Home | Sunchild Mission | Outreach | News Updates | Devotions | Pictures of the week
www.arcticoutreach.org --- e-mail rinker@arcticoutreach.org --- phone 403-989-3715
Dear Friends,
We now have a great photocopier that was provided by our mission church family. We make lots of copies for Sunday School and other activities. Our old copier gave out and we had to get copies made in town for some time, but now we can make all the copies we need right here. A new worker just arrived to help for the summer. Her name is Molly and she is from Virginia. Notice that our dog Shaya is also posing...she is getting ready to howl a little greeting, which I just missed. Also in this picture is part of our new fencing project. We had two pallets of this Douglas Fir donated for the fencing, by Dennis Robertson from a local sawmill. Karen is writing this months newsletter which follows below. We have also added a link on our web site where you can donate to the mission by an online service with your credit card. The mission account receives the funds instantly and you can get your Canadian Income tax Charity receipt at the same time. There is a 3.9% administrative fee for the service. This saves writing a letter and sending a check with postage, and we get it a lot faster. The link is on our home page, but I will also include it here.
At present I am not wearing glasses. I will see on May 16th if I ever have to wear regular glasses again, or only reading glasses. Thank you for all your prayers as my cataract surgery was successful!
WoW! Now I don't know what to do with those bags under my eyes. My glasses always hid them. I may have to get more sleep! SMILE!
Probably the number one thing to talk about is the coming of volunteer teams to help with the Sunday school. These teams from Red Deer and Three Hills who have been so faithful to the Sunday School, are now coming out on some week ends and spending time discipling the youth. A big thank you to everyone who keeps praying for these teams to come. They are doing things like pulling nits off of heads, painting finger nails, encouraging the students to practice their instruments and the latest is teaching how to skate board. These teams are a great blessing.
Since this is May, we plan to do our mother and daughter dinner here at the church again. But this year we are thinking about having it outside if the weather is good because the last time the church was too small and people were really crowded. This is such a special time when mothers who don't get to spend much time with their daughters or grandaughters actually get to hear God's Word together. I really love this time. Also another change this year is the ladies are doing some of the cooking and giving ideas. I am so happy they are taking more ownership in this!
Please pray for the grandmothers who have faithfully prayed for their children and grandchildren over the years. Some of these saints face persecutions which are hard to explain. We can talk about third world persecutionslike being killed for one's faith but these ladies face mental, emotional and spiritual struggles that literally tear them apart inside.
The end of this month I am getting a helper to stay with me while Rodger goes off to do violin workshop, a Fiddling camp and a Strings and Bow workshop during the summer. All this training will benefit the violin students in our music program.
Another area of progress is the music program. It has grown from just the choir to violin, to piano. At present we don't have a guitar teacher which we did at one time. The students have gone to a Rest Home to sing and play 4 different times since our last letter, and this month 2 more times have just been scheduled. We are anticipating doing this more, but right now they are all working on new pieces. The piano students are all very shy and although some of them can play in public this will be one of the next things we are looking forward to them doing. We want to thank everyone who donated the piano, and the keyboards for the children to advance on. We first started them on toys and now they all have their own keyboards. Again thank you very very much! The violin students are doing so well they are winning talent contests with their music. Please keep praying for the music program here at the church. Spiritually the students are growing too. Two of the students have written letters to their moms apologizing for not being good at home. Both situations would be hard for us to be good at too, but God is talking to their little hearts and this is exciting.
It seems like May is a really busy month for us because we are also holding a mini Alpha. Normally we hold a 10 day Alpha course here, but this year we are holding a 2 day Alpha on prayer. May 19th is the Global Day of prayer. A lot of people may be fasting on that day but we will actually be celebrating because it is my birthday and I want to share my cake with everyone who comes. But you may be sure I will not let food go to waste here, because there are so many hungry people in this world.
Another thing that has been happening is the constant use of the church after school hours. At first the neighbour kids would just hang out there, make a mess and then leave, but now they are picking up their mess, turning down the heat and practicing the instruments that are in the building. I have been able to spend some time with these kids after hours and it is good. They are asking questions about spirits and things they hear on the media.
At the house, since I am back from my sabbatical, I do baking with the girls and ladies. One night I was to teach one lady to make a pie crust and 5 ladies showed up! I didn't mind. We laughed and talked about when some of them used to hang around here as kids. One lady came back the next day and we had prayer with her. Another lady who has been a great blessing to the church came two days after and we sat and watched a DVD on the Holy Spirit. We are seeing real moves of the Holy Spirit on people out here.
In ladies' meetings the Holy Spirit has been moving on the ladies and new baby Christians are being born, but they are struggling with their priorities of feeding on the Word, and coming to church or ladies meetings. Please pray for these ladies. They have seen the miracles God had done out here, like little Jalyn not dying when she got run over, and physical healings like warts disappearing. So they are aware of the God who is real. I personally am so excited to encourage these ladies when the enemy comes in like a flood to knock them off their feet. Last night I had a call from a lady who truly wanted to drink and had such pressure from her friends but she knew who God was and she didn't cave in but reached out to God and the mission for help. This is so exciting to me.
One night I had the ladies tell me what our meetings meant to them and these were some of their replies.
1. We come here because it is a place where we don't feel darkness.The Sunday Church service has been growing too. There has been a faithfulness of the local people for a number of years now. As I see these people help each other get to the service it thrills my heart. Also it is thrilling to see the local people who don't drive tell the volunteers about people to pick up.
May is also the Native Youth Conference time. Last year the teens took a section of the highway and cleaned to help pay their way. This year we have two sections of the highway and I get to be involved in this one. I never cleaned a highway before but I will this Saturday. SMILE! Pray for these teens as they go to this Conference. Some of them have been struggling spiritually this year.
Rodger just returned from an Outreach trip to the north. He made lots of contacts and heard about a wonderful miracle of healing that God did for one of his friends. He plans to go north again, but will need more time because of the weather conditions and the terrain of the areas he travels through. He was robbed on this trip, and I had someone try to steal our vehicle while he was gone; so you never know when you pray for your missionaries what they might be facing.
Thank you again for caring for the people here and us as your missionaries.
PS. For those of you who have been asking about our family; here is the latest up date.
Jenny has all her children in a Christian school and has been working very hard to raise a Christian family.Neighbor lady smoking dry meat
Music students performing at a rest home ministry
Twins having fun at our house
Getting ready to leave for the Yukon
New summer team for the ladies' meeting. Molly our volunteer will be doing a devotional time and Genene will lead the pray sessions. Please pray for these two ladies. Our ladies meetings have been a time of deep spiritual growth for the women here.
Fun at Sunday school
Two young men who have found the church a friendly place.
Music at the Rest Home
Home | Sunchild Mission | Outreach | News Updates | Devotions | Pictures of the week