To feel the crunch of the semi-frozen ground under my boots as I walk across the vast expanse of Canada's Arctic tundra is an exhilarating experience...
I'm dreaming, or course. But my heart really is in the Northland where the Lord has made a way for me to share with a group of people, both white and Native Inuit (formerly called Eskimos), what he has done in my life. How that God saved me from a life of sin and self-destructive behaviors, and how I am now at peace.
Yes, my prayers have been answered. Because last week I received an encouraging letter from a missionary pastor who lives in the town of Inuvik, far above the Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories. The pastor wrote to tell me that my story of redemption has inspired those in his congregation who are part of a drug and alcohol recovery group. I was thrilled at the news.
Inuvik is a town of perhaps a little more than three thousand people that's located just off the rugged Mackenzie River, and not too far from where the river meets the icy cold waters of the Beaufort Sea. It's remote and isolated. Inuvik is a place that few have ever heard of, and fewer still have had the opportunity to visit.
But in spite of its isolation, Inuvik has become modernized. In decades past it was a rough and tumble settlement of shoddily constructed, ramshackle huts mostly put together with sheets of plywood, reused lumber, and even randomly found pieces of driftwood from the sea. While nowadays, small but well-built government sponsored homes dot Inuvik's landscape.
Nevertheless, even with Inuvik's modernization, its hearty residents still have to manage, year after year, to survive the long Arctic winters where forty to fifty below zero temperatures are the norm, and where powerful gale force winds would batter the sides of every house in Inuvik for weeks at a time.
Yet here, too, God has those who love Him. And it is in this remote part of the world that I have received a warm welcome from those who, like me, are not ashamed to declare Jesus Christ as Lord.
D.B.
Yes, my prayers have been answered. Because last week I received an encouraging letter from a missionary pastor who lives in the town of Inuvik, far above the Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories. The pastor wrote to tell me that my story of redemption has inspired those in his congregation who are part of a drug and alcohol recovery group. I was thrilled at the news.
Inuvik is a town of perhaps a little more than three thousand people that's located just off the rugged Mackenzie River, and not too far from where the river meets the icy cold waters of the Beaufort Sea. It's remote and isolated. Inuvik is a place that few have ever heard of, and fewer still have had the opportunity to visit.
But in spite of its isolation, Inuvik has become modernized. In decades past it was a rough and tumble settlement of shoddily constructed, ramshackle huts mostly put together with sheets of plywood, reused lumber, and even randomly found pieces of driftwood from the sea. While nowadays, small but well-built government sponsored homes dot Inuvik's landscape.
Nevertheless, even with Inuvik's modernization, its hearty residents still have to manage, year after year, to survive the long Arctic winters where forty to fifty below zero temperatures are the norm, and where powerful gale force winds would batter the sides of every house in Inuvik for weeks at a time.
Yet here, too, God has those who love Him. And it is in this remote part of the world that I have received a warm welcome from those who, like me, are not ashamed to declare Jesus Christ as Lord.
D.B.
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