Tuesday 17 June 2008 - Dillingham Trip. Part 4: Testimonies & Songs of Praise

I know I got up there, I just don't really remember what I said.  I began jokingly with the warning that I hate public speaking, and that since this was my second time in this church and the second time I'd been called on without warning or preparation to speak that I might not be back a third time! I know I gave a bit of the story of coming to learn about God and Christ in my early years, but the rest is a bit of a blurr... I know I touched on unity, on the fact that when we look at race - white, Native, mixed, Chinese, whatever - that we do damage to the testimony of the body of Christ... I mentioned the way the Lord has used Grace in my life and how He wants to use all of us in that way, that if we can live it, nothing would stop people -- all the lonely, hurting people out there -- from wanting what we have.  For someone who hates public speaking I think I went on some fifteen minutes.  Go figure. [Let me insert an apology that at the moment I can't resize images here at the station - also most of the images of Grace and all the ones of me were on a corrupted card.]

Grace would touch on the issues of race as well, and about the Word going out in Spirit and in Truth from our testimonies -- something I had recently written to Grace about.

"J" and her daughter got up and shared from two perspectives "J's" fight with cancer 27 years ago.  Her daughter spoke of being a 3-year-old child who had to learn how to cook from directions her mother gave her from the couch when she couldn't get up, and about sitting behind a plant in the doctor's office crying as they told her mother to go home to her village, be with her family and wait to die.  Janice spoke of how in Anchorage at that time there was no Native New Life and how alone she had been, and her cry to God of would take care of her daughter?  God spared her, she believed, to answer that simple prayer question.

The woman in the front of this picture got up and shared her testimony of the many years she waited for her husband to come to Christ, and he had shared his side of living a double life between his family and drugs & alcohol.

"B" is the manager at the assisted living home, "Grandma's House."  (It has a long Yupik name I can't really pronounce very well yet - and certainly can't spell! -- but everyone just calls it "Grandma's House.")  He looked so mild mannered but when he got up he shared and preached with such force I didn't see it coming.  "B" and his wife had fostered many children and when he felt the Lord release him from that he rejoiced.  "No more kids!  Thank you, Lord!  I'm going upriver.. gonna do some fishing, gonna do  some camping!"  But then the Lord opened another door -- at Grandma's House.  More kids!  Only these "kids" needed even more care even though they were older than him, and they didn't think they needed to listen to him because he was the youngest one there.  He had to leave and go back to Grandma's House after he sang -- but I wished he could have shared more and I wish I had thought to get video footage of him singing.