www.arcticoutreach.org --- e-mail rinker@arcticoutreach.org --- phone 403-989-3715
Dear Friends,
This month was filled full of activities, which I will summarize and below we have pictures of some of it all. This month there was a tragic death of a young lady that grew up in our Sunday School and was close to our family. As discussed previously, we have an ongoing epidemic of young people dying on the Reserves here. The annual Native Youth Conference was held this month, up west of Edmonton, and we had 15 boys and 14 girls go, plus their chaperones. Good reports including positive attitudes from the students this year showed that prayer was going up for this gathering. Karen is still teaching in our mission school, and the lady from Old Crow was a big help and finished making her beaded moccasins. Karen started using her Wednesday night Ladies meeting to run a 'Celebrate Recovery' program. One lady wanted to give her heart to Jesus, so she brought her Mother and other family members to see her make her testimony for Jesus!
Karen turned "74" and they celebrated her birthday at the youth conference. We were able to make arrangements with Child Evengelism Fellowship to conduct three '5 day clubs' with the mission here in August. The Koreans came from Calgary and worked with the youth on O'Chiese. The lady that has been staying here helping Karen for a while, experienced a deep spiritual work of the Lord in her heart. We pray that she will learn to walk through the spiritual tests and trials she will be facing.
We had expensive vehicle repairs with the mission pickup truck. Karen was able to visit a couple Stoney families that we haven't been able to visit for a while that live off the Stoney Reserve about 55 miles from here.
Prayer Requests for June include Karen and another lady from here will be flying to Old Crow, in the Yukon, to hold a VBS the last week of June. I'll be leaving June 24 to go to the States to have a knee operation (see last months news) that I have needed for several years, but haven't been able to get here in Canada due to the failed Canadian Health Care system. I've been on a waiting list for years and have gotten to the point where I can't wait longer without something bad happening to my leg. So help us pray for that. There will be several days that we don't have anyone to fill in here at the mission, so help us pray we can find help for that.
God Bless, and we only have Praise and Thanksgiving for God's wonderful help through the trials here, and His wonderful love, mercy, and provision to take care of us. In Jesus, .....Rodger & Karen Rinker
This month was the Native Youth Conference which is held on a camp ground up close to Edmonton. 250 Native youth assembled here, from all over Canada. We were able to send a bus load from Sunchild, and in this picture they are loading the bus here at the Mission.
This is the group that got on the bus from here.
These kids are waiting for Sunday School to start.
Below, they are working on their Sunday School craft.
In April our wildfire season started up and this shows the smoke moving in from a nearby forest fire. Last year we thought we would get burned out from the fires which burned all summer, but we were protected at the most dangerous time by a strong wind that held the fires away from coming in, for several days.
Karen is down to one student in our Accelerated Christian Education school. Below she is preparing for a reading test.
Below we had a special speaker come for our Friday Youth group.
Celebrating a birthday party at a Friday Youth group
Karen has been running the 'Celebrate Recovery' program on Wednesday nights. Below, one of the ladies is having a birthday cake for both her physical birthday and her spiritual birthday, which are both on the same day!
Below is another Friday Youth group having games outside.
