Grace In The Wilderness:
Edmonton Chinese Baptist Church On Mission in Rae-Edzo, NWT.
In the summer of 2006, 14 students from Edmonton Chinese Baptist Church served on a short term mission project in Rae-Edzo, a small town about 100 Km. North and East of Yellowknife.
Below are a number of stories from some of those who served on this mission trip.
The Canadian Mission Offering helped fund this mission trip.
Students who are members of a Canadian Convention of Southern Baptist Church may qualify for a missions scholarship from the Canadian Missions Offering. For more information and an online application form click here.
Painting the new Church sign
(photographed by Lincoln Ho)
From: Dave Cheung
The mission’s trip to Rae-Edzo was a complete culture shock. Kids hanging out on the street with no parental supervision, a complete freedom to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to. The one thing that all of the members of the missions trip agree upon is that the people in Fort Rae, especially the kids need and lack love. Love from strangers, each other and most importantly from God. Each and everyday, their lives were filled with meaningless activities of walking, eating, and finding things to do. I say that their activities were meaningless because they lacked a purpose. They lacked the relationship with God and that’s what we were there for. We were there to show them the love of God and to encourage them to develop a love for God and a relationship with Him.
For me, I wasn’t involved as much with the VBS as others on the team, however, when I did help with VBS, the kids would jump on me and would hug me and ask for affection in their unique ways. All of this even though they had no idea who I was. It was strange yet unique. In Edmonton, I’m quite used to affection from family and friends however, coming from strangers is a different story. In the morning and afternoon the boys were given tasks other than VBS such as piling up wood for the winter months, digging a huge hole for their much needed septic tank and helping a friend from Edzo tear up and rebuild the roof of his shed. I was also part of the food committee so I helped the expert cooks to plan and prepare the meals for everyone. At night we would have a small worship time where I was part of the worship team in playing guitar. After worship we would go outside and play the usual game of baseball. The attendance of the worship was usually low, but when it came time to play some ball, kids were lining up, swarming the clay baseball field like the flies we came to love during the trip. With the sports night, that’s where I felt we connected with most of the group, which were primarily young boys.
There were ups and downs with the missions trip and many tired days. However, when I came back to the Edmonton lifestyle I have so come to love, I missed Rae-Edzo. The day after we came back we had a men’s small group and with the members of the small group that went to the missions trip, we all shared how much we missed the radically different lifestyle of Rae-Edzo and how all of us, including me had a desire to go back next year, not only to influence the lives of the kids but have the lives of the kids influence us. Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you very much for your generous support through the Canadian Missions Offering,in this missions trip that has changed my mindset on the people of Rae-Edzo and their need for God.
Sunset in Rae
(photographed by Lincoln Ho)
From: Carla Vogel
I find it rather interesting to look back and see what things in life have prepared me for a certain moment. Some things are very obvious, such as potty training and learning to walk. Others are much more subtle and it never seems at the moment like they are doing me any bit of good. Some of the more subtle instances concerning this summers Rae trip really surprise me.
I clearly remember a night about five years ago and sitting through a training session on working with kids. This session was for a group of high school kids (including myself) that was going to work at a camp. Most of the things we talked about had to do with native culture and it was absolutely useless concerning the camp. I remember thinking on a few occasions, what was the point of learning that, and why did I retain the information. I never could have guessed that the first time this information would come in handy is five years later in a totally unrelated place.
So many other things I have learned in my short life were very helpful to me in Rae. Several years working at summer camp have taught me to be prepared for everything with kids including being prepared to throw everything you have planed out and plan as you go. Learning to be able to sleep whenever and wherever is possible became a very useful tool, even though it caused me to miss lunch more than once. Even Growing up in a small town helped understanding the culture.
As I think back on the trip to Rae I wonder what moments and struggles have prepared me for something else that is coming in my future. I earnestly hope that it involves a future trip to Rae. God really amazes me with all the little things he does, how he knows how every piece of the puzzle fits together when I can only see one piece at a time. Some pieces I will never understand unless I can see the whole puzzle at once. Maybe someday I will, maybe I won't, but each piece is important anyways.
Love in Christ
(photographed by Grace Law)
From: Chris Or
The town of Rae Edzo is about 18 hours drive from my home city Edmonton, but we didn’t drive nonstop to Rae Edzo in one day, we stayed in High Level one night and continued our driving on the next day. At the first night of High Level, some of our mission team members had a walked and tried to share the gospel with strangers on the street, and they really reach out to one guy on the street and told him Jesus love him. On the next morning before we continues our driving, all of our mission team members had a spiritual training together, we read some Bible verse and shared what we did last day, then, we pick our stuff and keep heading to Rae Edzo.
After a long drive from High Level, we finally arrived the town of Rae on Saturday. At the first day we are arrive, we didn’t do a lot of stuff, we just walk around the town to get more knowledge of the place and the people, then we had a dinner with the brothers and sisters in Rae, they are really nice and friendly, but I also see some of them join at the church because they don’t have much stuff to do in Rae. Afterward, we have to prepare our script for next day worship, and decide where our mission team members going to sleep at night, especially there is 3 older peoples in our mission team, and two of them are woman, so we can’t ask them to sleep in the church with us. But thanks to God, He had provided a lodge for them, which includes two bedrooms and two bathrooms in the lodge.
