almost on the island

well it has two feelings to it, it feels like just yesterday i jumped on the plane. at the same time it feels like there is alot going on at home that im not a part of until i hear about it.

here I am 8-9 days away from leaving the city of homer and going to the town of savoonga, I am pumped bout going, its the first missions trip ive been on and im excited for that. God is really going to do something, he would do something even if we didnt go he is a living God and he works even when we dont see it. so we leave to go to savoonga, a town of 700 ish i think. we will be staying at a church and running kids ministry pretty much every day and doing bible studies and other stuff on some of the other days, we will just generaly be connecting ourselfs to this village. spending 3ish weeks there and then going to the town of gambell (20 minute plane ride away) and doing pretty much the same thing. we are pretty much going to be a open church to youths and children to come to after school and then again after supper and just really show them what Gods pure love is. we will very much be working with the elders of the village and the church too, learning more about the culture so we can help build it up, and see it through Gods eyes. we often go in with a western mentality, of our culture is the only culture that christanity fits into when really, that is only because we have made it fit. i mean we should be very sensitive to not try to fit christianity into there culture but to fit the culture into christianity, some things need to be cut off, there is some very dark shamen activity, but any power that they have is just a mimic of what power God has, the devil is not a creator hes just a copier. im kinda going off on rabbit trails here but yeah its going to be awesome, the only things that kinda suck are the fact we can only take 2 2 minute showers a week due to water supply and we can only make 2 20 minute phone calls becuase the only line we have is the churches and we want to keep it open.
there are 10 of us going up so you can pray for us all.
me, josiah, lissy, crystal, maxie, josh(staff) ian(staff) melanie(staff), lydia(not a student), nd christine(staff, only stying for the first 2 weeks)

these are dry communities but there is lots of home brewing going on, they had a raid a couple weeks ago going through the villages pray that God fills the whole that the people were trying to fill with alcohol.

mount redoubt exploded all over us we had like a centimeter of ash fall on us but we are good to go haha, its cool to have been in a earthquake and a volcano, but im praying for nothing more like that haha.

Godbless
chad

overview attempt

well i spent up most of the time i was going to write this responding to emails and now i only have a little amount of time to get through one of the longer posts i wanted to do.

well in summary, God is awesome.

as i am nearing the midway point of my school, I am really glad for all the prayers that have been sent our way because as a team we are starting to be very unified and really flowing with the unity of Christ and the holy spirit. I am really blessed to have all you people back home supporting and blessing me as I am here, and as I am moving on towards my outreach phase.

some of the main topics or ideas that I am starting to gain a foundation in are spiritual warfare, intercession, the father heart of God, the other aspects of Gods relationship with us like the bridegroom, the friend, king, lord, etc. if i had my notes with me i would give you biblical references. we also had a week of learning about world religions and a week of world view, where we learnt more about the way that the world sees things which really helped me gain a foundation of why i believe what i believe. (the bible), we had a week on relationships (marriage, friendship, etc.), one idea that is always coming up is finding Gods thumbprint in cultures and in people in general, often when we try to minister to other races we come with a white mans way of thinking and not a biblical understanding, while there most of the time is a heart change behind things that are cultural God sees importance in culture. guitar and singing is not what worship is. wow i am running out of time. i hope to go in depth with some of these things.

one thing that really hit me this week is this next statement.

every idea has consenquences. (good or bad) but it has a consequence.

so next time you have any ideas, make sure it is at the heart of what God wants.
a good way of figuring that out is through the bible.

grace and peace
chad