Last month we had a very special native campmeeting. It began with a health fair on Thursday afternoon following by the first of three days of meeting based on the Power of the Cross Revealed Series. If you have watched or attended the Revelation Now series hosted by the O’Malley church in Anchorage, you may have noticed our speaker, Darlene Heckler. She led the children in singing “Jesus Loves Me” in Inupiaq to open the second meeting. She is a Selawik native, so we were all excited to have her present Jesus to her friends and relatives. The health fair went well with the whole school attending, yet we wish had had more adults and been more prepared for the younger grades. Though we prepared for a larger group by meeting at the school,we were encouraged by the small group who attended. (We would have had less if we had met in our church.) And there was power there. We all agreed that this only the beginning; next year may be better.
Darlene is an exciting person to be around. She is passionate about how God has touched her life. It was hard to her to come, since she has a lot of bad memories here. When her mother died about eight years ago, she said she would not come back. (She had been a teacher here, but had moved two years before.) We first met her last December at her sister’s wedding, for which Warren was asked to help with the music. We were mutually encouraged when we discovered each other. Darlene has a dream of traveling to the villages and sharing what she has learned as she follows Jesus. Please pray that she will be empowered in her desire to share.
Blessings,
Verity
