MISSIONS FEATURE
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by Betty Bruechert
coming) draweth nigh.” Rev. John M. Gillespie, Arctic Missions, Inc., Anchorage, Alaska: “ On March 27th, we tied our little Sessler aircraft to the cables and went into our missionary home just south of Fairbanks for a quiet visit. The place began to shake and we went out into the frozen snow where the trees were hopping and the ground shifting more than in any previous tremor we had experi enced during our twenty-three years of missionary work in Alaska, since we left Biola and the Navigator work, and sailed as missionaries to this north country. “The next day, flying to another village nearer Anchorage on the rail belt, we heard the story of the worst earthquake ever to hit the North American continent. The stricken areas were close to us be cause my wife and I had been in Val dez where several of our friends were washed out to sea and we also have a work in Seward. The high elevation of the missionary property there saved them from serious dam age although the main part of the town was demolished. Since we came to Anchorage, we had seen the city grow from a few concrete
is quite an experience to play the piano while the church is being shaken. We continued to have a strange almost daily quivering of the ground and there was underly ing apprehension that something was going to happen. It did on March 27! When the earth began to roll and sway and rock and pitch and heave and jump, going on and on and never seeming to stop, we looked up. ‘Behold a door was opened in Heaven . . . and behold a throne . . . and One sat on the Throne’ (Rev. 4:1-2). His peace was very real all through the long night when we were evacuated be cause of the tidal wave. Our hearts yearned for the unsaved when we saw their fear. God had His hand on Seldovia during the five days of the big tides. George thought he was having another heart attack! The little children said: ‘Things are go ing all around on my insides’ ; ‘My heart is jumping’ ; ‘Hello, God!’ We had opportunity to pray and comfort and we asked God to convict hearts. Is this just the beginning? We do not know the answers but we do know that the Bible says that when we see these things come to pass to look up, for our redemption (His
ull COVKRAGE by the press, radio and TV of the Alaskan earth quake furnished the American peo ple with the tragic details of one of the most dreadful disasters ever to occur on the North American con tinent. Great concern was felt for Biolans laboring for Christ in that distant state. Brief excerpts from letters and reports from these mis sionaries give the impressions of four of them: Mrs. George Tobelman, Alaska Evangelization Society, Seldovia: “ ‘The Endless Day’ is what re porters called March 27, 1964. For Seldovia it would be more to the point to call it ‘The Endless Years’ for earthquakes have shaken us pe riodically for many years, living as we do surrounded by active volca noes. The un d e r l y i n g agonizing prayer of all of us has been that God would shake these people to see their d e s p e r a t e need of Him, never dreaming that the Lord would take us literally. “One Sunday last June just be fore Church we had a violent, de structive two-minute quake which actually shook a number of folks right into the church. We had eight quakes during the service. It
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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