“The curtains flapped in the breeze,” Teresa recalls. “There was ice on the walls.” Utility bills could reach $1,000 month.
If that wasn’t enough to make living difficult, the toilet in the parsonage was about ready to fall through the floor. “In other places, you could see through the flooring,” Teresa continues. “Some of the cabinets had no fronts, the drawers didn’t work correctly.”
Today is a different story. “I just finished washing my dishes in my new kitchen,” Teresa says. “It’s awesome!”
Teresa can be so excited about washing dishes, keeping warm and not worrying about falling through the floor thanks to work teams from Northwest Covenant Church in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Members of the church traveled to this small village near the Bering Sea the past two summers to renovate the parsonage. As a result, Teresa and Terry can stay to minister to the 320 people who live in the community.
Tom Schild says Northwest Covenant decided on the mission project in 2005 after hearing Rodney Sawyer, regional field director for the Evangelical Covenant Church of Alaska. He discussed the extreme conditions under which pastors and their families live in the Alaska Bush. The average pastorate is less than two years, and the search for another pastor can take a church up to four years.
Thirteen people participated in the trips. In 2006, a team of six traveled to the village for one week. This summer, two teams made the trip, with several members participating in both.
Ty Pennington and his Extreme Makeover team have never faced such a challenge. There isn’t a road for 300 miles, which meant all materials had to be transported by airplane or barge. Forgetting something might mean the project could not be done until the next summer – working in the winter is nearly impossible.
The workers put in extremely long days, Schild says. “We had to take advantage of the 22 hours of daylight.”
The teams worked on the parsonage from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. before breaking for dinner. They conducted a Vacation Bible School from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and then returned to work at the parsonage until midnight.
The church partnered with Arctic Barnabas Ministries (ABM), which renovates parsonages and sometimes churches to help alleviate pastoral turnover and minister to families. The church also worked with Mission Aviation Repair Center (MARC).
Schild says working with the two organizations was essential because they handle all the logistics and make sure all the necessary materials arrive at the site.
The church has spent close to $50,000 on the project, Schild says. He explains traveling to the site was important because villagers did not have the necessary skills to renovate the house.
According to Schild, roughly one-third of the cost was for materials, another third for transporting them, and then another third for the team’s expenses and travel. The church kept the teams small so as not to adversely affect the village’s scarce food supply.
Still, they did dine on fare not found in Mt. Prospect, including Beluga whale and caribou.
