News

The It Is Written team has just returned from one of the most forbidding climates on earth—the Arctic—a vast desert of white that was named, strangely enough, by the Greeks. They called it Arktikos, which is not a reference to the cold, but rather to its position on the globe. To the ancient Greeks, it was the land to the north, directly under the constellation of Ursa Major, the great bear. It was the North Star, Polaris, that tied the massive cosmic bear to the lands that occupied the top of the globe. Arktikos was the land of the great bear.

Even though the Greeks had a name for this far-off land, they didn't really understand its challenging climate. They told stories of marvelous trees that bore fruit 12 months out of the year, and gentle warm winds known as zephyrs. However, in reality, Arctic winds can blow at devastating speeds, and there are no trees.

And yet, in spite of the barren isolation of this difficult location, there is an awesome beauty unlike any other place on earth. It has the kind of breathtaking landscape that begs you to contemplate your place in the universe and the meaning of life. With endless snowdrifts, majestic gray and Out of ice as far as the eye can see, dramatic mountains and rock formations, it's a land of unrivaled beauty.

The People

It is also home to some of the most enduring people on the face of the planet. For generations, we called them Eskimos, a word we borrowed from the French, who borrowed from the Algonquin Indians who live to the south. Many people believe the name is a reference to people who eat raw flesh, and because of radical cultural differences with the people who live in temperate zones and an inability to understand the basics of raw survival on the frozen tundra, the word has fallen out of use. In the Eastern Arctic, these people are no longer called Eskimo, but Inuit—an indigenous word that simply means "the people."

The Inuit are not to be confused with the other aboriginal people groups of North America. Anthropologists and archaeologists believe that the Inuit migrated from Asia some time after the groups that now make up the Native Americans, moving from Northwestern Canada to the Eastern Arctic (Northeastern Canada and Greenland) some 1,000 years ago. They were not the first occupants of this land; there is evidence of an earlier culture known to anthropologists as the Dorset. The Dorset disappeared centuries ago for unknown reasons—perhaps no longer able to survive on the scarce resources of the north.

The Inuit live in a land where survival is a daily routine. Edible vegetation is almost non-existent, so with the exception of the few Inuit who live in population centers like Iqaluit, the Inuit menu is almost completely made up of animal foods. Caribou, seal and polar bear are still hunted and consumed as a matter of survival, and in a land where resources are remarkably scant, absolutely no part of the animal is wasted.

When our team arrived in the Arctic, I was almost immediately overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of these marvelous people. Sebastian Tirtirau, our remote tribes coordinator, had traveled among the Inuit before, and he had told me many times how bighearted they were. I discovered, to my delight, that he was right. Generous scarcely describes them. As one young man explained, "Everything is open to you here. If you come to visit, you are welcome everywhere."

Hospitality is essential in this inhospitable climate. It is not only a matter of etiquette, but it is also a matter of survival. When we first arrived in Iqaluit, the capital of the territory of Nunavut, it was about -26 Fahrenheit (-32 degrees Celsius). It gets much colder than that over the course of a winter, but it is still enough to steal your breath away if you haven't been in those temperatures for a while.

In addition to the raw cold, the wind made things even worse. An Inuit guide told me that if we added the wind chill to the reading on the thermometer, the temperature during our trip dipped to more than 50 degrees below zero—which is bitter on either scale.

The Trek Begins

On Monday evening, we made arrangements with our guides and carefully checked our gear to make sure everything was in place. It was our last chance. There was no equipment store on the trail.

Early Tuesday morning, we assembled on the pack ice of Frobisher Bay to load our sleds and harness the dog teams. Our arrival on the sea ice sent the dogs (who live on the ice) into a frenzy. Each dog howled and jumped, competing for the attention of the master. These dogs love to pull a sled, and it showed. They knew what our presence meant—the sled was going out, and they all wanted a place on the team.

Loading the sleds and harnessing the dogs was a long process. It took us more than two and a half hours to prepare for the trip, and when we finally set out across the ice, it was already late in the morning.

Inuit guides have a remarkable relationship with their dogs. The mere suggestion of a command or a nod of the master's head sends the team in a new direction. They will only respond to their master's voice (I tried in vain to have the dogs obey me), and he has an uncanny way of helping the dogs overcome their natural animosity toward each other. He keeps them working as a team.

It's a marvelous illustration of Christ and the church. We have been given a task to do (the gospel commission), and God expects us to work in perfect harmony as a team—pulling for the kingdom. If we know the Master well, we will hear His voice, and the work will be done very quickly. As we made our way across empty miles of sea ice, I couldn't help but think of Jesus' words in the gospel of John:

"But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers." (John 10:2-5, KJV)

God's intention for us is clear: We are supposed to listen for the Master's voice and perform the work He gave us to do. And just like the dogs of the north, we have a destination to reach. We are supposed to pull in the same direction, changing our course at the slightest suggestion of our Heavenly Father.