On everyday morning after breakfast, we have to help pastor to provide the materials for winter and for the church. For examples, we have to go into the forest and chop a lot of wood, also we have to dig a 6 feet tall hole beside the church and put the septic tank right into it. We spend one morning to chop wood, but only got two loaded up of truck done, and the pastor said they need eight more of load truck of wood for them to have enough heat through winter time. Also we spend two days to dig up the 6 feet tall hole, and it used up 5-6 peoples to dig up that hole.
On Everyday afternoon, some of our youth mission team members, which include me, have to dress up in clown and invite kids to come to the church for the children day camp, when we see any children who want to come, we will just pick them up on the street by walking or driving. Then after we have enough children in our church, then we will start the children day camp. In our day camp, we played game with them, taught them art and told them bible story.
After we have our dinner, we will have a youth worship. For the first time we have our youth worship in Rae, it was unsuccessful, we didn’t express the youth generation in Rae are between 10-15, so we ready a few testimony to share with them, but because they are too young, they didn’t get the message from our testimony. Also the youth in Rae didn’t really know how to respect people, for example, they will walk out of the church in the middle of the testimony sharing because they feel bored. After our first day of youth worship, we have learned something from it, we will rather playing game instead of share testimony with them during the worship, and thanks to God, the youth worship went well afterward, and the kid are willing to gather with us after worship and play some sport.
To summarize, this mission trip is the best trip I never have, I have a lot fun with the kid in Rae, I learned how to communicate with them, and I understand that we have to use different kind of method to share the gospel with people which have different culture background.
T-Bridge in Rae-Edzo
(photographed by Grace Law)
From: Grace Law
Dear Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists:
I will like to first Thank-you for the generous gift from the Canadian Mission Offering. It was a nice blessing especially since I have just graduated and now have an enormous student loan weighing on my shoulders!
Going to the town of Rae is my fourth mission trip and is unlike any place I’ve ever been to before. Rae is made of dusty roads which are infested with swarming bugs that once in a while likes to fly up your nose. During the day the playgrounds and the T-Bridge on the side of The Great Slave Lake are taken over by children while after mid-night young adults roam the streets. Not a lot goes on in Rae. The town has a Sportsplex, a T-Bridge which is falling apart and one youth centre that never opens and when it does it is swarmed by small children. I guess when there’s nothing to do it’s easy to get into trouble. But because there was so little going on it was easy to drive around town in a van and pull the kids off the streets to come to the Children’s Camp which our mission team held almost daily.
For several nights I taught a few art classes for the kids and there is a large amount of talent amongst the group but the problem is that the kids don’t know it and probably do not have anyone tell them this fact. Without the encouragement and without the supply of materials the children will never grow in their passion and skill in the arts and as a result the culture of Rae is silenced.
The First Nations have a rich visual culture. Their elaborate feathered masks, colorful beaded clothing and poetic language have served inspiration for many artists not only of their own culture. However tarp covered teepees and the new flag of Rae were the only signs of culture I saw in the town of Rae. There seems to be void of any sort of interest in the arts. I and another girl were assigned the task to paint a new sign for TliCho Baptist Church and we decided to look for Dogrib cultural inspiration by asking the locals if they knew of any art or artifacts they had in Rae. But all the people produced were disinterested shrugs of no. It’s sad to see that the people of Rae have no interest in art and in their own cultural heritage because it is through art that their voice is preserved and heard.
God is continually teaching me patience and in keeping faith. It is by these two things wrapped and covered in love will the people of Rae see the love of God and unashamedly and honestly voice their glories and failures to the world. Through God’s amazing love they will no longer hide, through God’s amazing love they will bend down and repent and through God’s amazing love He will lift them high and call them His own children.
I’ll like to go back to this small town of Rae – and I’ve never admitted to want to return to a previous mission location. Teaching art to give a voice to a people who are silenced is something that God has laid in my heart not only in the town of Rae but also in the inner-city of the place I live. By faith in God’s will and love anything can happen but we all just have to be patient.
From: Lincoln Ho
As my first mission trip, I had lots to look forward to going to Rae, Northwest Territories in Canada. And indeed, many things happened, but few were the way I had envisioned. I expected to go on a mission like St. Paul, journeying to a foreign place which had never heard of Christ and helping to plant seeds everywhere we went. Afterall, it was the Northwest Territories; a destination only a handful of Christians would choose as a location for a mission.
To say the least, I was disappointed, but not in terms of what was expected, because realistically I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I was disappointed in my own presumptions of the people in Rae and my expectations of what we were going to do. It was a culture shock when we arrived; there were kids everywhere and not an adult in sight, like an episode of the CBC production of The Odyssey.
After examining through my sociological imagination, I realised that many of the adults were also like the kids in many ways. Through the abuse in the history of the Dogrib people, as well as by sinful nature, the cycle has passed down each generation like a rite of passage. Neglect and abuse has created a great void among the people of Rae – a void which can only be broken by the power of the Gospel, and the love of God… through His grace of course.
