Dear friends and partners,
I pray this letter finds you well today. My family and I just returned a week ago from our wonderful trip to Alaska which lasted all of June and a good part of this month. What a wonderful God we serve! The Lord blessed us to be able to spend six weeks in our home state where our family comes from, enabling us to visit and catch up with family and friends. This is something that is near and dear to Amanda and mine’s hearts. We want our children to stay in touch with their roots and know who their grandparents and cousins are always. It’s also always a great time for Amanda and I, when we return to Alaska, to reflect on how far the Lord has taken us over the last seven years since we first moved down south in the fall of 2015 to pursue the call of God on our lives. As I’ve stated in previous letters, we’ve been through a lot in a short period of time as individuals, as a family, and as a ministry, but God has been faithful every step of the way to lead us through the troubled waters and restore our souls in the process. I pray that wherever you are in your heart as this letter finds you that God would renew your faith in such a way as well. He is faithful even when we feel like we haven’t been.
MINISTRY IN ALASKA
Ministry was great in the great land this summer. I had the privilege of being able to minister in the interior in Fairbanks, Alaska, as well as my home town Soldotna, Alaska. God moved powerfully as we continued to see healings, miracles, and God’s miraculous intervention in people’s lives. Even though some people today choose to focus on God’s delays in things like revival, we’re seeing God revive individuals, including ourselves and our family, everywhere we go. Revivals and moves of God may come and go, but the kingdom is constant, and we’re alive in God’s kingdom right now! Revival is available to the believer by faith, by the Spirit, and by the Word each and everyday if we would just focus on Jesus and spend time with him!
Amanda leading worship & Stephen preaching and praying for the sick at Trinity Christian Center in Soldotna, Alaska
ALASKAN ADVENTURES
One of the great blessings of being born and raised in such a place as Alaska, as well as being able to visit there, is the great Alaskan adventures one gets to go on in such a beautiful and abundant place. I grew up hunting and catching hundreds of pounds of fish every year from halibut, to sockeye salmon, to king salmon, to lake trout. Talk about an organic diet!!!
On this trip I got to take my two oldest sons, Ezra and Charley, out with my father, Dennis Powell, and my cousin, Bobby Childers, fishing on the Pacific ocean out of Valdez, Alaska, and man was it fun! We fished for halibut (my favorite fish to both catch and eat!) and had a great time on the waters as God blessed the weather and the fishing. We estimate that I caught about a 50 pound halibut (one I’m holding below) and the boys caught 20 and 30 pounders. It was a blast and a great way to end our wonderful trip in the great land this summer.
Me Holding a 50 pound Halibut that I caught out of Valdez, Alaska on July 13th, 2021
Me and the Boys Smiling for the Camera in Front of our Fresh Catch!
Ezra and Charley, the bros!!!
Me helping Charley catch some pinks salmon in the harbor!
The boys with their papa, my Father Dennis Powell
Enjoying the wildlife!
Great day on the water!!!
CLOSING
In closing, Amanda and I would like to thank everyone who kept us in their prayers and also those who continued their support while we were in Alaska this summer. Even though it was a working vacation for me, we still would not have been able to put in the extra time with friends and family while making memories with the kids like we did if we didn’t have faithful supporters and followers who are supporting us through this season; who are supporting us as a family who is striving to be healthy in family and in life, while avoiding so many of the traps and pitfalls of ministry that some have fallen into during the course of their ministries. We will continue to minister and preach the gospel wherever the Lord opens up doors for us to do so, but we will always maintain a strong standard of being healthy in our marriage, healthy in our family, and healthy in our individual lives moving forward!
In His Service,
Stephen Powell