We were in Talkeetna July 5-10

Well, It’s been a few weeks since our VBS at Talkeetna Baptist Church, but I’ll do my best to relay our experiences there. Talkeetna Alaska, yet another beautiful little town in this beautiful state. VBS there was quite a different experience than Ft. Yukon. As you may have read in Elizabeth’s post, those kids were pretty rough. I told one of them, “hey man, it has been great to get to know you a little bit, I’m going to miss you!” He replied, “Yeah, whatever”. Anyway, please continue to pray for that ministry.

In Talkeetna Josh and I had a high water mark of just four kids in attendance. They were all bright, well-behaved kids. There were a few that were trouble makers, they were sweet looking kids, but it’s amazing how mercenary little kids can be! I guess it is just more proof that we are all born sinners (as if we need any more proof of that). VBS went off with out a hitch! I love how in every week of VBS, we do a skit each day in which Josh is the Character, “Ben Friesen” (our theme for VBS this year is Polar Extremes) anyway, the kids spend all week trying to prove that Josh is actually Ben Freisen. You have to get up pretty early to put one over on these kids. One girl said, “I can tell that it’s actually Josh by his ears.” Aside from the general silliness of that comment, it’s even funnier because Josh had his ears covered by a hat while he was being Mr. Freisen.

I had the privilege of leading one to the Lord. His name is James. Please pray for James. His parents are professing believers but they show very little evidence of that actually being the case. He is a sweet little guy and he seemed to get it. I guess we’ll just have to see what fruit comes. Pray that his family would start going to church there at Talkeetna Baptist. We had the privilege of being in church listening to Mr. Barnett preach on the 50th Anniversary of his surrender to the ministry. May God grant us all the grace to be faithful to Him for so long.

It was a tremendous blessing to stay there at the church. Pastor Hudson and his family were very hospitable and the church family also treated us like royalty. I had planned on losing weight on this trip but that certainly hasn’t happened. Aside from the ladies being such good cooks, everywhere we go people keep stuffing us to the gills. An older couple in the church (they won’t object to being called older as they are both in the middle eighties), the Tedricks took us out for dinner at a place called “The Lodge” The food was amazing. I had salmon, and Josh had Elk. Unfortunately, it was a smoky day. If it had been clear, we could’ve seen Mt. McKinley from the restaurant. As it was, we could only see the outline of it. There is much more to be said, but I’ll save it for some other day. Until then, please pray for us as we start another week of VBS outside of Anchorage in Eagle River!

In Christ,

Marshall Felderman