Gambell was a totally different place. St. Lawrence Island is supposed to be a dry island, and there are steep fines and jail sentances attached to smuggling liqour in. There is, however, a lot of homebrew. This was way more apparent in Gambell than in Savoonga. Every other night a few drunk men would come to the church and just sit down. Sometimes they'd sob, other times they'd worship, and occasionally they'd just sit quiet and listen to the service. The cool thing about them being drunk was that they always accepted an offer of prayer. So we got to pray with and talk to them and just minister to them and love on them.
Again, we spent a lot of time with the kids. In Gambell, I was able to volunteer at the school with a couple other members of our team. We went MWTh after lunch to help out in the elementary school homerooms, which was awesome :) I love the kids there! Then after school we ran VBS MWF. In Gambell we got to interact with the elders of the church a lot more, It's at their request that we spent so much time with the kids. The elders' main concerns are always for "the young people." We saw a lot of fruit in the young kids, and a real hunger for the word of God. Several of the 6th graders that I became friends with while working in the school accepted Christ while we were there! So that was incredible :)
On the signs and wonders side, this partzular trip was crazy. God spoke to us through the skies in insane ways, including angels and halos in the clouds, as well as a rainbow appearing on a totally overcast day! We also saw radical healings, but that's going to have to wait for my next post :)
God bless!
Josiah
