing team of ministers come up to Fort Yukon to help us with our 5th annual end of the year youth event, the New Year's All Nighter. This events is designed to give the youth of Fort Yukon a safe, drug and alcohol free environment to spend New Year's Eve. Our goal with this event is to lower the number of teens being involved in drug and alcohol use and abuse. We have a large number of young people who have had their first taste of alcohol or drugs at a New Year's party. Aside from the negative impact of these substances, most often the parties that they attend have no positive or Godly influence in their life.  Here at Fort Yukon Assembly of God, we strive to show people of all ages that God desires very much to be a central part of our celebrations, victories, struggles, challenges, and everything in-between. We were blessed to have the participation of This Generation Ministries at this event. Thank you TGM for sending staff to help make this event possible.  This past week (Feb. 3rd - 10th), we welcomed a team from North Pole Christian School to Fort Yukon. They came with open hearts and no small amount of love for the people of this community. They put on a great, 5 day Bible Boot Camp for the K-5th grade kids, ministered to our church on Sunday morning and evening, worked around the church property, and covered our community in hours of prayer and worship! We are so grateful to have had them here, partnering with us to reach Fort Yukon with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you NPCS for your hard work and dedication to the Kingdom of Heaven.  BUILDING PROJECT: After 4 years of prayer and waiting on proper timing and support, we have gotten the approval to build a much needed expansion to our current staff housing facility. Due to our church building being in total disrepair, we will be expanding the staff housing to include a ministry room that is almost equal to the current sanctuary size, with the added benefit of being able to be heated 24/7. Above the ministry room, we will be able to have living space for much needed staff, as well as interns, discipleship students, and new missionaries, seeking experience and training for village missions. Now, all we need to make this building project happen is the funds. We are projecting a need for $60,000 to $75,000 in order to get the first phase completed. If you would like to invest into this building project, please contact me @ 907-328-8543 / [email protected] or contact the Alaska Ministry Network of the Assemblies of God @ 907-562-2247 We are so excited about what God is doing in us and through us. We have had the opportunity to give hope to so many people, these past few months, through the message of life in Jesus.
THANK YOU for your continual prayers and support. Without a reliable, faithful, encouraging Support Team, no missionary can go out and do what God has called them to do. It is through your obedience to the Father, in joining with us to reach this region of Alaska, that we are given the much needed tools and resources to accomplish great things. We daily give thanks and praise to our Heavenly Father for each of you and we ask Him to bless you abundantly with all the riches of Heaven and the comfort of His presence in your life.  It has been an amazing, difficult, exciting, and rewarding past 2 years. We have traveled all over Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana by car, boat, and plane. We have seen God do something we never thought possible.
Thanks to all of you who have faithfully joined our support team over the past two years, we have been able to raise a budget that will allow us to provide long term, sustainable ministry to the Yukon Flats region of Alaska. We are looking forward to shifting our focus from itineration to full time field work. There are many awesome opportunities to share the gospel of Christ and make disciples, up here in the interior of Alaska. As we enter into Winter, we will be releasing details about a building project that we hope to start in the Spring of 2014. This exciting project will allow us to house staff and bring on interns who are interested in ministry to the Alaska Native people.  This year we were faced with many challenges, which actually threatened to cancel Camp Nahshii. For the first 3 weeks that we were suppose to have staff and volunteers out at camp, we were stuck in Fort Yukon due to a late river break-up and massive flooding. Here in Fort Yukon, we were EXTREMELY blessed by the volunteer work of Lighthouse Assembly of God (Petersburg, AK), Oceanway Assembly of God (Jacksonville, FL), members of TGM (North Pole, AK), and disciples from the Alaska Dream Center (Palmer, AK).
