Praying for Alaska

For those unaware, my family and I spent three years living, ministering, and enjoying ourselves in Alaska. The summers were short and mild; the winters long and dark. I think we broke every winter snow weather record over the course of our sojourn there.

Alaska returned to the forefront of my thinking recently as I read a Baptist Press article about the Alaska Baptist Convention's Director of Evangelism being seriously injured in a gas leak explosion. You can read about it here. Please pray for Jimmy as he recovers in a Seattle hospital. The Alaska Baptist Convention posts regular updates on their webpage.

Thinking about Alaska also reminded me the work of missions is not complete. The Great Commission (Matthew 29:18-20) compels us onward even to the ends of the earth. And believe me, with a state more than twice the size of Texas with vast territory and only a few roads (most towns and villages are only accessible by air; some by boat, too), Alaska is quite literally the ends of the earth.

Here's a fact known by few. There are over 100 villages in Alaska with absolutely no evangelical witness. Having grown up in a small town in Mississippi with multiple evangelical churches I cannot begin to comprehend a place in the United States in such dire need of just one evangelical church. Please pray for Alaska villages and peoples, that God would raise up church planters, missionaries, and other Christian workers to reach this last frontier.

---