Cabins and Classes
It was a little quieter around here last week in terms of airplanes. That’s because six of them took off with supplies and staff headed for Brooks Range Bible Camp, about 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle and deep in the mountains. Last Spring, we received permission from the Fickus family to replace the eight canvas tent structures on the camp property with eight wooden cabins, which would provide the campers with far better protection from inclement weather and allow the small wood stoves to keep them warmer on chilly nights. The team arrived in the late afternoon and immediately went to work—two walls were up before they went to sleep! Most of the supplies were already there—24,000 pounds of materials had been hauled in by snowmobile last March. The last of the materials, along with a week’s supply of food and provisions for the team of 16 were carried in the airplanes. In just five days, our amazing team built all eight cabins, bunk beds and all! We are grateful to those of you who were quick to support this much needed improvement to BRBC. All of us at Kingdom Air Corps, along with a hundred young campers, say thanks!
LeTourneau University is here holding their Aircraft Inspections Class. Nine students and their instructor, Dave Tesser, arrived last Monday for the two-week class. The students meet for classroom instruction in the mornings, then spend the afternoons in the hangars learning how to inspect aircraft. In this way, they help keep our fleet in top condition for flight training, and also for the flights into the Arctic villages where we will transport children and teens to and from camp in July.
At lunch today, I sat with some of the LeTourneau students, and we began to talk about Bible training and how it affects ministry. It’s excellent to study the Bible and we certainly encourage everyone who goes into mission work to have some formal Bible education. But it’s critical that we don’t lose sight of the Lord, himself, while we study! It is our hearts he is after, far more than the knowledge we have of him or the work we do for him. Jesus is our best example, and he shows us this when he lived in Israel as a man. No one, not even the most learned religious teachers of the time, knew the Jewish law and the books of the Old Testament better than Jesus did. Even at the age of 12, Jesus amazed them with his knowledge and understanding of scripture. Yet, when asked as an adult which of the commandments was the greatest, Jesus stressed an individual’s relationship with God. Matthew 22:34-40 says:
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Jesus put the relationship we have with God first and foremost. It is our top priority. We are to love Him. The second—loving our neighbor as ourselves—bubbles over from the first. All Scripture hangs on that relationship of love. Without a close, loving relationship with God, obedience becomes a task rather than a joy. God’s commands become rules, rather than the behavior of the Holy Spirit in a world of sin. Does that mean to abandon study? Of course not. Studying the Bible gives us knowledge of his will and of all that He has done, is doing, and will do in the future. When we understand more of the astounding God he is and realize the depths of the love he has for his children, we are awed. We are humbled. We are filled with gratitude. But studying about God is not the same as spending time with God. Nor is studying the Word the same as obeying it. We are all for Bible study and Christian education, but it should come second to loving God with all our hearts, and souls and minds.