www.arcticoutreach.org --- e-mail rinker@arcticoutreach.org --- phone 403-989-3715
Dear Friends,
I believe we have fixed our computer and email problems, finally!
We continue to be very busy here at the Sunchild Mission, with weekly services and Sunday School, mid-week ladies meeting, friday youth services, and teams coming from churches and the Calgary Korean churches. A big part of the work is the crisis/suicide ministry and all the wakes and funerals. This, along with five summer Vacation Bible Schools, and this summer we had the couple from South America here for six weeks of language study. This was a challenge for them coming from the Amazon jungle to a much colder climate.
This newsletter will be covering highlights from the last year as well as what has taken place in recent days and weeks. We want to encourage you to contact us for more information on subjects that interest you, and we are accessible by phone or media such as Skype etc. Since we are the only ministry on three Native Reserves in this area, each day places more demands on us than we can do. So there is strong pressure on Karen and I to do much more than we can, and the challenge is how to decide what is the most important thing to do. Obviously, I been neglecting the communication responsibility with you all, and the reality is if we are going to fulfill our duty as missionaries here, it is very difficult to find time to update our website. I do all the work of these updates the older way of writing html coded pages by hand, and that is labor intensive.
Probably all of you anywhere in North America experienced smoke filled skies more than once this year. Here in the western part of Alberta we were right in the middle of fires that covered large areas all summer long. Entire towns near us were evacuated and much of the three communities here, Sunchild, O'Chiese, and Big Horn Reserves were also evacuated. Parts of the Reserve were burned and some homes were lost. Our roads were blocked and any meaningful information as to the spread of the fires was non-existent for days on end. For a while we thought the Reserve would be lost and all of our property would be burned. But the flames were held back by strong winds for a considerable time and we survived. I remember one evening as it got dark and I was trying to clear the ground close to the house of dry grass and leaves, when it felt totally hopeless and it seemed certain all would be burned. but, although the fires burned most of the summer, we were spared.
Last year we had a volunteer from Germany, Zofia, who came to stay for five months. She was a wonderful blessing in working with our people and accomplished much for which we are so thankful. We are always praying for volunteers to come and stay with us to assist in the work.
Just last week (October 14) a team of 40 Koreans came from Calgary to hold a youth event for us on the week-end. This is probably the largest team we have had from the Korean churches in Calgary, other than for the summer vbs. The interest for our mission is growing among the Koreans churches, and they promised to have even more help for us next time they come, which will be at Christmas time.
This shows the 7 vehicles they brought to transport their 40 helpers!
Below, everyone is lining up for lunch in front of the cook tent. Last week we had no snow yet but this week winter has come and we now have about 8 inches of snow!
The youth were divided up into classes, and this shows one of the classes.
A few weeks before the large team came, this group came for training under Mrs. Rinker in how to prepare a lesson for their classes.
This is the Korean pastor and his family that came to stay with us for several days during the Christmas season last year. Christmas is always, by far, the most difficult time of the year for us, and it is the time we are in the most need for help.
This picture was taken as they were leaving to go home to Calgary.
This summer was the summer of forest fires burning around us all summer long! The fires were "very" large and very close. We were completely resigned to the fact that certainly we would loose our home and church to the fire as it was totally out of control very near by. At one point we had a 30 mile per hour wind that blew againt the fire and held it away for several days, at it's closest point. Both Reserves here were evacutated and left to burn, but God wonderfully protected us! The entire population of the nearest town to the north of us was evacuated for several weeks. This is a cell phone picture, so it's not very good, but it shows the fire moving in on us one evening.
This is what a normal day looked like this summer. The air filled with choking smoke and the sun blood red.
Follow the link to access the next page of pictures.