Friday, February 1 was my birthday. This is when I almost catch up with Kim and she does a good job of staying out ahead of me. I am 53 years old now, wow what happened to all those years. It seems like just yesterday when I was a young man.
But I do praise the Lord for each and every day, he gives me.
Sunday, February 3rd, after church service, we had cupcakes and fellowship time to celebrate my birthday. We had a great time and were very glad to see Eddie and Linda Peters back from their Christmas break. They work as counselors for the Northwest Arctic school district.
February 5th, we saw a furry little animal that we often see, red Fox. We have seen three and five at a time. It was 40 below, but it did not seem to bother them as they scurried about playing with each other. Just enjoying life.
February 6th, we saw 2 moose in our yard. We often see moose around our house. Sometimes three and four at a time. A really huge animal, especially while standing on the snow pack right there close to you.
February 10th, our drain lines to the septic tank froze up, which means we could not put any water down our drains. Wouldn't you know it, we had houseguests Ron and Beth Wells from Texas had come up to see what the Arctic was like. They didn't know they were in for such a treat. They could either go outside to the outhouse or use the honey bucket on the inside of the house. I'm sure you can use your imagination to what a honey bucket is. Ron said he was used to hunting trips, where they didn't have modern conveniences and Beth said she can handle it too. We really enjoyed their company, they helped with Valentine parties for adults, the good news club Sunday school, and shared our youth group. Please pray that God will bless Ron and Beth's Ministry in Texas.
On February 11, I(Pastor John) took Ron and Beth out for snowmobile ride's. They really enjoyed that too, that evening Vicky and Ed invited Ron and Beth and Kim and I (Pastor John) for dinner. We had a great time of fellowship.
February 12, we were still having septic problems and hadn't been able to get it worked out. Pastor Forrester said he could bring his Jeter unit that he had in Kotzebue out to Kiana and help us to unfreeze the drain. Well it worked. The drain lines opened up again for awhile. Thank you John and Ron for helping with that project.
Afternoon of the 12th of February I took Ron to meet Glenn, a man that likes to do trapping around Kiana. He was going out that afternoon to set some traps, he said Ron was welcome to come along. So I let Ron use one of my snow machines and tried to warn him of the few hazards to watch out for and that he was dressed warm enough and I told Glenn to take care of him while they were gone. And when they got back that evening there were white patches on Ron's face which meant he had frostbite on his face.
Once Ron was inside his face began to swell, especially on the left side, the swelling on the left side of his face looked as large as half of a grapefruit and on the right about half of that. It was 20 below that afternoon when he went out and riding at 40 miles an hour. I'm not sure what the wind chill factor would be but that it would be cold. I'm sure of that.
February 13, we had an adult Valentine party, played many games and had a great time. Ron talked and shared with all of us and we had cake. Vickie had made real pretty heart-shaped cake, later that night we played dominoes. I(Pastor John) was the champion. They tried making up different rules the next night to try to have a new champion. I don't remember who that champion might have been! LOL.
February 14 Ron and Beth are leaving to go share at another church in Alaska. to the southern part of Alaska. Probably about 1000 miles to the south of us.
We also went to Tommy and Bucky's New house, that they were going to be moving into, and prayed with the whole family and thanked the Lord for all that he does.
We started having some more frozen drain issues.
February 15, we asked people to pray about our need of getting our own Jeter unit that we could keep our drains from being frozen shut during the winter since we live on permafrost and the winters are very very cold. No matter what we do we are always going to have the problem of freeze ups. Money started coming in, and now we have our own Jeter unit, praise the Lord. We asked the Lord to bless all of those who helped in this matter.
February 17 Eddie preached and Linda played the keyboard. Kim and I had headed off to LA to see my stepmother, which we had not seen since my father died in 2005, it was great getting to spend time with her. While we were in L.A. we took advantage of it and took a little getaway, a cruise down to the Mexican Riviera.
Just a note to pastors and all married men. It does your marriage good to get away with your wife. Just the two of you at least once a year for my wife reminds me often. I cannot take that money with me. So don't leave it all for the kids. Let's enjoy it while you can.
