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Greetings, in the name of our Lord.

Our Fall season (which usually lasts about two weeks) has turned out to have been unseasonably warm. We were able to get our winter preparations completed with ample time to accomplish several additional tasks before hard winter sets in.

One of those tasks was to install the new translator in the village of Iliamna. This was the last of the four translator applications that we were granted in 2013 that we had to have on the air before their November 2016 expiration date. Praise God! They are now all on the air and well before the FCC deadline.

We have a number of winter projects that we hope to start on now that the installation of the new FM and the Iliamna translator are completed. One project that has been on hold for a while has been to finish installing the backup generators at KIAM and KAGV. We have all the equipment, it is just a matter of connecting it all up.

Please pray that God would provide the break in our "normal" workload to catch up with some of the maintenance work and get some of these projects completed.

Pray too, that God will call more workers to the field. That is actually our greatest need at this point.

Sometimes it can be hard to present a ministry that is working within the United States as a "mission". It can be difficult for some to grasp that we are ministering to a culture from the standpoint of us being the foreigners in their land. The cultural differences between the cities and the villages here in Alaska are far greater than what most folks would expect to exist in the USA. Rural Alaska is very much like a foreign field with many of the same needs.

Recently, the director of a mission that works primarily in Africa visited here and commented that rural Alaska does not seem to be substantially different than where he ministers. Other than that, people are not (usually) shooting at you. But then again, it can get really cold here.

Please pray that God will raise up a new generation of people with a vision for proclaiming the gospel in this vast and wild land.

God has promised that He would call people from every tribe and every nation to Himself including the tribes and nations here in Alaska. Pray too, that He will also raise up a new generation of Native Christian leaders.

As always, thank you so much for your prayers and generous support. Your partnership with us is having an eternal impact in the lives of rural and Native Alaskans.

Art Thompson
VFCM Executive Director