And suddenly, after finishing a minor in Christian theology, my intellect and presuppositions were stripped down to the basics of the Gospel story. In a place full of such yearning and distress, it was only grace which was sufficient.
It was by grace we were travelling on the highway so many kilometres away from home.
It was by grace we prepared ourselves for we didn’t have a definitive plan of what we were to do there.
It was by grace that our team was able to change so quickly to the needs of the people.
It was by grace that I was able to deliver my first sermon and do many things I never imagined doing.
And most importantly, it was by faith and obedience I am saved, through grace.
The theme of grace continually returned throughout our time in the Northwest Territories. Each member of the team was reminded that no one was perfect, nor was anyone to do anything life-changing on their own power. I was reminded of this grace by a mentally-capable person when he went up to meet everyone by embracing them no matter who it was.
By leaving a place I was familiar with, I was able to go into the wilderness and reflect upon what most relevant to my faith. A lyric by Eoghan Heaslip writes, “We find grace in the wilderness, Strength enough to sing of Your unfailing love. You are close, closer than we know, and there will come a day when all will be revealed.”
Our hope and faith springs out by that Grace which is our Lord.
From: Nathan Chan
It was not until the last week before the mission trip to Rae that I suddenly felt scared. Throughout the whole of the training, I was totally pumped and eager for the challenge awaiting me. Many challenges had stalled me, such as my parents not letting me go and my schooling being in the way. Throughout all those tests, I was confident and let my determination keep me strong. Surely after passing all those tests, I would be ready for any challenge! That is what I thought. But for some reason, thinking that I would be embarking on a journey, not only to challenge me physically and emotionally, but would definitely challenge me spiritually as well.
A few questions arose for me to answer over the last week; was I ready to spread the gospel when I barely knew anything? Did I have a specific gift that would help the team in their goal? Would I become a hindrance for the rest of the group? The one thing I never did throughout all that fear was to ask God for guidance. And in that weakness, I guess Satan found an opening to attack.
When I arrived in Yellowknife, I found that my bags had been left in Edmonton in part of the airline company.... When I saw the pictures the team took on the way up, I started to feel jealous and alone. ... It seemed everyone had a special talent and was able to do their part in one specific job, but I felt like I was running around everywhere doing a bit of everything, but not actually accomplishing anything. ...
Finally, I gave in, and spoke to God one on one. I realized that the reason I was feeling alone was because I wasn’t listening to what God had to say. So I asked him for guidance. After the day I was able to talk to God, I felt more energy then before. I put my spirit into whatever I did, whether it be getting kids to Kids camp, Teaching Kids Camp, digging our septic tank hole, doing Drama, playing in the worship band, playing sports with kids, or painting our sign. Even though I knew did not have a specific talent that would help the team, through God I was able to understand my true reason for being there. I understood that I was in Rae to build relationships with the people, both the inhabitants and my team. Through this trip, I was able to take a big step of faith from my recent baptism. I was able to build a bigger relationship with the Heavenly Father, and I have a deeper trust and Faith in Him and his love. I was also able to build a friendship, if not a closer friendship, with many of my team, and I have fallen in love with Rae and its people. I look forwards to improving my skills so that next time I go, I will not only be a support, but a leader.
From: Nathania Ng
This summer, I had the privilege to go on the North-West Territories on a mission trip. There were 14 people on our team all ranging from the age of 54 to 14. I was the youngest one on the trip. This was my very first mission trip and so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. The days leading up to the trip were filled with excitement, stress and a whole lot of fear.
It took 16 hours to drive up to the NWT. This was the perfect time for team members to learn more about each other. I was surprised at how well accepted I was into the other groups of older people. I was equally surprise to learn how fun and outgoing some people were. I would have never gotten the time to talk to these people if it wasn’t for the mission trip.
We went to a little town names Rae to work with the Christian church that was there. The town itself wasn’t too surprising; however we were all in for a huge culture shock. There were many rules and customs that I had a lot a trouble following. They were all things that I usually take for granted, like flushing the toilet or taking a shower.
Our trip was quite a bit more kid oriented than I had expected it to be. Originally, we had planned to have a camp for kids during the afternoon and a youth fellowship at night. Little did we know we would have three kid camps throughout the day. Every day was very hectic and tiring. Little kids really can wear you down. They loved being around us and most kids didn’t want to leave after the camp.
We also help an adult Bible study at night. Although I didn’t participate in this, I hear it was a great success. There was a very kind lady named Margaret who attended these meetings. She was a Christian and I got to stay in her house. Margaret is blind but is still able to attend every church service, bible study and dinner we had. We were all very happy when her aunt (who is also blind) accepted Christ. That definitely made my day.
What we did in Rae wasn’t huge. However, I hope we left a lasting impression on the people of Rae. Hopefully, the kids had fun and saw God’s love through us. That was basically our goal in the first place. We did our best to reach beyond our comfort zone to show that we cared and that God could give them the love they never had. It was the most we could do for those people.
Overall, this trip was a great learning experience for me. I learned to be a lot more independent and I learned what its like to spend all day helping others. It’s a lot of work, but definitely worthwhile.