February 28, we head back home to Kiana. It is great to get away and go places, see things and do things. But there is no place like home.
March 2, Eddie Peters preach for me again as Kim and I just got home from our trip. Kim didn't make it to church this day because she was sick. But we had a great time praising the worship of the Lord.
March 6, I(Pastor John) was going to take Vickie's son out for a snowmobile ride. Thought I would take him over into the Selawik mountain pass because it is such a beautiful ride. As we started going through the pass, I could tell the snow was very deep and there had not been too many snow machines through there at that time, and about that time, Vickie's son got stuck. So I went back to help him get out and we continued on our trip. Only for him to get stuck again. I'm not sure how many times I had to dig him out that day but asked him about continuing to the other side of the pass so he could look out into the Selawik flats which is where the village of Selawik is. He said he would like to get that far because he will never be up here again. So, we're moving along again. I kept checking back to see if he was still coming. All of a sudden, I got into some soft snow and got stuck myself only to see that he got stuck again also behind me. When we got the machines out that time, we decided that we were turning around and heading back. But we did not go far before he got stuck again. By this time we were both tired and worn out. I told him just to stand beside the machine and when I told him "go" that he would squeeze the throttle and I would lift and push the back of the machine that was sunk in the snow. So I said, "go". He squeezed the throttle, I began to lift and push, the machine lunged forward pulling itself up on top of the snow and pulling me forward I knew I was falling forward. Alll of a sudden I heard a pop in my right arm. I straightened myself upright in the deep snow which is not easy and said, I think I broke my arm I took a couple steps towards my machine trying to see if I could move my arm and felt the bones grinding.
I said, I know I broke my arm. I climbed up on top of my snow go, not really saying a word. I started my snow go and started praising the Lord and asking him to help us to get back to Kiana.
I had a small shovel with me. I placed the handle of it under my left leg and the backside of the screw over the top of my right leg. I laid my right arm on that shovel and placed my hand on the handle bar so I could throttle the snow machine.
As I was driving along I remembered I had my VHF radio inside my coat. I struggled with just my left hand trying to get it out and driving with my broken right arm. I called back to Kiana Baptist mission to Kim and told her that I needed help and that my right arm was broke badly. She told me that I should just stop and wait for people to come to me but I'm a little too hard headed for that and I kept driving. When I reached a place that went around the edge of the mountain on a slope I slid into the soft powder snow. I decided just to stop and wait, but it was less than a minute or so before several men from Kiana came out to help me.
Let me tell you how great it felt to see those men arrive. They really did care for me, they duct taped my right arm to my body so I would be able to hold on with my left arm and not just hold my right arm. It seemed like an hour and a half or two hours before we got to the Kiana clinic, for they were going real slow not to cause more damage to my arm and I was very thankful. When we got to the clinic, they were very thorough taking care of me and a medivac plane was already in the area. Imagine that just minutes after getting to the clinic the medevac plane landed to pick me up. It took me to Kotzebue, where I spent the night in the hospital and went on to Anchorage than the next day.
They tell me I have a nasty break, a spiraling break in my humorous bone, just a couple of inches above the elbow. The best way to treat my arm would be an easy to do surgery and put some screws in my arm. But because of the radial nerve that runs the back of my arm right by the break, they were afraid that they may cause my arm or trauma and cause the radial nerve to shut down, which I would lose the use of my hand. That's the only part of my right arm that really functions, due to an accident 30 years ago.
So they decided to try to cast my arm and with God's help it will heal in a few months time. My arm is a special case. My doctor told me if I tried to Google someone that had a paralytic arm, a fuesed shoulder, and a broken numerous bone, you would not find a match, and it's not very funny. Even though it was my humorous bone that was broke. LOL
March 8 Pat, a friend of mine and the grandson of a very good friend of mine, committed suicide. Pat had been helping us with our freeze up problems and septic tank
His funeral was on the 13th of March.
March 16, Rhoda,( an elder and leader in the Friends church) and Ida, ( Kim's friend, Amy's sister in law) passed away.
