The Northern Quilter Picker Upper

Last October, you might have heard about my attempt to cross the border into Canada with a small SUV filled with quilts. The second the border agent asked me to roll down the windows, I knew this wasn’t going to work.

Nine months later, after invoices were created, importer ID obtained, and duty paid on each item, I was cleared to continue my route up north to pick up more quilts.  The first stop was in Kamloops, then on to Hazelton, where there is a bounty of quilts waiting to be passed out when the weather gets cooler. By the way, you can watch the Bounty commercial here.

 

I would like to thank the quilters of Christ the Vine Lutheran in Damascus, Oregon, Redeemer Lutheran in Spokane Valley, Washington, and Lord of Life Lutheran in Kamloops, B.C., for making and donating close to one hundred items of quilts, lap blankets, pillows, and knitted pot holders.

Some of the quilts were handed out to community contacts this past summer. Willard and Carolyn from Laxgalts’ap were very appreciative of their quilt.

Virginia from Gingolx was also delighted to receive the gift of the quilt and so was her daughter.

While these quilts are made, given, and received in love, let them serve as a reminder that Jesus' love goes beyond anything we can ever imagine. The gospel message can penetrate any heart that needs hearing the deep love of God, shown through His Son’s death and resurrection on the cross. Pray that hearts will be open to receive this message and that God continues to call all people to share that message with others, especially people in the north. 

 12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper. (1 King 19:12)

When I was a DCE doing youth ministry, the moments when ministry really happened was not in the big programs or the well thought-out Bible studies, but in the small moments such as driving a kid home from youth night or waiting for an event to start. The youth would often share or ask faith-related questions.

It’s no different in the mission field. This past summer, on two occasions I was caught off guard when the kids made comments about faith or an opportunity to share about Jesus transpired.

While watching over the sign-in table in Old Hazelton during the VBS program, a young boy, who was very active (by moving around and avoiding what he ought to be doing) sat down next to me. Out of nowhere, this young boy asked me, “Do you like Jesus?” Taken aback, I could tell the boy was being very serious. I replied, “Yes, I do. Especially knowing how much He loves me and what He has done for me.” The boy sat there thinking for a second and responded, “I like Jesus too.” and then he left to play games with the rest of the kids. Wow, I thought to myself, what testimony of God at work in this community.

A week later, I was in Gitanyow with my home church. My wife is the team leader. For whatever reason, the kids did not know that we were married but found it amusing. As we were cleaning up, some young teenage girls who had been hanging around with us asked how long Tina and I had been married. I answered, “Twenty-six years.”

The response from the teens was, “Wow, that’s a long time.” Then one girl commented that she doesn’t really know where her parents are. She explained that her dad just left one day, and no one knows where he is.  Her mom went to get milk at the store and did not come home for a couple of years. When she did, she was a very mean person. I could tell the girl was trying to make light of her parents not being around, but I could see the hurt in her eyes. Before I could say anything, the two girls left.

Putting effort into a large program is important, but it is also key to recognize that ministry often happens in those still quiet moments when you least expect it. Pray that God will be with us in those moments to share of His great love for whoever we are talking to. 

Just as quickly as the fires arrived in B.C., so did the rain, and it was just in time. As my home church team left Oregon and drove through thick smoke for most of the day, I headed over to Kitimaat Village, B.C. in preparation for another team traveling from Edmonton, Alberta.

This was going to be a different week since we partnered with the cultural camp for the kids in the community. It would also be different because we were working with a non-religious group. But what an amazing week it turned out to be!

In the first half of the day, the team helped with the cultural camp. We played games and learned the Haisla language alongside the kids, including having to say, “Please listen.” We also learned about their culture, which included some dances and songs. We ate lunch with them. One meal was made of baked salmon and Oolican grease, Kathleen’s favorite!

In the afternoon, we were able to conduct our VBS. Not only were we able to use the brand-new youth center, but the cultural camp helpers assisted with our program. Despite the long days, the team was greatly encouraged by all the new relationships being built at the camp.

