wfn.org | Congregation defies building freeze

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Note #7004 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

08-January-2002
02014

Congregation defies building freeze

Alaska islanders will have a new sanctuary - if they can bear the freight

by John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE - Gambell Presbyterian Church in Alaska is planning to build a
new home for itself - a water- and wind-proof building where people won't
have to keep their coats on during worship.
This is not your typical church-construction project.

The village of Gambell is on St. Lawrence Island, at the far western reach
of Alaska, surrounded by the frozen-solid Bering Sea, just 40 miles from
Siberia and near enough to the international dateline that you can stand on
nearby Sevuokuk Mountain (elevation 617 feet) and peer into tomorrow.

The little settlement has about 700 residents, most of them Siberian Yupik
Eskimos, whose people are believed to have occupied the remote island for
more than 2,000 years.

When you build something in Gambell, every stick of lumber, every length of
pipe, every panel of drywall, has to be brought in by barge during the brief
period each year when the pack ice on the Bering Sea breaks up.

The building the congregants of Gambell Presbyterian envision is a modest,
one-story frame structure - but they'll need $1.5 million to make it a
reality. At least one-third of that amount will go for transporting
materials to the site.

The Presbytery of the Yukon has committed $100,000 to the project; the
Presbyterian Foundation has donated $20,000 so far; and the congregation in
Gambell has pitched in almost $20,000 since the fund-raising effort got
under way in February 2001. Yukon Presbytery Executive David Dobler said in
January that the total stood at "a few hundred thousand."

If "a significant portion" of the needed money hasn't been raised by this
summer, Dobler said, the project will literally miss the boat and be delayed
by a year.

Gambell was named for a Presbyterian missionary, Vene Gambell, who founded
the church in 1894 and was lost at sea with his wife in 1898 when their
boat, the Jane Grey, disappeared en route to the mainland.

The current pastor, the Rev. Nathan Lim, a native of Taiwan who came to
Gambell with his wife, Rachel, two years ago, says the church is doing very
well: "All the vitals are on the rise." On holidays, he says, Gambell
Presbyterian sometimes draws a quarter of the village population. "The
community is my parish," he says.

Lim, who notes that Gambell "has no corner Home Depot or WalMart," says his
congregation has no complaints, although it worships in a building with
cracked walls and water-damaged ceilings.
"The Lord has been very faithful, very gracious," he says. "We believe He is
opening a door for us."
Lim says of the whale- and walrus-hunting Yupiks: "They are spiritual in a
way that you and I are not accustomed to. They may not be as well-educated
or as well-informed about current affairs as many others, but they are
devoted to Jesus Christ."

The Gambell congregation is an anchor of the Bering Witness mission to the
native peoples of Siberia. The Gambell Eskimos speak a dialect of the native
language that is understood in Siberia but not in other parts of Alaska.
The new building site was a gift of the native Sivuqaq Corporation.

Churches and individual Presbyterians who would like to support the project
can make pledges to Extra Commitment Opportunity #050045 through their local
church channels or by calling PresbyTel at 800-872-3283.
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