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.