Sunchild News - July 2011

www.arcticoutreach.org --- e-mail rinker@arcticoutreach.org --- phone 403-989-3715

Dear Friends,

Below is one of our Sunday School students showing what she made in Sunday School. Be sure and read her letter to God. This is our reward. We always do some kind of craft or artwork in our S.S. classes.

After long delay we have finally launched our music program. We have decided that a big part of this ministry will be devoted to training youth in music. There are many reasons, but in short, the youth here have little if any constructive activities to do. Nowhere to go and nothing to do! An in-depth involvement in music will elevate them and keep them connected with the mission through the difficult teen years. They also have no other opportunity to develop their special gifts and talents in music. So for the last several months I have been starting four students on violin lessons. When school starts they will join in with the students in Rocky Mountain House at the play-ins there, and in August they will attend aworkshop at the Red Deer College. This month we will have enough help to start another group of students on piano lessons. Please pray that we can get someone who can help us full time with the violin program as well as instructors who can offer support on an occasional basis. We are putting a lot into this, and in a short time it will have a highly visible impact in this community.

Below is our violin class. In August they will be attending a workshop at the Red Deer College. Some of you may not be aware of the special opportunity to get very young children started on the violin. Because their brain is still growing and developing, to have them on the violin while this is happening causes the brain to develop with the special formating to play the violin. So in a few years of this developing, they have a brain specially wired to play the violin. It is the dream of every instructor to have young children get started. The Suzuki program accommodates children as young as three and four.

Recently the mission sent 18 from Sunchild & O'Chiese to the Christian Native Youth Conference. But equally exciting was what happened with Marie, one of our S.S. girls who moved back to her mothers Reserve in Saskatchewan. Her Band was so impressed by Marie's Christian influence that they chartered a big bus and sent a group of 22 teens to the camp, west of Edmonton. Marie is one of the teens we targeted to focus our ministry on when we came back and started working here again in 2004. So as a direct result of this ministry there were 40 people at this leadership training camp! Below is the group from Sunchild as they are leaving.

We recently completed a 9 consecutive day Alpha course sponsored by the Crossroads Church of Red Deer. It was modified (greatly) for our unique setting including live teaching instead of video. The instructor, Doug MacDormand, wrote an in-depth article with photos and you can access it by clicking on this link. Alpha at Sunchild

We are still doing renovations on our house but we are moved in as best we can with it under construction. Now that winter is finally over we have "much" outside work to do on the property that we got back when we got the house back. "Lots" of fencing, clean-up, and etc. The big story this summer is the involvement of the Korean Church. They took on the project of doing our Sunchild VBS here, so they came for a couple days of work and preparation to get ready for VBS. Below is one of the Koreans, Jacob, working on our upstairs in the house. Soon we will feature an article with lots of pictures inside the house.

Below are the Koreans who came on the work crew to prepare for VBS. They sure worked hard and got a lot done!

The Koreans had two large banners made in Korea for VBS. In this picture they just delivered the banners and are showing them off at a birthday party for the twins. We hung one up above the road for a couple weeks and no-one could miss the news of it being time for VBS. Next month will feature news and pictures of the three VBS's we held.

This is the twins with their birthday cake. I can't believe it has been three years since the accident. It was only a few days after her second birthday.

This is the dreaded cookie thief, below. He likes our house and thinks it's his. Last winter we had a weasel. Now he has moved out for the summer and Cookie has taken his place. He's a little too small to fry. Sorry, I'm editing with Adobe CS5 and I forget how to quickly do a red eye correction. Nice whiskers huh!

We have some short term workers and will feature these in our next letter. We will be involved in four VBS's during the month of July. Several Korean churches, in Red Deer and Calgary will be involved. Remember how much we are in need of helpers, so if you or someone you know can come for any length of time, even if all you can do is play with the kids, we need you very much!

In His Service, Rodger & Karen Rinker

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