An afternoon session listening to Nadine’s story.

Two members of the Haisla dance group shared details about their masks and dances.

Kathleen's fifteenth year serving with LAMP.

A few weeks later, I was back in Witset to help support the team coming from Stony Plain, AB. Unfortunately, one of their team members ended up getting sick and could not come. The team planned similar activities as last year but without the hot, sunny weather. Despite being cool and wet most of the week, there was a good turnout from the community.

Scott Anderson sharing a message at the lake.

This marks the third year in a row that Stony Plain has returned to Witset. It is around year three that most teams feel settled in and are told “welcome home” by people in the community. However, this group has maintained a strong connection with Pastor Doug and Sherry and several of the members from the church in Witset right from the start.

Every week, the Andersons (Pastor Doug and Sherry) gather online for prayer. Sometimes, there are only a few of them, other times more, but the team leaders from Stony Plain, Carolyn and Ralph, have participated and been able to build on the relationships developed during their summer visits.

 

Once a week, the Andersons host pizza nights for the community at their house. It Is especially fun in the summer when the kids can play games in the backyard. 

I wish I had gotten my camera out faster, because there was a moment I witnessed that best describes this team. While at the lake, people started to clean up after the event. Kids were running around.  Right in the middle of the chaos, I saw Carolyn and Ralph with their hands on a gentleman from the community. All their heads were bowed in prayer. It was a beautiful moment to see God working through Carolyn and Ralph as they prayed for this person.

 

This past week, I started year number three of the CMC program. I have really enjoyed the classes taught over the summer, and I’m looking forward to Systematics II being taught by a Concordia Seminary, St. Louis prof. I will also be updating my new ministry start as I look for ways to help the First Nations people grow deeper in their faith.

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 I realize this newsletter is long overdue. Since my last newsletter, a lot has happened. Aftering finishing my spring semester in May, I flew out to Nebraska and helped drive our daughter home from school. Following the replacement of our water main and completion of a few more projects, I went to Concordia Irvine for my summer session.

I was introduced to Peiper, who wrote three volumes on the Lutheran doctrines; something my father read at seminary, and my grandfather had Peiper as a professor when he too attended seminary. Finally, I was able to take a class that I wanted, homiletics 1, and I look forward to using some of the new skills learned when I have to preach. Despite the cool weather in Irvine, it was great to be there and meet the new incoming students and spend time with my cohort.

Some of the CMC students, their spouses, and the staff attended the Mariner’s game when they came to play the Anaheim Angels…and the Mariners won!

I was home for a few quick days before driving North for most of July. Please keep the teams in your prayers. There have been many deaths all for different reasons. Two weeks ago, there were four funerals in the Hazelton area. While in Gitanyow last week, there were two deaths in one family, including the death of a son of a family that we know fairly well.

Please pray for relief from all the fires, there are several burning out of control in northern B.C. which is creating a lot of smoke. Some of you might be dealing with the smoke coming from the wildfires in Canada. 

An out-of-control wildfire near Cedarvale, which is about 26 miles from Gitanyow.

Your prayers are most appreciated. I will have more details on our summer ministry once the last mission team is in B.C. in August. Until then, I hope your summer is going well. 

God’s peace be with you,

Nathan 

Spring Fling 2023

 Spring Fling 2023

Three years ago, I was on the phone discussing with two other team leaders what we might be doing if COVID-19 really does spread, and we have to cancel the Spring Fling trip. Two days later, it was clear we needed to “postpone” our trip. Two days after that, the Canadian/U.S. border was closed.

The “postponement” finally happened on March 27th, 2023, when five of us gathered in Hazelton, B.C. to hold a five-day program. Three team leaders joined me–Kathleen Galbraith-Robertson, who serves Kitimaat Village, and one of her team members, Nadine Lung; Josiah Schultz who will be serving Old Hazelton, and Tina Schmidt who will be serving Gitanyow. 

