Pray for Inuvik
“Inuvik is the largest Canadian community north of the Arctic Circle and the regional government center for the Mackenzie Delta area. The site was selected by the federal government to replace Aklavik, and a hospital, school and airport were built over a period of six years, from 1955 to 1961. Both Gwich’in and Inuvialuit families moved to the new community, located on a navigable channel of the Mackenzie Delta.” (excerpt from the Gwch’in website)
Inuvik’s population swelled in the late 70’s with the oil boom and has steeled to around 3500 in recent years. Due to the nature of its founding, Inuvik is one of the few cities not primarily composed of a single First Nations people group.
Inuvik has four denominations represented, Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal, and Bible Baptist. Less than 3% of the people attend church regularly. The people have a mixture of beliefs comprised of the tradional animism and shamanism, some form of Christianity, a dash of Darwinism, some self-reliance and a significant helping of hopeless purposelessness. As a regional center, Inuvik has all the struggles of the Northwest Territories on display: alcoholism, drug abuse, broken and disfunctional families and a high crime rate brought on largely by bored youth.
Please pray for the people of Inuvik. Pray that God will strengthen and grow His church in Inuvik. Pray for Steve Donnely, who has led the Bible Baptist over the last 15 years. Steve has a heart to see the people come to experience the peace and joy that is available in Christ Jesus. Join us in praying that God will send workers into this harvest, that He will strengthen His faithful workers who are laboring in this harvest and that God will cause Inuvik to be not just a regional center for governmental affairs, but that it will become a regional example of the amazing transforming power faith in Christ can have on an individual, a family and a community.