These teams came together to work on many projects here at the Fort Yukon Assembly of God property, as well as many other places around town, like; city parks, elder homes, the cemetery, and everywhere they could find a need to fill. We were honored to host them and we look forward to their return trips! Even with the bumpy start, we were able to get Camp Nahshii up and running, on schedule, for 2 solid weeks of youth camp. We were honored and humbled to be a part of God’s plan to see this region healed, delivered, and redeemed! Every day, we watched as youth opened their hearts to Jesus and allowed Him to do a real healing work in their heart. We baptized 15 youth, at the end of the last week of camp. “My life is changed”, said one young man, “Thank you for baptizing me, I feel so good.”. What an amazing thing it is, to watch the transformation take place when someone surrenders to Jesus and, through the Holy Spirit, enters into relationship with our Father! Thank you so much for your prayers and support. Please continue to hold us up in prayer, and be in prayer for the youth of these villages. Thank you for being part of our team and making it possible for us to do what God has called us to do!  Our brand new Camp Nahshii family tent. Wow, I'm finally having an opportunity to sit down and write this post. This past month has been amazing. With outreach teams, Summer prep, and Yukon River flooding, we've been running on all cylinders. It has been refreshing to be home during the Summer. At the beginning of the month, I spoke at Hilltop Assembly of God, in Huston, Alaska. We had a good time with the folks, there, and we are excited to partner with them in ministry.  The lake at Camp Nahshii, where we land float planes and do canoe races.  Team meeting in the church.  Pastor Joshua, from Lighthouse A/G, playing worship on KZPA radio. As we neared the time of the month where teams and volunteers usually head out to Camp Nahshii, we quickly realized that the Yukon River was not going to break up and clear out in time to get all of them to camp. Consequently, we ended up with 5 teams, totaling 41 people, from around the country, waiting to get to Camp Nahshii. So, the teams decided to make the most of their time in Fort Yukon. They did massive clean-up projects around Fort Yukon, held services, preached the gospel, prayed with people on the streets, and did other community service projects. Also, they completed many projects here, on the church property. They were encouraged and uplifted by the Holy Spirit, knowing that God had a purpose for them being here.  Outreach teams from Jacksonville, FL, Petersburg, AK, North Pole, AK, Oklahoma, & Fairbanks, AK.  Butch, from Petersburg, AK, praying with a man. It was a blessing and an honor to have all these teams ministering in Fort Yukon. While we were hoping to get them down to Camp Nahshii, we were encouraged by their ministry to us and with us. We were able to get a handful of people (12 total) to Camp Nahshii during the week that they were here. The water was high and jammed full of debris and ice, but we made it down. As soon as they got to camp, they started to clean, organize, and get ready for more people. We are hoping to get down to camp, later today, to relieve them and assess the flood damage at camp.  This month has been very productive for the ministry that God has called us to. As a "tag-team" ministry couple, Sharnay and I were able to minister to hearts and share our ministry vision at Valley Chapel A/G, Tok A/G, New Beginnings Faith A/G, and Joy Christian Fellowship while also preaching 8 services, hosting 3 "Ladies Night" women's ministry Bible studies, and multiple youth discipleship meetings in Fort Yukon.  We spent 4 days helping our good friends, the Duplantis's, move from North Pole to Nenana. Stephen Duplantis is now the Pastor of Nenana Assembly of God church. We spent allot of time painting the parsonage and church office, moving furniture, and loading/unloading the U-Haul. We were proud to be able to help this family get a good start in one of our churches that really needs them. We hope to be able to help with the flooring project, coming up soon. 
"If you are gonna make it to the end, you must have the skin of a rhino and the heart of a teddy bear" - Bryan Jarrett (Pastor of NorthPlace Church)  We were tremendously blessed by the 2013 Alaska Ministry Network Conference! What a great time of fellowship, encouragement, support, and ministry. This was, by far, the best Alaska Ministry Network Conference that we have ever attended! During one of the evening services, we were asked to come up front by our Assistant Superintendent. He gave everyone an update on where we were with our itineration goals and asked people to raise their hand if they would consider supporting us. In that one service, we were propelled to 86% of our budget, leaving just under $900 per month in Faith Promise support needed to reach 100%! We are SO EXCITED about this next month! THANK YOU SO MUCH, everyone who chose to join our support team through prayer and monthly financial support. You are the backbone to our ministry in the Yukon Flats! 