On Tuesday, we spent part of our day in Old Hazelton so Josiah could meet the community contact and get an idea of what is available for the summer. After a quick visit, we left for Gitanyow. Vicar Dan from Redeemer Lutheran in Kitimat joined us.

Fifteen children and five teenagers, who hung out in the back, came out for an afternoon of kids’ ministry. We also visited with a few adults after the program. Wednesday was a travel day and visits with two different First Nations artists. 

On Thursday, we gathered in Kitimaat Village for an afternoon kids’ ministry. Although only two children showed up, they were the same kids the team had the summer before! The girls could not wait to come when the dad told them about the program.

 

The Holy Spirit was at work. When we needed a song to close at the end, Josiah flipped through his songbook and chose “This Little Light of Mine”. The girls did not know the song, but when the dad came in to pick them up, he told his daughters that this was an important song. He had learned it as a child and explained that those words (along with others) helped him get through times of his addictions. [This is the same dad that shared with us last summer regarding how the songs he learned as a child helped him get through living on the streets while on drugs. You can read more about it here. Scroll halfway down the page.]

Despite a short trip, a lot took place, and we were all feeling very tired in the end. As part of my CMC project, I am hoping to build stronger faith communities in First Nations communities. One step in this process is to partner with First Nations community contacts, which the team leader for Kitamaat Village was able to do online while we were on the Spring Fling trip.

Two teams this summer are also doing this by working with their cultural summer camps. In Kitamaat Village and Witset, the team leaders have been in contact with the director of each camp. During the week the teams are in the community, they will be helping with the camp. Then during the afternoon, we will run a Christian education program. Please pray that these teams will have a deeper, sustaining impact this summer in addition to the two other teams going to Old Hazleton and Gitanyow. 

 Winter Visits: Keeping Hope Alive 

The road to Gingolx, BC is long but very beautiful. It’s about 2.5 hours drive from Terrace.  Often my visits in person are short. A thought sometimes creeps into my head that a phone call would be quicker and easier. But as you have read before, everything we do at LAMP is based on relationships and an important part of that is spending time with people.

 This past February, I made my way to visit my contacts in Gingolx. We spent time catching up on the life of the community. This couple shared their struggles with church attendance and the desire that more people would get involved. As our time together came to an end, I asked about the eulachon (oolichan) since I had noticed that the river I passed was not loaded with seagulls or people catching these very small fish. We talked some more about the grease obtained that has sustained the First Nations people in the Pacific Northwest.

White is the purest kind of grease collected, and the darker oil is only good for cooking.  As I was heading out the door, I heard someone calling my name. I came back in to see my contact holding a pint jar of white eulachon grease.

“Here take some,” she offered handing me the jar. I refused knowing that’s hard to get and very valuable. “No, please take some, this is yours.”

I asked if I could pay but was quickly told that it’s a gift. Since I had a jar of Marionberry jam in the car that I bring with me as a gift, I insisted that we trade. She agreed. 

This is how things were done thousands of years ago. You can learn more about the Grease Trails in northern British Columbia, and how the people traveled very far to trade eulachon grease for things they did not have. While this gesture of trading is a highlight in my ministry and building relationships with First Nations, the story of what happened next is even more exciting. 

I made a “quick” stop to visit the chief counselor of the band office. Since he was also pastor of the church in Gingolx, I wanted to ask him about preaching, especially in a First Nations community. Normally, our conversations are short, and since I did not schedule a meeting, I figured this would be even shorter. But, like anything we try to predict, this was one of my longer meetings with him.

We talked at length about preaching, conducting church services, and his desire to see more people attend church. He then asked me if our team was coming back this summer, underlining how important it was for the children in their community. I was not able to give him an answer, since many of the teams for LAMP are unable to conduct a VBS this summer or unable to send a team. I left assuring him that I would return in the spring for a visit and provide an update on my studies. 

