[Faith-talk] Chapter II of my novel

[Poppa Bear]

Hello to those who have been following, here is the second installment to
one of my unfinished stories. Keep in mind, this is still first draft
material. Enjoy.

Chapter 2

 

    Luke stepped into the small house from his morning walk to the smell of
fried hash and caribou sausage. Wiping mud off of his feet at the door, a
smile spread across his face. The small house was wide awake, and the
bustling commotion of children shuffling through the little house, getting
ready for another school day was both refreshing and amusing to Luke. 

    "Where are my gloves, did anyone see them? I had them right here," one
little girls voice asked. While another voice piped up, "I bet you I can
beat you to school this time." Which was followed up by a snappy response
of, "Yeh right, I could hop to school on one leg faster than you could run."
Then the first child gained a small victory in her search as she jumped up
from under the table with the prize of a tattered brown glove in her hand
and world on her brother and sister, "here is one of my gloves! Now where is
the other one you guys?"

    Luke had just returned from his morning walk. It had almost become a
ritual, putting on his old worn leather walking shoes that felt like a
second skin, sliding a book into his pocket and taking a nice long stroll
every morning. He never grew tired of the chirping chattering birds,
watching them dart to and fro, or the steady sound of his feet falling on
the ground, and filling his lungs with deep breaths of the cool morning air.
He also liked to pray while he walked. As he would gaze at this or that,
whatever it might be from the landscape to the faces of his fellow human
being it seemed to remind him of God's never ceasing hand at work, and this
awareness stirred up prayers of thanksgiving and requests of all different
kinds that he would take before his heavenly father.

    His morning walks In the small sparsely populated village of Stebbins
Alaska were generally very quiet.  In Stebbins there were no paved roads,
stop signs or street lights. Most people road on ATV's and snow machines and
there were only a hand full of pickup trucks that were occasionally driven.
The lack of the constant deafening and buzzing sounds of the city life
allowed him to experience a similar solitude that he had learned to
appreciate as a young boy in the Appellation Mountains.

As soon as the children saw him come inside their faces lit up and they
surrounded him. He took a moment to run his hands through the thick dark
hair of each child, ruffling the girls hair which immediately sent them
scrambling back to the small mirror which hung over an aluminum wash basin
in the corner of the small room. He then exchanged a few play punches with
little Calvin, a rough and tumble 4 year old who was all boy from head to
toe.

    "Morning brother!" was the greeting that Luke received from his host
Marvin. Marvin was an Alaska native in his early 40's and a widower raising
his 4 children on his own, with the occasional help of his 

sister, Doreen, who was generally facing a daily trial of trying to provide
for an alcoholic husband and a four year old daughter who had suffered from
fetal alcohol syndrome, which was the result of Doreen being an alcoholic up
until the birth of the little girl, when she became a Christian.

    Marvin had been a Christian for about 17 years now. He had lost his wife
3 years ago. The loss had been so devastating that for a long time
afterwards the battle not to pick up a bottle had been a dangerously
difficult struggle. 

    Luke's arrival in the village had been nothing less than a miracle for
Marvin. Marvin and Luke had clicked right from the start. Even though the
two were different ages, from different cultures and had been raised
thousands of miles apart, it was if they were brothers who had spent their
entire lives together.

    Luke had been invited to the village by an Alaskan missions Pastor. The
man's name was Eliot Stags. Stags was from Connecticut and as a young man
felt a calling on his life to become a bush Pastor in the small native
villages of Alaska. 

    When Stags was a teenager he played basketball for his high school and
had traveled to various states in the country playing tournaments and
eventually landed in the small city of Bethel Alaska for a week long
Tournament. At that time Stags was a young Christian still wondering where
he could serve the Lord. His father had been the head Pastor in a rather
large 3000 member church in their upscale neighborhood and Eliot new that
his dad was hoping to pass the rains to his son one day, so the boy had been
torn throughout his last two years of high school.

    After his senior year he would be choosing a college and the golden
chariot wheels of time would be spinning faster, carrying him towards the
ever present fork in the road that would either place him under his
demanding father for many more years to come, or thrust him into a different
and all together unpredictable direction, that more than one young man has
tentatively chosen with not altogether pleasant results, being willing to
venture out onto any path to break free from a dad who was, to everyone
else, perfect and almost God like with a tongue of the purest gold, except
to his family who spent much of their time without a loving leader to
nurture and Sheppard the small weary flock in the four walls of their home.
Eliot had burned with anger on more than one occasion, watching his tired
and lonely mother struggle to fill up the gaping holes in their lives to
make up for an absent father who put his church before his family.

