To preach the gospel in the regions beyond… (2 Cor. 10:16)
Dear Fellow Prayer Warriors,
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! The month of July has been an exciting and adventuresome month of travel and evangelism. And God’s further confirmed the call he’s given me in my life, as the farther I travel, the more I met Hispanic people waiting to hear the Gospel.
It wasn’t all lilies and roses though, as the devil was faithful in showing us he hates us. But God’s still on the throne, and we trust him always in all things.
OUR TRIP TO ALASKA
I had a meeting with a pastor in Anchorage, Alaska, planned for the second week of July. However, due to uncontrollable circumstances, our meeting was canceled. This left Laura and I with a ticket to Alaska with no church to preach in there.
Thankfully, my Mom lives in Nome, Alaska, so she picked us up at the airport and flew us to her home. There we had a wonderful time fishing, hiking, and passing out tracts everywhere we went as we explored the country. I was even asked to preach in the Independent Baptist Church there on Sunday Morning!
At the end of our trip, however, the Pastor in Anchorage rescheduled our meeting, and I preached for him one Thursday evening towards the end of our trip.
MEXICANS IN ANCHORAGE
In Anchorage, we met some Spanish-speakers from Guadalajara, Mexico. I witnessed to them and then gave them a Gospel tract. Before leaving the states, we printed up 1200 English Gospel tracts, as we didn’t think we’d run into Hispanics in Alaska. Luckily, I found a few tracts in Spanish in my jacket pocket, and these were the first tracts I handed out in Alaska! Of all the places we’ve been, I never expected to find Hispanics in Alaska. But they are there, and they need to hear the Gospel too!
SPANIARDS IN NOME
In Nome, Alaska (population 3000), we drove to the small port and looked at the crabbing and fishing boats. We also found three sailboats docked. The most beautiful was a 68-foot custom-made, dual-mast ship. As I stood admiring it, the owners asked me to come aboard and speak with them. Care to guess which language they spoke? You guessed it! They spoke Spanish and they came from Spain.
I witnessed to the captain who told me he had the boat built three years ago and has plans to navigate the Northern Passage above Canada on his way back towards Spain. As we talked, our conversation turned towards salvation, and I had the opportunity to tell him the Gospel!
His words were, “I don’t understand the whole sin debt thing. When man is born, he’s born into debt. How can anyone get out of debt?”
I then told him, “Jesus Christ paid our sin debt on Calvary, and if we accept his blood sacrifice for our sins by faith in his blood, then we can be born again and have our debt forgiven!”
He listened and seemed to understand, but said he needed to think it over more. Please pray for his salvation.
So there I was, as far away from Spanish Speaking people as possible, and as far away from Spain as you can get, and there I met Spanish-speaking people from Spain! And God used me to say the right word in the right language to the right folks at the right time!
TRAVELLING TO VILLAGES
Alaska truly is as its state motto declares, The Last Frontier. Population there is scarce, and it’s hard to find people to pass out tracts to. But we sure had a wonderful time trying.
Mom let us borrow her vehicle, and Laura and I traveled as far as we could on the three main highways out of Nome. A hundred and twenty miles to the North is the village of Taylor, but the river was too high to pass in Mom’s little car, so we turned back.
The Nome-Council Highway extends east and arrives in the small village of Council after 60 miles. Sadly, the village is small and off the beaten path and hard to get to. Most people in Alaska travel by plane, so the roads are very seldom in good condition.
We did arrive in Teller though, a small community on the west side facing Russia. (Russia is only 160 miles due west across the Bering Strait). This small fishing village of only 252 people is nestled along the Bering sea. There we passed out tracts, mostly to native Eskimos. And then we fished for salmon.
Alaska is the least church-going state in the nation, and we saw first hand the need for Missionaries. Incest, drunken debauchery, rape, fornication, and petty thievery run rampant, especially among the Eskimos in the smaller villages. With no roads to the majority of villages, and food hard to find, people live on fish, seals, and whale meat.
Their greatest need, however, is that of salvation. Please pray that God would send more Missionaries to Alaska!
As I bravely faced the cold and boldly traveled to areas most people wouldn’t, some of the native Eskimos gave me the name of “Alaska Man.” I guess my time of living on the bare essentials in Honduras prepared me for the rugged lifestyle in Alaska.
GETTING ROBBED
Exhausted, we returned home on the 23rd of July, only to find that our house had been broken into. The thieves made off with about six thousand dollars worth of stuff—almost all the valuable things we had. Most of it was things we brought back with us from Honduras.
Needless to say we were devastated. But we’ve since learned to give thanks in all things (no matter how hard it might be). We are not our own, we are bought with a price, so we’ve got to learn to give it all to God and let him do as he wishes. At least now we can identify with verses by the apostle Paul when he writes things like: “In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren” (2 Cor. 11:26)
Thanks again for all your continued prayers and support,
Robert and Laurabeth Breaker III
1 Sam. 12:24!