Please pray for congregations to send teams to serve in First Nations communities. More and more communities are asking us to send groups to work with their children. Plus, we are looking to replace the teams unable to come to teach the children in some of the communities.

After my visit up north it was a quick turnaround to attend Best Practices in Phoenix, Arizona…and they were having winter-like weather. I met my boss there, Dr. Steve Schave, and together we visited with people at the LAMP table. I was able to attend seminars needed for my schooling and catch up with people I hadn’t seen in a while.

I was then home for a week before heading to visit Trinity Lutheran in Richmond, B.C. Before Sunday we, Tina and myself were able to visit with a young man from Gitanyow living in Vancouver, who was working on becoming a journeyman for pipe fitting. This is the same young man I was able to baptize several years ago in a lake not far from Gitanyow. We were encouraged to see him doing so well and praying that he keeps making wise choices. Then on Sunday I had the privilege to preach at the Chinese service, where everything was in Mandarin including the hymns. Thankfully I recognized the melody and was able to sing in english. Despite the language barrier, people were able to hear about LAMP and our ministry with First Nation people.

Then at the 11m english service, the president of the Lutheran Church Canada and the mission director both attended the service. I was already nervous as the pastor of Trinity Lutheran was the former prof of homiletics at Concordia Seminary in Edmonton. But the services and my message was about God and His gifts that He gives us through His son Jesus, and how we are to share that with others, especially with First Nations in northern Canada. 

Please continue to pray for people like Taylor that the word that has been planted on his heart would grow. Please pray for more churches to come and help teach Jesus to the children in First Nation communities. And keep me and three other teams in your prayers as we will have a Spring Fling trip at the end of this month. Four other people from three churches will be in two communities for a couple of days working with children and adults. 

I thought he was taller.

            I remember the times that my family would go on a vacation to see my mom’s relatives. A couple of years would have gone by. My cousin would be taller and older looking, but somehow we would just pick up from where we last saw each other as if it was only last week.

Our first in-person staff and board meeting since 2019 was like this. When I walked into the main office in Edmonton, it felt very familiar – the paintings, the smells, and the old binder still being used as a door prop. But the offices had different arrangements. There was one change I hadn’t seen in person, our new executive director, Steve Schave. I thought he was a lot taller. 

Even though we have all seen each other online for the past few years, this was our first in-person staff meeting. After some fun and laughter catching up with everyone, we got down to business. We look forward to a summer with more Vacation Bible Schools in more of the villages LAMP serves.

 There wasn’t much time to rest. The next day was our first in-person board meeting since the fall of 2019! Both the US and the Canadian board gathered in Edmonton with only three directors missing who joined us online. The purpose of this meeting was to put a strategic plan together for the immediate future, three years from now and five-plus years. It was a very productive meeting with great ideas coming from both boards, which included two former LAMP missionaries. The time went by too quickly.

And yet my time in Edmonton wasn’t done. Tyler Steele joined me to meet up with two different teams that serve in B.C. Tyler works as a sales rep for Eaton Electrical,  he was able to talk at length on both visits because

there were people who had extensive knowledge of electrical.  On Saturday evening, we visited with the team from Barrhead, AB that serves in New Hazelton. The team plans to serve but not until the summer of 2024 as their church is presently trying to grow its own Vacation Bible School program.

On Sunday, we attended worship with New Life Community Church in Stony Plain. It was their Sunday to report on last summer’s mission trip in Witset. What timing! I opened the message part of the service with Luke 10:2, “And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

 

There were six different presenters including the missionary pastor serving in Witset. The Holy Spirit was at work as each shared parts of one another’s message. It sounded like we all had worked together on writing our message when in fact no one had. To God be the glory!

Afterward, Tyler and I flew back home to Oregon. There were only a few quick days to prepare before I drove up to Canada for another in-person visit with a vehicle full of quilts…it did not go as planned.