    When the young Eliot arrived in Bethel he was struck with the look of
innocence in the faces of many of the youth. As he and other members of the
basketball team visited smaller neighboring villages he was also struck with
a deep depression that lined the faces of the older natives. He saw more
than one native stumbling through the snow as if they were just aimlessly
wandering with a blank look on their face. Eliot came to understand that
when intoxicated, some would just wander off into the bush in a drunken
stupor and end up lost, lie down on the hard snow covered ground and die of
hypothermia.

    Eliot's heart was full of genuine compassion as he saw the combination
of a guileless youth with an older generation unable to fend off the
influences of alcohol and depression. Upon learning that substance abuse,
suicide and depression was the norm in many villages and that almost no
villages had full time Pastors his future started to take shape. 

    Five years after his first visit Eliot Stags returned to Alaska with a
Pastorate degree. He made a personal vow to seek out permanent spiritual
leadership for every village in Alaska. This was 18 years ago and Eliot was
still attempting to fulfill that vow.

    Eliot had met Luke at an event in Virginia that was to decide whether or
not certain Virginian tribes would be recognized by the Federal government
and receive the same benefits that other Native American tribes were
allotted throughout the country. The event had been supported by the
Virginia Council of Churches and both Luke and Eliot had been drawn to the
gathering by various circumstances.

    One early morning Eliot had noticed Luke sitting on a large log reading
a book that had been a real encouragement for Eliot over the years while
ministering in the bush. It was a book titled, "Gates of Splendor." Striking
up a conversation about the book both men had found much in common and spent
the next few days in the company of one another.

    By the end of the event Eliot had invited Luke to come to Alaska. He had
shared his vision with Luke for all of the native villages to be supplied
with a spiritual leader, a Sheppard to teach and preach the word of God. His
plea was so sincere and his passion so strong that Luke told Eliot that he
would think it over and pray about it.

    For your average person the idea of dropping everything and flying to a
small remote village in Alaska for 6 months would have been fairly absurd to
say the least, but  for Luke, he had strove to make it a way of life to
trust in and walk with the man from Nazareth who was more than a carpenter.
Perhaps the lines from an old Puritan prayer could describe his desires more
accurately, "  I have no master but Thee, no law but Thy will, no delight
but Thyself, no wealth but that Thou givest, no good but that Thou blesses,
no peace but that Thou bestows. I am nothing but that Thou makes me. I have
nothing but that I receive from Thee. I can be nothing but that grace adorns
me." With such divine principles shaping his life, he had found after many
years that Gods faithfulness was more reliable than any 401K, benefits
package or government promise. As long as he held onto Gods hand, even when
things were not so clear and the waters grew muddy, the sometimes high
rolling waves of confusion never drowned him.

    If a situation felt like it would be one ware Luke could be called to
compromise in order to fulfill the request, he rejected it. If it was a
situation that drew him because of a compensating reward more than for the
opportunity to help and serve he would not accept it unless he could put the
need to help as a greater priority than a monetary gain. Making decisions
like this had helped to train him to be wise in his faith and witness the
reality of the living truths that were written in the ancient book known as
the bible.

   After a long evening of praying, examining his own heart and his motives,
asking God if there was a reason for him not to go, and finding none, he
consented to a 6 month stent. On hearing the news Eliot was ecstatic, as he
seemed to be witnessing Gods hand once again, stretching out into the middle
of Virginia to raise up another partner to share the work in the villages.
He told Luke that it would take him about 4 weeks to set everything up and
Luke said that would be fine.

    Luke had no living family members he knew of so he didn't have to deal
with the emotional struggle of considering if he should or could be away
from his family for extended periods of time. Also, he was not in gauged in
any particular ministry at the moment. He had been assisting at a small
mountain church in a coal mining town in Virginia for the last 9 months. The
Pastor had been attending dozens of Doctors visits and sitting at the
bedside of his sick wife while she recovered from a devastating battle with
cancer. Thankfully she was better now and his assistance was no longer
needed there.