The Mustard Seed: Fishers of Men

Last summer I worked at Sea Otter Sound Lodge from May through mid September. During my time there, God taught me an important lesson about patience and persistence in prayer and His incredible faithfulness.

First I want to help you envision the unique circumstances in which this lesson occurred. This was a job like none I had ever done. The lodge I worked at floated in Sea Otter Sound in the Southeastern part of Alaska near Ketchikan. There were no roads connected to the lodge, the only way to get there was by boat or float-plane. The lodge floated securely in a protective cove, tethered to the trees on the nearby concave shoreline so it wouldn't get pulled out into the open ocean by the daily currents. The entire facility was made up of several large rafts on which buildings were constructed and each raft/float was connected together by ropes and bridges so that they could be removed and rearranged. On one raft was the Main Lodge building where the kitchen, dining, and living room for the guests who came to sport-fish. On various other floats were the guest-rooms where these paying-guests sleep in comfort. Another float had the Crew Quarters which was a 2 story building where crew (such as myself) abided on the bottom floor and the lodge-owners dwelt in a little apartment-sized flat on the upper level. There were various other floats including a landing deck, fish processing, industrial freezers, generators, food storehouses, workshop, fuel containers, boat docks, and the like.

During the summer months, the lodge runs non-stop. The schedule was that every 5 days 16-19 guests arrived on 2 float planes and concurrently the previous guests (with all the fish they caught) departed on these same planes. It is a self-guided fishing lodge, so each group of guests was assigned their own room and skiff to take out fishing each day. There were 2 types of crew members- inside crew and outside crew. The 3 inside crew members, myself included, under supervision and aid of the wife-owner, were responsible for cooking/preparing/serving all meals, catching the fish we served, cleaning guest rooms and common areas, laundry, and providing friendly and hospitable service for any guest needs. The 6 outside crew members, Jonny included, under supervision and aid of the husband-owner, were responsible for cleaning the boats, prepping the tackle and all fishing supplies, filleting, vacuum-packing, freezing all fish, and also helping catch fish and Dungeness crab to serve.

My typical day at the lodge (non including the day that the changing of guests would occur) would look like this:

4:30am- wake up

5- make guest lunches

6- serve guest breakfast

6:30- clean up breakfast and start making cookies

7- eat crew breakfast

7:30- clean up crew breakfast and continue making cookies and water potted plants

8:30- make dessert for dinner (carrot cake/rum cake/ baked Alaska/lemon squares/cobbler, etc.)

9-2:30 either go fishing if needed or take a break

2:30 put ingredients for dinner and lunch bread into bread machines and get them started

4pm- start prepping dinner food (making the various side dishes and whatnot)

6-serve guest dinner

6:30 clean up guest dinner

7:30-serve crew dinner

8:30 relax/ hang out with Jonny before going to bed and starting all over again

Without going into too much detail of everybody elses job duties, I think you get the picture that we worked hard without a day off for 4 month straight in close quarters. Us crew members really got to know each other well!

As tiring as work was, one benefit of the job was the gorgeous scenery surrounding us constantly. Not a day would go by when we did not see sea otters floating in the bay, bald eagles soaring through the trees, humpback whales spouting or breaching in the ocean, nearby forested islands, jellyfish of all shapes and sizes, and glowing bio luminescent ocean at night (just to list a few of the natural wonders). Alaska is gorgeous!

Now that you understand the physical context, let me tell you about the spiritual atmosphere. The owners of the lodge were Christians and other than that I had one other Christian crew member (a recent Moody graduate)(until Jonny joined me 2 months in). The rest of my coworkers were nice people, but had an opposite moral compass from me. Their speech, chewing habits, choice of movies, and topics of conversation were perverse to me. I knew this was my new mission field, where God placed me to be His light. My goal was to love these people as best as I could and live out my faith before them without judgement or condemnation. There were 2 other girls on crew, besides myself, and I was the oldest of the crew-members. I particularly wanted to reach these girls. From the beginning, I could tell by their disinterest in spiritual things and love of the world that it would take a work of God to soften their hearts and draw them to Himself. So, I prayed for them and befriended them. I choose not to force any spiritual discussion on them and simply let Christ in me be my witness. As the season progressed, it seemed as though their moral state was getting worse, not better, and I'll admit that I started to get impatient with the Lord. I was praying for them and living my uncompromising life before them, but they seemed to continue faster down the path of self-destruction. This was when God began to impress on me the importance of patience and persistence in prayer over time. You see, I believed in the power of God to answer my prayers, bring their salvation, and change their lives for the better. But, I expected Him to act sooner rather than later, because what benefit is there to Him waiting (I thought)? But once again, His ways are higher than my ways and faith is believing without seeing. I surrendered to His faithfulness and righteousness. I prayed that He would open the doors for those conversations in His timing and give me the right words to share and any success would be all on Him (as always).

By the end of the summer, God's grace poured out on me as He opened those doors. A few weeks before the end of our job, one of the girls came to me and asked me what advice I would give to someone who is spiritually lost! In tears, she explained to me her struggles with religion and told me that after spending the summer observing myself, Jonny, and the other Christians, she saw something different and desirable in us. She literally said "you seem like you have an actual relationship with God and I want that. How do I get it?" That is the widest open door to explain the Gospel that I have ever experienced! After explaining how to have that relationship with the Lord, I prayed for her. I told her that I had been praying for her all summer and she said that meant more to her than I could know! A few days later, the other girl also wanted a spiritual discussion and I explained the Gospel to her and gave her a Bible to read (she had actually never heard the story of Jesus before)!

I praise God for allowing me to see some of the fruit from that summer. Community evangelism/discipleship is very good! My heavenly Father is so patient with me and gracious and faithful and wise! This experience of being a fisherwoman (in more ways than one) gave me hope and enthusiasm for being a missionary. I hope this story can inspire you to keep praying with patience, faith, and trust in God for whatever community mission-field you are currently in.