WHITE MOUNTAIN, AK (November 5, 2003) – A small Alaskan Covenant congregation is thankful that one pastor heeded the call to the sub-zero climate of northern Alaska.
Pastor James Fryer and his wife, Damaris, have settled into their new parsonage at the Evangelical Covenant Church of White Mountain, Alaska, after a harrowing experience involving one of their children this summer. They have energized the congregation through a Wednesday night prayer service, a teenage youth group meeting on Tuesday nights and a Sunday afternoon children’s Sunday school, among other things. The church was officially incorporated in 1975, but was considered a mission church in Alaska many years before.
Fryer was first contacted about the White Mountain senior pastor position by Rodney Sawyer, Evangelical Covenant Church of Alaska (ECCAK) field director. Fryer has raised some funds, the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) is helping to pay insurance costs and the local church has raised funds to help the Fryers locate in White Mountain. For now, the Fryers are grateful for their new congregation of 20 people and a God who has provided for them most visibly during a stressful past few months.
“It’s a very remote area, so it’s not the most compelling place (for some), but to me it was very exciting,” said Fryer about his new ministry. “I’ve had a heart for missions for a long time and I can be a bit of a missionary and a pastor at the same time. We feel so welcome. People are hungry for the scriptures and the church has given me a lot of leeway (to do ministry). It has probably been the most difficult time of our life and God has led our lives and answered our prayers. He is in control of things and He hasn’t abandoned us.”
White Mountain is a predominantly Native American village of 220 people located in a Western Alaska mountain area near the Bering Sea. Geographically, it is closer to the North Pole and Russia than to a metropolitan North American city – an important factor if the Fryers were planning a pre-Christmas shopping trip to buy toys for their two children. Actually, the Fryers (including Sophia and Joshua) will most likely do their Christmas shopping via the Internet because their village, like many others, is only accessible by airplane. The village relies primarily on subsistence living, especially fishing and hunting. White Mountain Mayor Tom Gray has stated that White Mountain has not had a full-time pastor in 16 years, said Sawyer.
Sawyer had openings for six ECCAK Covenant churches a year ago. “The pool of pastors who feel called to Western Alaska was pretty minimal,” he noted. One of that limited pool, however, was Fryer, who had earned his Master of Divinity degree and was considering the mission field. Following a phone interview, the Fryers agreed to meet with Sawyer and his wife, Nancy, at the Fryer residence in Sheridan, Wyoming. The meetings went well and the Fryers accepted the call to White Mountain last spring after they visited the village for a candidating weekend.
“When you told most of them (potential candidates) of the Western Alaska experience – very isolated, cold winters, a different culture – the list narrowed,” Sawyer recalled. He decided to change his strategy, telling potential candidates instead “that if you were going to come to Western Alaska it would take a strong call. There were some that it didn’t even phase and James (Fryer) was among them.”
To be sure, there will be many struggles in White Mountain. But the struggles the Fryers faced as they left Wyoming have provided a sense of perspective. James and Damaris were readying for their move to Alaska when they took their four-year-old daughter, Sophia, for a routine medical checkup. Doctors discovered a hole in Sophia’s heart and told the parents they would have to act quickly to avoid further complications. Sophia underwent open-heart surgery in Los Angeles, near other family members, and the Fryers headed to White Mountain in late August. They arrived in time to minister to another family whose child needed open-heart surgery in early September.
“When your daughter is on the waiting table for surgery you feel so helpless,” said Fryer. “It seemed nothing else mattered. Our house was empty – all of our stuff was being sent to White Mountain – and God exercised His providence over the course of months so that we had to stand back and say, ‘We believe God is in control.’ And as we submit to His sovereign guidance, He sets our plans even as we set our plans.”
Since arriving, the Fryers have learned a lot about the village and the Covenant church, which has had a presence there for many years. Longtime Covenant missionaries Ralph P. Hanson and Paul B.F. Carlson built a church there in 1936 as part of a ministry effort that included a Sunday school of 130. The village has had a ministry for children since the 1920s.
The Alaskan Native Service built an industrial boarding school at White Mountain in 1928 and a children’s home was opened in 1954 and operated for many years with help from Covenanters Julius and Louise Matson, A.V. and Dorothy Brodin, and Kenneth Anderson, according to ECCAK records. The Fryers will fit in well given that tradition – James has worked with troubled youth and Damaris worked as a social worker – and they can help the village deal with teen suicide and alcoholism, two issues that are prevalent in the region.
Fryer has already been impressed by the faithfulness of the core group at the church. Bee Jay Gray, Jack Brown, Ed Silcox, Lois McManus and Peter Buck are among those who have continued to carry the message of faith in Jesus Christ to others in the village. Peter Egelak (an interpreter), Fank Moses, (song leader) and Lucy Lincoln (Dorcas leader) are other leaders who have provided leadership both inside and outside of the church.
White Mountain has welcomed the Fryers in a special way, too. A young man from the village killed a moose for the family and others have given goose and halibut, ensuring that the Fryers will have plenty of meat for the winter. As for other staple foods, the Fryers will be ordering out – via the Internet – and picking it up at the post office via airmail.
“We’re going to enjoy this time no matter how cold it gets,” James Fryer said as he compared California weather this summer with the regularly sub-zero temperatures in White Mountain. I say, ‘Bring it on.’ The Lord has blessed us. I’m so glad to have an agape wife to share ministry with. And the children have adjusted – they seem excited to be here.
“We’re excited to be part of this church,” Fryer continued. “People prayed together and sang together, even when they didn’t have a pastor. A faithful few have endured and I thank the Lord for them. I look forward to worshiping with them and I anticipate great things happening. I see God’s hand upon this village.”
To learn more about the work in White Mountain, call Fryer at 907-638-2213 or email the Fryer family at James.n.Damaris@juno.com.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.
