ALASKA UPDATE...

Number 21 January 16, 2004

“I being in the way the Lord led me…” Genesis 24:27

Dear Friends,

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ! What joy and peace there is in Him! If only I could find the place of constant abiding! Oh that I could become like the branch that constantly abides in the vine! …that His life would just flow in and through me, producing the fruit that glorifies Him.

I just finished reading Abide In Christ by Andrew Murray… It took me around 6 months to read it! What a challenging book! It opened my eyes to a whole new realm of what it means to abide in Christ! Oh the riches of learning this way of life! Truly, it is not something to do only at certain times, but it is having the constant knowledge of being in Him!!! This means every moment of the day!

Oh no, I have not yet attained to this glorious place! Yet, it is what I strive for with my whole heart. Is this not the heart’s desire of every sincere Christian? …to find this blessed place of rest in Him. …to find that we can abide in Him this moment… even if to do it for the next 10 minutes seems impossible! Moment by moment... This is what a minute is made up of! The minutes add up to five minutes… and then ten! Eventually, we find that a day has come and gone, then weeks, months, and years! We should not look at a day as “Oh, I can’t abide in Christ all day!!!” Yet, if we look at just this moment, we know that we can! …and all we have to “do”, is to rest in Him as the branch rests in the vine! Praise Him for His strength flowing through us! It is all His work! Praise the Lord!

As I am writing upstairs on our laptop, I can hear the loud noises of the chop-saw, hammers, and pneumatic floor-stapler as Dad, Lolly, Christina, James, Jonathan, Daniel, and Maryanna work on putting in the wood flooring downstairs. They started on the downstairs this morning, and have already done about half of the floor! Last week, they put down the upstairs floor!!! (I actually did help with the upstairs flooring. I even worked the chop-saw for a while! It really isn’t that hard! J However, my bad back gave me a LOT of trouble after that, and Dad and Mom forbad me to help with the rest of the flooring. Sometimes, it is disappointing when we can’t physically do what we want to do. Yet, the Lord uses these times to make clear to our hearts that our worth is not in what we can or can’t do, but in Him alone! Praise the Lord for this!) The flooring is beautiful! …especially since the Lord provided it at $.60 per square foot, instead of $5 - $10 a square foot! (A long story in it’s self!!!) Isn’t He good??? Talk about exciting! J

We plan on having the downstairs done by tomorrow night! We will then have to clean all the furniture, wipe the sawdust off of everything, and get things back to “normal”! Right now, half of our living room furniture is sitting outside in the –15 F degree weather! (Some things, like the piano, we didn’t move outside!!!) Also, our kitchen “sink” is disassembled. Tomorrow, they will have to turn off the wood stove and take it out, so that we can put the flooring in underneath. Please pray that it won’t be so cold outside tomorrow! When it is this cold, it takes more heat to keep the house warm… We are not relishing the thought of letting the stove cool enough to move it, then having it out for several hours before we can put it back in!!! Don’t worry, we won’t freeze!!! It just might be a wee bit cool! J

This month, we are watching the VanDiest’s little children… Bobby (5), Johnny (3), and Amy (2). We are watching them for about 5 hours a day during the week. Sometimes, we have all three children and at other times, just Amy and one of the boys. Today, for the first time, we watched just Amy. They are VERY sweet children, and a joy to have around! They just fit right in with all of ours, and we hardly notice they are around. It is so much fun to have younger children around. They perfectly fill in the gap between Joshua and Lydia! It has made me really miss having Matthew and Micah VanDriel around! I had forgotten how much fun the 2-3 year old range! A couple days ago I said something to the family about how much fun it was having Amy around, and how that little kid stage is favorite, Lolly (pretending to be horrified) said, “You mean your favorite stage is the ‘terrible twos’?!?!?” J Truly, when a child has been well trained and loved, it is a JOY to be around!

Grandpa and Grandma Buckingham are flying up to visit us on Wednesday!!! J We are all eagerly looking forward to their visit! As many of you will remember, they drove up this summer and helped us with building our log cabin. It will be exciting to have them stay in the house that they so eagerly helped build!

Also next week, Dad and Mom (and Joshua J) are going away for a week. Dad has some work to do in another state, and decided to take Mom with him! I’m sure it will be nice for them to get some time together. We will miss them, but are happy for them as well! Dad and Mom leave next Friday, and come back one of the first days of February (the same day that Grandpa and Grandma leave… their trip just happened to overlap with Mom and Dad’s… so we will get to have them here while Dad and Mom are gone!). You can pray for us during this time! We appreciate them! J

As usual, things around here have been very busy! The Lord fills the schedule… week by week! It is amazing to me how it happens… We don’t really plan much of anything, except for occasionally inviting a family over for dinner. In spite of this, we have full days! Someone was asking me a little while back about how many times a week we have company in our house. As I thought about it, I had to reply that it seemed that we have people in and around just about every day… even if it is just a neighbor stopping by on his snowmachine (yes, they are called “snowmachines” up here… most people in the “lower 48” call them “snowmobiles”). It is a rare day that we don’t have any visitors (or that we don’t see friends). We love having people just drop in, and highly encourage it! If you are ever in the area, please drop by!!! We always have time, food, and place for one more (or 10 more, if it is a family!)!!! It is SO wonderful to keep busy! It is so neat to see how God works out each meeting to glorify Himself.

Over the last couple weeks, we have been able to fellowship with some like-minded believers! A REAL joy!!! We enjoyed the time that we have had with the Renickers, VanDiests, Lowes, Warings, Hardings, Brunners, and (last night) the McQuillins! We thank the Lord for the time He has given us to spend with these people! It is refreshing to be encouraged to continue pressing on!

The weather around here fluctuates so much! Last week, we had some really high winds! I mean, really high winds! Right down in Palmer, the winds were clocked at 107 mph!!! I must admit, it was quite the test of faith to hear and feel the howling winds! We had them for about two and a half days… sometimes it relented a little bit… only to come back later in all it’s fury!

One night, as I looked out our huge windows, I could see my reflection in the glass going up and down, as the wind slammed the side of the house in gusts… again and again! In my mind, I could just see the windows shattering and glass flying all over the livingroom… and all over the sleeping boys! I quickly closed our heavy-duty curtains… not only to help protect from any glass that might break, but also so I wouldn’t be able to see my reflection moving so crazily!!! As I sat down on the futon, I could hear the joists above me creak each time the wind slammed the house. Again, I could just picture the whole house come crashing down on top of me… with all those logs… not a pretty picture!!! Then, the Lord sent a verse through my mind… “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it…” At that moment, I knew that the Lord had built the house, and that He was the One holding it together. Nothing could happen, unless He allowed it! What comfort and peace flooded my soul! The battle with Fear was won right then! However, at different times over the next two days, when Fear tried to again approach me, I would recall this verse to mind, and he would go. Truly, there is nothing like knowing His love… as 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” He is beyond compare! There is NONE other like unto Him!!! Praise Him!

May your heart be filled with His peace and joy tonight as you abide in Him… wherever you are!

Grace and peace,

Sharia Joy B.

Psalms 16:11 ~ Acts 2:28

(for… Jim, Martha, Sharia (21), Lolly (19), Christina (18), James (15), Jonathan (13), Daniel (11), Maryanna (9), Lydia (6), and Joshua (two months old) Buckingham J)