NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Alaska… The Last Frontier

Many of you have been asking about what we did in Alaska, so I though I should put out a news update about it. Contrary to popular misconception, not all commercial fishing in Alaska takes place miles out to sea and not all fish processing factories take the form of large offshore barges. Sharon and I worked at a very small company owned by a Christian family. The plant or “cannery” Sharon worked in seven days a week was about the size of an elementary school gymnasium. The tiny twenty foot skiff I worked on was a part of a fleet of three trusty, time-tested boats we used to pick the fish from our nets. Some of our nets lay offshore only a few hundred feet and our furthest net sat about one mile from the beach. Our summer was hardly a “Deadliest Catch” situation.

Sharon
A typical day for Sharon went about like this: On a good day, she reported to the processing line at 7:00 AM. She woke up around 5:45, got dressed, and stumbled over to the dinning hall to eat whatever Mrs. B, the cook, had prepared for us that day. She would proceed to work in the plant until well into the evening taking only short breaks for lunch and dinner. Sharon primarily “spooned” the guts out of the fish and “graded” them according to their size and quality. This basically translates into fifteen to eighteen hours a day of monotonous, repetitive work. The only break in this schedule took place when the shipping manager needed Sharon to help him load boxes with the fish, weigh them, and strap them for their long journey to the “lower 48.”

Fishing
My schedule turned out to be far more unpredictable. Because commercial fishing depends on future harvests of salmon, fleets Alaska’s Fish and Game department restricts commercial fishing to a set number of hours per week in order to protect the fish “run” and allow them to escape up the rivers. That basically translates into many, many phone calls into Fish and Game’s offices waiting for them to announce fishing openings on their automated message system. While we waited, I helped in the processing plant driving forklifts; processing, packaging, and shipping fish; and filleting and removing the bones from the fish.

Friends
Needless to say, we experienced some long days this summer. We often worked on less sleep than we would have liked and lived in very close quarters with twenty other people in a wooden bunkhouse. Some mornings began at four and most evenings stretched well past nine. At times the fishermen would fish through the night, leaving to check the nets at midnight or later. Without our friends Shark and Nikki Shuptar and Crystal Arthur we couldn’t have made it. We could laugh with them in spite of difficult circumstances, cry when we needed to, and just have someone who understood because they were going through the ordeal with us.

Ministry
God allowed us a unique ministry opportunity this summer. Eleven college students from Turkey worked in the processing plant with Sharon. They had a lot of questions about Christianity and American culture in general. Due to the demanding nature of the work, though, we mostly demonstrated Christ to them through our interactions with them and our godly attitudes even when the work was tough. Please pray for our Turkish friends as they go home this month. We grew to love them and to love working with them.  We rejoice to have had a small part in their lives and pray they will come to a saving belief in our Lord and Savior.

The Why
We undertook this venture for the sole purpose of making money for our training. Sharon and I earned nearly all the money we needed for our first year of school here in Missouri which we desperately needed. While we train here we cannot have jobs as our schedule requires additional hours of outreach and service in the community. We appreciate your prayers as we seek to raise the remainder of the funds we will need to see the year out here in Missouri. Come with us on our next adventure by checking in with us often or SUBSCRIBE to our email newsletter.

Ric and Sharon Bruce
In Training with New Tribes Mission

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 12:00 AM and is filed under News Article. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.