MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-30-2008

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Greetings from Juneau, AK! The tire saga continues, as UPS FAILED to get me my tire in time on Friday. It arrived on Monday. In Whitehorse, YT. We're in Juneau. Big help, UPS. The good news, though, is that KalTire has a 30-day no-hassle money-back guarantee, so I got a full refund for the Canadian tires I bought. Yet, the tire failed to show up, so I had to get the three good snow tires put back on, and our all-weather radial spare put in the back. We were delayed getting out of Whitehorse due to the whole fiasco with the tire, but we decided to make the drive to Skagway anyway. It was 107 miles over a mountain pass, with one bum tire, and only two hours to make the drive. There was quite a bit of snow as we headed up to the pass, although they had plowed and put down gravel. Nonetheless, it resulted in two hours of white-hot terror as I attempted to get us to Skagway in time and not get us all killed in the process. We made it, with 15 minutes to spare and they let us on the ship. We had just enough time.

I'm very glad I decided to risk the trip through the pass, because we had two great meetings here, with Bethany Baptist Church (Pastor John Bigelow) and Lighthouse Baptist Church (Pastor Joe Michler) respectively. We had great meetings and the LORD blessed. I'm glad people came to Juneau to plant churches, and stay here, even though it's remote.

Juneau is, in fact, a rainforest (yes, a rainforest in Alaska), and lived up to that status most of the time we were here. We got to see the governor's mansion, where Sarah Palin lives when not out campaigning. We visited the Alaska State Museum, where we saw a variety of items of interest from Alaska's long and varied history.

The last day, today, the miraculous happened – the weather cleared up, the clouds departed, and we had one of those rare clear, beautiful days in Juneau. We went out and spent the day at the Mendenhall Glacier, hiking around the trails, taking pictures, and getting ourselves very cold and tired by the time we got done. We got some gorgeous pictures of the breathtaking scenery here, which I'll post in the Gallery when I get a chance.

Tomorrow, we ship out to Haines. We stay the weekend in Haines, while we wait for our tire to catch up with us. They are shipping it on Monday by way of a Canadian shipping company called Purolator, which has a truck that runs out to Haines on Mondays. Pray it actually makes it this time. I'm quite tired of dealing with this whole mess, and would like to have four good snow tires on the car before attempting to drive up to Fairbanks on Tuesday. Pray for that drive, that all would go well and that we would all be safe.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-23-2008

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Greetings from the Yukon! We’re in Whitehorse, YT, Canada. We had a meeting here last night in Calvary Baptist Church with Pastor Larry Harrison. It went great, and we are presently staying here until Saturday, when we will catch a ferry out of Skagway, AK to Juneau.

Tomorrow, I’m going to attempt to get the tires (the American ones) put back on the car, and the Canadian ones sold back to the company here in Whitehorse. Then, I’m calling up the folks I originally did business with to present them with the bill. Pray it goes well.

Here’s an interesting thing. At the last possible minute, we drove up the road out of town to look for bears one final time before catching our ferry from Kodiak to Homer, and this is what we saw:

Kodiak Bear 01

Kodiak Bear 02

Pretty cool, huh? I had been praying that God would help us see this, the largest bear in the world, from a safe distance, from the road, in the car, where everyone could see, and here the bear was, almost like he was posed just for us. We were all real excited.

We’re enjoying the North Country greatly!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-20-2008

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Greetings from Kodiak, AK! We have had a great pair of meetings in Kodiak. We were in Lighthouse Baptist Church with Pastor James Cratty from Wednesday through Sunday. I preached in all the services, and the LORD blessed. I got to speak to their Teen Bible Study on Thursday for about 20 minutes. Their high school here lets the students out for lunch, and several come over to LBC for lunch and preaching. I spoke from John 3, and four got saved!

On Sunday afternoon, I got the opportunity to be in Primera Iglesia Bautista, the Spanish church that was started by Lighthouse Baptist. Pastor Israel was gracious enough to let Anna and I present our ministry in their church. They are going to support us. Now I really will have to learn Spanish.

We had a great time on the island, the second largest in America after the Big Island of Hawaii. We took the kids on a hike along the coast, over hill and over dale, along cliffs, and down to a beach with a wrecked ship for them to explore. We got to go out on the bay and see sea lions in the wild, and lots of other aquatic critters.

After driving out of town every day looking, I finally managed to get a look at one of Kodiak's enormous brown bears, from a safe distance.

Kodiak is a beautiful place, with no end of ministry opportunities, and it was a great privilege to be here with Pastor Cratty and Pastor Israel.

We ship out in a few hours to return to the mainland, so pray for the voyage. Anna got violently seasick on the last ferry ride, so we intend to dose her good with Dramamine. Pray it does the trick, and that she and the kids sleep well tonight.

I finally got the tire situation straightened out. The company we purchased from is shipping a Michelin X-Ice from Portland, OR up to Whitehorse, YT at their expense. I'll be selling the Canadian tires back to the guys I bought them from, and getting my American tires put back on before we head down to Juneau on Saturday. This way, I'll have warrantied tires that I can still use down in the lower 48. it's the best possible solution to the problem, so it's good that it worked out this way, and was an answer to prayer.

Pray for us on our continued voyages here in the North country.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-14-2008

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Greetings from Homer, AK! Things are going well in Alaska so far. We finished up the missions conference in Anchorage with Pastor Stanley Roach and Independent Baptist Church of Anchorage. I got to preach in multiple services, and the last night I preached, I got to see a kid I knew from the last time I came to Alaska get saved. He grew up in church, and like me for the first twelve years of my life, had played a good religious game without Christ. He nailed that down forever last Tuesday, and it was great to see it.