We thoroughly enjoyed our time spent with the other Assembly of God U.S. Missionaries ministering in Alaska. We work together to enhance the ministry to rural Alaska and other cultures all over Alaska. Thank you ALL who support missionaries! May God richly bless you so that you can be generous on every occasion and He will get the glory and praise because of your giving.
 WOW! What a week! We were so blessed by North Pole Christian School. They chose Fort Yukon for the location of their 2013 mission trip and brought 19 people to help us in ministry!  Because of the fact that many of our events and outreaches are focused on the middle-high school teenagers, this event was geared towards the k-5th grade age group. It was a great time of quality ministry, carried out through dramatizations, puppet performances, hands on crafts, and interactive games. 35 kids showed up to participate in our "Kids Beach Party" event. Word quickly spread around town about this amazing group of young people. As they spent time walking the streets in prayer and running errands around town, they took time to people with genuine compassion.
 Chase Elings & Lucas, chillin' Throughout the week, each team member displayed selfless acts of kindness, worked hard, and kept the unity of the team. They treated our family and our people with honor and respect.  Grilling burgers for the team & Mrs. Cross, trying her hand at the hydrolic wood splitter. The leaders of the team were quick to jump in and help wherever needed. From BBQing to wood splitting and stacking, they never baulked at an opportunity to serve.
 NPCS students, leading worship on Sunday morning. During their stay, we had many great times of prayer with the students. It was refreshing to spend time with this group of young people who were willing to invest time, energy, finances, and prayer into the people that we are called to reach.
We are so greatfull for all that was done, this past week. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with North Pole Christian School as we work to see every life in Alaska claimed as a success story in the Kingdom of Heaven! 
Looking East, up the Yukon River.
 Family 4 wheeler ride to the Alaska Commercial store. We are so excited for Spring and Summer ministry, this year. We have some mission teams coming up, Camp Nahshii & Creation Camp to prepare for, building and repair projects to work on, and several community outreaches on the books for this Spring/Summer. There are allot of preparations to make and much prayer to be done between now and then. Until then, we are itinerating until we get to 100% of our budget. This is not a "best case scenario" kind of budget. We MUST reach 100% before we can jump back into ministry in the Yukon Flats. Please help us by prayerfully considering us for missionary support and spreading the word to your friends and family about our vision to reach the Yukon Flats with the life changing message of HOPE through Jesus Christ!
Sharnay & Lucas, making a trip to Fairbanks.
This January, I was blessed to be invited to share our vision for Mission:ALASKA at 3 churches in Montana. I also was invited to attend the Montana Ministry Network Ministers Renewal Conference, in Great Falls, which was a great time of fellowship, connection, and rejuvenation.  A HUGE thank you to Helena First Assembly of God, Fairfield Assembly of God, and Chester Assembly of God for inviting me down. I had a great time with each of you and I look forward to partnering with you to accomplish great things!  Driving across beautiful Montana. As we prepare for my next trip, back to Montana, we are getting excited about the awesome things that God has in store for us! He has been speaking to our hearts about the things that He is lining up, here in the Yukon Flats. We can't wait to see His kingdom built and people freed from the bondage of sin! Please be in prayer. We are in need of ministry partners. We are excited to get back into the field and continue what God has called us to. Our budget currently needs $2,000 per month to be committed through Faith Promise forms. That seams like allot, the numbers tend to be overwhelming. It's really all about working together to build the kingdom. We only need 40 people to fill out a Faith Promise of $50 per month and we will be at 100%. To learn more about how you can become part of our Support Team, please visit the "JOIN THE TEAM!" page. |
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