Fall 2018
Pastor Shares Story of God’s Provision for New Sanctuary by Marc Murchison, Mountain Village Covenant Church
The new Mountain Village Covenant Church sanctuary was dedicated in early September. Samaritan’s Purse provided volunteers and materials for the project that was completed in 12 weeks. The Alaska Conference Annual meeting will be held in Mountain Village in April. The former building was renovated into a fellowship hall with a full kitchen.
Elise and I attended a cross-cultural training at Alaska Christian College, put on by Send North in 2016, as part of our orientation to potential ministry in rural Alaska for the Alaska Conference. As is usual at most conferences, some of the best times are in casual conversations with participants. One morning at breakfast, I sat down next to a tall guy with a decidedly southern accent. He said that he worked with Samaritan's Purse doing ministry and building churches in rural Alaska. His name was Luther Harrison. I explained why we were at the training, and if things work out, I might be giving him a call someday. That was the end of that, or so it seemed at the time. Later that summer, Elise and I went to candidate for five weeks in Mountain Village and ended up being called to serve there. At the New Year's Eve service, with the church full of people, we realized that the building had shifted and that we were unable to get out of either of the doors. Fortunately, we were able to get one door open so that we could exit. Jokingly, we called it our unintended lock-in. We met together as a church board to try to decide what to do. We had saved a little bit of money for a future extension of the sanctuary, but this was an emergency. Our foundation was failing badly. Nathan Nagaruk, of Nome,
designed a plan that involved placing a new heavy -duty foundation under the existing building. Of course, we also thought about doing an extension at the same time, but the project was much more expensive than originally estimated. Later during the summer of 2017, we got the foundation put in and built a small 16 x 20-foot classroom. In the meantime, I contacted Luther Harrison to see if they could help us with an extension of our sanctuary. All we were hoping for was about 30-ft of extra space and perhaps a small apartment above. Luther explained that the donors would not be interested in extending our sanctuary but might be interested in building us a new one. I thanked him and thought little more about it. One day in November, I got a call from Luther. He explained that a group of Samaritan's Purse folks wanted to come out to Mountain Village to evaluate our situation to see if we might be eligible for one of their projects. Their plane arrived two days later. Over a lunch of moose soup and sandwiches, we talked about the church's needs. After surveying the community and our property, they loaded up in their plane and headed back to Soldotna. Initially, Samaritan's Purse decided that of three pressing projects, we were number two on the list, and they would assist us in building a new
sanctuary in 2019. I thanked Luther, and we began to plan towards that date. However, in early March, Luther called and explained that their project was delayed and our church had been bumped to first on the list. Once again, Samaritan's Purse folks came out, but this time they had an architect with them. From that time on, it was a race to get materials, housing and logistics set in place to begin building in June. When the first members of the team arrived on the June 1, we still had no gravel. The barge carrying materials was delayed, and things were not looking very good. Thousands of people all over the country were mobilized to pray, and suddenly we had enough gravel to get started. We still had challenges with getting building materials on the barge, but those were eventually overcome. Three full-time staff people stayed the entire project, and 84 volunteers from all over the country came in and out of the village every Monday in teams of 8 to 12 at a time. In 12 weeks, we went from a partially-levelled lot to a 2400-square-foot worship center. We dedicated the new sanctuary on September 9. People were excited in the village and the church was packed. Dennis and Danny Agajanian came in as our special musical guests. Visitors from nearby (Continued on page 8)
From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Ephesians 4:16