We took the kids to the Alaska Fur Exchange while in town, where they deal in native furs and crafts, as well as the standard souvenirs. They have a sizable collection of big game trophies, such as brown bear, wolf, moose, lion, Cape buffalo, and so forth. We picked up a pair of fur-lined moccasins for Gaelin, who is always cold. It makes him look like some kind of barbarian, so I've started calling him Lothar of the Hill People. He responds like you'd expect – "I not Lothar!"

We drove down to Homer, about five hours south of Anchorage on the southernmost tip of the Kenai peninsula for a missions conference in Homer Independent Baptist Church with Pastor Glenn Harbaugh. We had another great week, and got to do a lot of soulwinning in the area.

Tonight, we literally ship out for Kodiak, AK for a meeting in Lighthouse Baptist Church with Pastor James Cratty. Our boat leaves at 10:30 PM and is an overnight trip. Pray for us as we minister on the island of Kodiak, that God will work in the meetings, and that we'll be an encouragement and a blessing to the church.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-06-2008

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Howdy from the Great White North! We are in Anchorage, AK right now. When last we spoke, we were having our Pastor break into our lockbox to get our passports. He succeeded, and had them overnighted to our hotel in Seattle, WA. They were waiting for us when we got there, and we crossed over into Canada without issue on Thursday. The drive through British Columbia was gorgeous. However, our adventures continued on Friday when we had a blowout about 250 miles from our destination in Whitehorse, YT, Canada. We had just passed through the Canadian Rockies (twisty roads, switchbacks, sheer dropoffs, no guard rails, loose gravel – the works) and driving down a straight, level stretch of road with good shoulders when I heard a loud pop, like a large balloon exploding. I pulled over to the shoulder immediately and when I got out expecting to see a flat tire, I found instead that the tire had come off the rim entirely, but seemed to be undamaged. So, thirty minutes later, I had the spare on and the old tire packed in the back and we were on our way. Now, here's where things get interesting. I have zero cellphone reception, because my phone is CDMA and all of Canada is GSM. I have no way to call Pastor Larry Harrison at Calvary Baptist in Whitehorse to let him know what's going on, no way to call for help, or to let anybody know what happened. We pull into the church parking lot around 1:00 AM. He was expecting us to stay in his missions apartment, but no one is around to let us in when we get there, which is not surprising. I hoped that maybe there might a key hidden to let us in, but no such luck. So, I knocked on the door of the house next door – it wasnt' the Pastor's house. I could see that someone was up, because the lights were on as well as a large screen TV with hockey highlights. Some poor guy came out into the cold in his sock feet, and told me that I wasn't far off – the Pastor's house adjoins the church property, but on the other side (he has a fence with a gate where he can walk through his back yard and be on the church property). He told me the Pastor had a black Ford pickup, but didnt' know the house number, so we drove around the block the appropriate street, in search of black pickups. I kid you not, just as we drove by, a black pickup pulls into the driveway of a house that looks like it could be the one – it was Pastor Harrison returning from services in Haines, AK (they hold service every Friday night, since there's no church there). I knocked on the door, and he got us into the church building to stay the night.

But wait there's more! I figured our tire simply needed to be examined for damage, and if all was well, put back on the rim and aired up, so we went to a tire place to get it taken care of. Not ten minutes later, the Pastor gets a call on his cellphone to come on back, and we find out what really happened – somehow, by some incredible process, the guys who installed my new snow tires managed to get a 16 inch tire onto a 15 inch rim. It not only sealed, but was aired up and held all the way from St. Louis, MO to within 250 miles of Whitehorse, YT. That's nearly 3,000 miles! It was nothing short of a miracle that we weren't killed. I have no idea how the tire was aired up (it should have blown up in their faces), or how it even held to drive out of the parking lot, let alone most of the way to Whitehorse. I do know this – God preserved and protected us in a miraculous way. My mother-in-law, and no doubt many others, were burdened to pray for us on Friday. God held that tire on and protected us until the perfect moment so we could have a blowout safely, get the tire changed, and make our way to Whitehorse to get new tires. I had to get four new tires to replace these, because they had no Michelin X-Ice tires, and you have to have all four tires the same in order to get the traction that snowtires offer. I left the four Michelins in Whitehorse, and we'll be picking those up in three weeks. At present, the company we bought them from are wanting me to bring them home to prove I'm not making this up, but will only reimburse us for the one tire. Pray that they will cover the whole cost of those tires, as well as the new tires I had to buy. I realize that the one tire was mis-labeled, which is why they didn't catch the mistake, but their mistake could have cost our lives. Seriously, only the barest 3mm or so lip of metal was holding our tire on, and you can see the pitting on the tire's lip where it was free to move as we drove. I feel this is a reasonable request considering the colossal negligence shown in making a 16 inch tire hold on a 15 inch rim, and the catastrophic risk this placed upon us. We very well could have been in a rollover accident at highway speeds on the side of a mountain in the middle of the Canadian wilderness with no way to call for help and with night coming on, provided we even survived the wreck. Pray that the rest of our trip goes without incident. We have lots of driving to do in the next few months. We're in Independent Baptist Church of Anchorage with Pastor Stanley Roach. The conference is going great. We didn't make the morning service yesterday because of the tire fiasco, but we did make the evening service. I preached and God greatly blessed. I'm showing our DVD tonight, and preaching. Pray that God continues to work in the services. At the moment, I'm sitting in the living room of a church member's house looking at the Talkeetnans, a beautiful snow-covered mountain range with radiant fall colors in the foreground. God is so good!