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www.arcticoutreach.org --- e-mail rinker@arcticoutreach.org --- phone 403-989-3715
Dear Friends,
Sunday was a special day for us! Our service was a baptism at the river and seven people were baptized. There was an intense excitement, especially with those being baptized. Since Christians face strong opposition here, a number of people who wanted to get baptized were not allowed to do so. The culture here is that a persons extended family has such influence that a person is not able to make important decisions for themselves. So to see these people actually going through with this was very much more significant than it would be off the Reserve where there would be no opposition. We had an ideal spot in the river which runs close to the mission. The baptism was conducted by myself and Scott Butler, a youth pastor from Rocky. The water was cold, but we built a fire and everyone survived just fine.
We had been planning to have a baptism for a long time, but we couldn't get it done until we all got to the place where we were all ready to set aside our agenda and really let God do His work in His way without us hindering His workings. We have a sense that it was truly a signifcant time that will have the long term effect of changing the tone of the mission and how people in the community view it.
At the end of May we had our 10 day special Bible study, with lots of workers from Red Deer and it was very well attended. Because of the trauma in the society here the men are invisible and take little responsibility. Worldwide, the women are the 'first responders' to the Gospel. As such our ministry struggles to have equal input from the men in the community. So everyone was glad to see a good turnout of men to this event. Our first VBS at the Big Horn, was staffed by a YWAM team from Alberta who stayed here at the mission and drove to the Big Horn each day. The next VBS was our Sunchild annual VBS and was staffed by the Priority One team from Pennsylvania. Over a hundred youth attended this VBS, and the day this team flew out we picked up a second team at the airport who came to help with the rest of our VBS schedule for the O'Chiese Reserve. Each of these teams consisted of about 10 workers, so it was interesting conducting this operation in our limited facilities here.
Our music program is a big part of the mission operation, and took up a big chuck of the summer as well. Our students have to do their daily practice here at the mission, and that impacts nearly every days schedule. I attended a workshop to learn how to make violins, in California, in June. For years I've been getting more and more involved in violin making, so now have taken the plunge to learn what I'm doing in a serious way.
The first music camp our students attended this summer was here in Alberta at Water Valley, where the students had intensive training every day for a week. Our daughter Melany Hope got to help with that camp as well. In August our students attended the Red Deer College Strings Workshop, which brings in the best instructors available and another week of intensive training. The mother of several of our students helped with that week. The Crossroads church in Red Deer designated $3,725 to pay the expenses of our students attending these camps.
The special rewards of all this is the motivation for our students to work hard. This morning a student was here playing early before breakfast, then came back and played some more before getting on the school bus!
We need help more than ever, including a music teacher and a youth worker. I started the violin program with the idea to limit it to a small group until we got someone to take that responsibility full time. It is getting harder and harder for me to turn down young people who really, really want to get involved. It wouldn't be hard for someone to do this. We will provide training if needed, so the primary requirment here is for someone to be 'available'. The youth population in the local area is exploding, which puts serious pressure on us. Yesterday after school we had about eight boys hanging out in the yard with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and they wanted in the church to play piano, guitars, do art work, etc. so since I was busy I had to let them take care of themselves, unsupervised. This can be hard on the facility and contents, as a number of them are not our normal kids that we have trained over the years, to behave themselves. When you really understand the dynamics of these kids lives, you can't just send them away. We are here to meet needs in a Christian perspective. One thing has been demonstrated perfectly clear. When we can work with them and meet their needs they can develop and adjust to society normally. When they grow up on their own, many of them are full of hate towards others, and go into crime and self destruction. The most serious problems locally involve the age group that missed the influence of the mission during the time we left here.
This is one of the students working on his project in the Violin makers workshop in California. The quality of the work is outstanding.
This is one of the three teams we had in July. This team is doing our Sunchild VBS. Shown here is the Priority One group from Pennsylvania along with some local helpers from Alberta.
Below is the Red Deer College Strings Workshop. Four of the students are ours.
This is the class for our youngest student at the Strings Workshop. When they can start this young their brain grows special segments for the music and it is amazing what they can do.
Below are our students that attended the Strings Workshop.
The following four pictures were taken at our baptism last Sunday.
Below is the link to Karens News. We have it on a separate page so we could put more pictures with it.
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