www.arcticoutreach.org --- e-mail rinker@arcticoutreach.org --- phone 403-989-3715
Dear Friends,
Our August news update is late because we didn't have internet service until the middle of September. So the August update will include the first half of September. So our house is now torn down to make room for building a new house. Due to the time it has taken to get this far, we have changed our timeline for building the new house. We won't be building the basement now until spring because of the danger of frost cracking the cement if we can't get heat into it before winter. However we did get a new room added onto the church which is big enough for holding youth groups in and using for Sunday School classes etc. We desperately needed more room, and it is wonderful to have now.
We had a baptism service in which seven people were baptised. We want to hold them up in prayer that they will grow spiritually and be true to their testimony.
Child Evangelism Fellowship organization sent a VBS director to work with Karen in holding several VBS's. They went to the Big Horn Reserve in the mountains and worked here on Sunchild/O'Chiese as well.
Karen's neck has improved a lot.
I'll let the pictures below tell the rest of the news...
We had to re-rout the water line from the well and roll back the utility lines before tearing down the house. This turned out to be a much bigger job than anticipated.
Several different work crews were involved in the water line job.
One local couple wanted to renew their wedding vows in a renewal ceremony. Bunty had to work and wasn't able to go home and change! They weren't Christians when they first got married, so they wanted to have a Christian ceremony.
We held our baptism in the Baptiste River which is close to us here. Seven people were baptised.
The weather was cold & rainy the day before, but it turned out nice and warm and the water was warm as well!
We need to continue to pray for those who got baptised.
The team from Caroline comes once a month to work our youth group. This time they brought archery equipment again, and taught archery to the teens.
C
Our house is gone now, so the cook tent is our living room. Friends from Edmonton and our builders are all visiting this evening.
Since the materials had to be separated to go in to the landfill, we had to take the metal roofing off before the house was crushed down and hauled away.
Here the excavator is taking down the house and loading it in the truck to go to the landfill.
Below we have a volunteer work crew building a 18' by 30' room onto the church which we call a teen room because it is needed for our youth group meetings. The church hasn't been big enough to hold the youth groups. It will also be used for a lot of other things when we need the extra room.
All of the lumber for the teen room was donated free of charge by the Unger saw mill in Drayton Valley.
Left to right this is Jason, Wesley, and Elijah who are building the teen room. Wesley is from Ontario and the other two are from Alberta.
This is a group from the Nigerian churches in Calgary who came for a day of prayer. The others in the picture are our construction work crew.
We had hoped to be a lot farther toward building our new house this summer, but every step turned out to be a battle. Our plan now is to put in the basement in early spring and get the house up in the summer. Please keep us in your prayers... In Jesus, Rodger & Karen Rinker.