Our Trip to Ruby

Hi Everyone, Sorry for being away for so long.  Some of you were probably wondering if we had been eaten by a bear (or two).  Well, although there have been a few bear sightings at the camp this week, we are all here and accounted for.
On Sunday, we took a trip down the Yukon to the village of Ruby.  There are only about 160 people in the entire village and only a very small handful have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  We set out at 9am and made it there about 90 minutes later.  We had a wonderful Sunday church service there at the Ruby Bible Church.  Don Honea Jr, one of the few Saints in Ruby met us along the road to church.  We met Don and his family last year and we have been regularly emailing all of the last year.  It was so great to see him again.  At service, the few Saints who live in Ruby greeted us so lovingly.  We came there to encourage them - but the faith and love they showed us actually encouraged US.  Ruby, like most of the Native villages throughout Alaska are very spiritually dark, and these followers of Christ are like a bright shining light on a hill.  While at church we let them know that our CCC family has been praying for a pastor to be raised up out of the village.  When they heard this, they were filled with hope.  The fact that we were praying for them and the fact that they KNOW God hears our prayers.  After service, we had an opportunity to fellowship with one another.  Then we began our boat ride back home.
Our boat ride was another adventure all together.  We had a little bit of engine trouble. We took two boats to Ruby.  But we came back to camp in one. About a few miles outside of Ruby, the throttle / transmission on the boat Tarek was driving with Shannon, Kelly and I were on, began slipping.  Roger's boat came back to check on us. We made several attempts to fix it, and were towed back to Ruby a couple of times.  But, we eventually ended up loading ALL 26 of us into a single boat and heading back to camp.  About an hour away from camp, we had to turn back to a trapper's camp to borrow some fuel.  We finally made it back to camp at 6pm.  Thoughout the trip, we continually sang, prayed, and didn't complain.  Interestingly enough, one of the reference verses we studied that morning was James 1:2.  "Consider it all joy, my brethren when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance."  The additional time on one boat together brought us ALL closer together in unity.  In fact, and not in a boasting way at all - but to show the Unity we have in Christ, we raised a love offering and presented it to Roger so that he could get his boat engine repaired.  We (our families back at home) have to remember, these boats and small planes are the only way to get the kids into camp.  We need to make sure these kids can get here to hear the Word of Christ.  We need to pray they come to know Him and accept Him as their Lord and Savior.  So taking up a love offering was our way of responding to the Holy Spirit in obedience to help continue the work of God in this camp and the nearby villages.