It sure is hard being away from my village during this time I pray that you would all pray for the loved ones of these and pray that I will soon be able to go back home.
March 18 brings exciting news, Brenda brings Tonya the worlds woman best basketball handler and Melissa to Kotzebue, Noorvik and Kiana. Tonya has a wonderful testimony, while she is showing her skills at basketball handling. She can spin 10 basketballs on herself, all at one time.
They spent the night in Kiana I can only imagine the craziness that went on that night with those women. LOL.
Also on the 18th we had a problem with our Cam Am our new four wheeler. A few days earlier, one of the keys broke and then on the 18th the other key broke.
At first we were told we would have to ship the four wheeler to an authorized service center, which could cost thousands of dollars but finally the service center in Nome said that if we would take the computer out of the four wheeler we could just send them the computer out of the four wheeler and they could make new keys for us. Praise the Lord.
March 20. They had the funeral for Rhoda.
March 22. They had funeral for Ida.
March 23. Resurrection Day, the kids performed for us and then hunted for 300 eggs. Later that day our RADD youth group hunted for 100 eggs. Thank you to everyone who stuffed eggs and sent things for our Easter egg hunt and parties.
Kim has been learning to drive our snow go. Nine years about time, don't you think maybe this is why God allowed my arm to be broke? LOL.
Kim has been driving the snow go to the dump, to get mail, and doing errands, She says she's been doing most of my outside jobs. I got news for her, there is a lot more than that.
Brad, a friend of mine came by to take the computer out of the four wheeler, so it can be sent to Noma. We should get the computer and keys back in about a week. Thank you Brad.
Our high school girls Basketball team won first place state in their division. Two times in the last three years. Congratulations!!
John came home on Friday, March 28th. He has to go back in one month for a checkup.
Tayna Crevier, World's Best Woman Basketball handler was here in Kiana to perform a free show. She also performed at Noorvik and Kotzebue. She, Brenda Crim, and Mel O spent the night here with me. We had a great time. We hope for Tayna to come back again sometime.
We have opened up a trust fund, John and Kim Piepmeier Kiana Baptist Mission Trust Fund. We are doing this so that the work will continue here in Kiana, even after we are gone. Please Please Please help us in making this trust fund grow. So one day, it would be able to support the Mission and Ministry at Kiana Baptist Mission.
If anyone would like to donate to this fund, you can send checks to the Alaska Baptist Convention 1750 O'Malley Road Anchorage Alaska 99507 and designate the check to John and Kim Piepmeier Kiana Baptist Mission trust fund.
Please pray for our friend, Ted and Bob unspoken prayer request.
Please continue to pray for my brother and sister for their continued healing and for our daughter Jana who has Grave’s disease and is pregnant.
Please pray for our other three children, John, Sarah, Jesse, and their families too.
Thank you to those who have partnered with us to help pay utilities
Thank to those who have worked to get us stove oil for the winter
Thank you to all of you that have helped with providing needs from the "Ways You Can Help" page.
Thank you to the many who have sent us letters, cards, and e-mails,
supplies, Wal -Mart gift cards, and love gifts along with their prayers.
Thank you to the ones who continue to support us and pray for us
God is Good! All the Time!
Please continue to pray for :
NFL: NEW FOUND LOVE – This is a new Christian Club at school led by students for students.
All the things mentioned in the newsletter
Us to have wisdom, strength, and health to serve here
For our children, grandchildren, and family
For revival in the Northwest Arctic Region
For John Forrester and family who are pastoring in Kotzebue
For Paul and Glenda pastoring in Ambler
For Luke and Sarah's return to Kobuk.
For a pastor in Shungnak
Love in Christ,
Pastor John and Kim Piepmeier
"Mission Service Corps Missionaries"
On Top Of The World In Kiana Alaska
Our Eskimo names: "Qayaaqpaq and Ayagiaq"
P.O. Box 145 Kiana Alaska 99749
(907) 475-2126
kjpie@inutek.net
www.kianabaptistmission.com