Challenges

It took us all day to cross the bay. As the sun began to set and the bitter Arctic winds started to blow, we came to two horrible realizations. First, our gear was very heavy, and the dogs were getting unusually tired. The next stretch of trail went straight up the side of a mountain, and our progress overall was nowhere what it needed to be if we were going to deliver Bibles to the village of Kimmirut in time.

Second, even though the temperatures were cold enough to be life threatening, there was not enough snow on the ground to build the all-important igloo we needed to survive the night. (Surprisingly, this year there are places in the Arctic where the tips of grass still peek through the top of the snow. Some blame global warming for this trend.)

That's when we made a wonderful discovery. Several miles up the mountain stood a small survival shelter. Too small to stand up in, and barely large enough for our team to sleep side-by-side, it was an answer to prayer. The temperature inside was well below freezing, but in comparison to the snowstorm building outside, it felt like a tropical paradise. An hour after lighting our gas lamp, the temperature rose to the freezing mark. We ended the day thanking God for safe passage, and He answered with a beautiful display of Northern Lights dancing over our camp.

By morning, there was heavy frost on the inside walls of our shelter, the combined result of our breath freezing against the wall and months-old frost inside the walls melting and refreezing as the temperature dropped throughout the night.

As the polar sun pushed its way through a heavy cover of clouds and ice crystals in the morning, we took careful inventory of our situation. If we continued on the trail, we decided, we would never reach Kimmirut in time, and the weather threatened to get worse. The mission to deliver Bibles was in jeopardy.

Reluctantly, we realized we had no choice but to turn back to Iqaluit. It turned out to be providential. A few hours after we arrived in town, a blizzard (strong enough to make the national news) pummeled the whole region. Those stranded by the blizzard had already booked whatever rooms were available in town, so we were left without a place to stay. Fortunately, a kind Inuit family opened a small apartment to us as shelter for the night.

The next problem we had to solve was how to deliver the Bibles. It was abundantly evident that the dog teams would never reach Kimmirut in time, so we tried to arrange for a group of Ski-Doos (snowmobiles) to take us instead. We couldn't find enough to do the trick, so we were forced to look for other options. Then we found seats on a small plane that could take us—and the Bibles—where we needed to go.

A Warm Welcome in a Cold Climate

When we arrived, word had already spread through the village that we were on our way. Early the next morning, a handful of people came to ask us for Bibles—then we hit the town to deliver more Bibles. Our first contacts were three ladies who were busy skinning freshly caught seals to make winter clothing, and they were eager to show us how they carefully used every part of the seal for survival in the north. When they realized that we had Bibles in the Inuktitut language—and that they were a gift—giant smiles spread across their faces.

Christianity is not new to the Arctic. Missionaries have been traveling across the north for a couple of centuries, and yet many Inuit do not have a Bible in their own language. On the weekend, we were the guests of honor at a small Christian congregation in Kimmirut, and many of the people were happily carrying their brand-new Bibles—the ones you have helped to provide.

A good portion of their religious meeting was devoted to welcoming us, and we were invited to come back that evening and speak. Of course, we took them up on the invitation, and gave the last of our Bibles to our new friends. There are very few places on earth where you can hope to find such open hospitality!

It is hard to overestimate the importance of Inuktitut Bibles. In a place where life is hard and suicide rates are unusually high, people—and young people in particular—need hope. Well-meaning government programs cannot provide the same kind of joy that God's Word can bring. The shy but broad smile on an Inuk's (singular for Inuit) face tells me just how important this work really is.

The Gospel Commission

God has expressly told us that His desire is for the everlasting gospel to reach every people group—every nation, every language—on Earth (Revelation 14:6). When Christ commissioned His disciples to go to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8), heaven already knew about the Inuit people who would move from Asia to the far Canadian north. God could see Inuktitut Bibles strapped to a dog sled centuries before it actually happened.

It's all part of His plan to usher in the kingdom of Christ. Heaven will not be complete as long as there are Inuit people scattered over the remote regions of the north who have not had an opportunity to hear the story of Christ.

While in the Arctic, bits of our skin froze on a daily basis, we faced a number of frustrating challenges, and our team frequently had to find shelter from the wind. But knowing that Jesus gave His life on the cross for these wonderful people made any inconvenience we may have suffered seem remarkably miniscule. The Inuit deserve to know the Good News.

We continue to distribute Bibles. Sebastian went on to further villages after I left the north, but that's only part of our dream for God's kingdom. We'd like to build a community center in the Arctic———the kind of place where young people can find hope and meaning in life. And thanks to the support of people like you, I believe we can do it!