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Alaska Mission Trip 2025 - Recap
2025-8-12 | Pastor Chuck Potts
On July 1st, six of our high school youth group students (Adrienne S., Betsy K., Carter R., Jordan Q., Rachel B., and Renea P.) and four leaders (Pastor Chuck, Beth Simpson, Darci Church, and Victor Quesada) set out for 10 days on a Mission Trip to Nome, Alaska. The mission was to serve KICY Christian Radio station, which is owned and operated through our denomination: the Evangelical Covenant Church. While KICY invites groups to come and serve every summer, this year was particularly important as the summer project centered around constructing a new building that KICY has been gathering support for over the last few years. While it would be impossible to share all that took place over this 10 day adventure, here’s my best attempt at sharing the highlights:
We left late in the evening on July 1st, as our flight through Alaskan Airlines was a red-eye out of Chicago-O’hare International Airport with a layover in Anchorage Alaska. The flights were fairly uneventful, but most of us found it difficult to get rest, with both the challenge of being uncomfortable and the excitement that was building for arriving in Nome. We landed in the morning on July 2nd and were greeted by Patty Burchell, who is the director at KICY and was our lead host for the week. Patty has been serving at KICY for over two decades and was a wealth of knowledge about Nome, the town’s culture, and the history of the mission at KICY.
After getting moved in to our living space (we were housed at Nome Covenant Church for the week), Patty gave us a tour of Nome and KICY’s facilities. We learned that the radio station is about more than music and news. It’s also about communication and connections with the whole region. Because of the remoteness of the surrounding villages and such, KICY communicates a lot of local information, including personal greetings, as a means of staying connected together, especially during times of the year with inclement weather. In essence, KICY is an integral part of the culture in the entire region surrounding Nome.
After getting caught up on rest, we jumped into work projects on the first day. KICY’s new building was the task, but we didn’t find out until we got there that the project was almost two full weeks behind schedule. The barge delivering the supplies came very late, meaning the work that needed to be done was the initial construction on the foundation, flooring, and first floor walls. Even the staff at KICY was nervous about how helpful a high school group was going to be at this point in the project. But that wasn’t going to stop us.
Each member of the team followed the directions of the project leaders and learned new skills very quickly. In no time, we were working in a sort of rhythm, with each person owning their tasks, and before we knew it, the house was starting to take shape. Each day that we worked was hard and full of many tasks from morning until dinner, and I’m so proud of each member of the team for always being willing to step up and do what was asked of them to get the job done.
But since we left midweek, AND there was the 4th of July in the middle of our trip, we didn’t work on the construction site every day. We kept a lot of free-time open on our schedule because we knew that anything we did would have to come second to the mission project work. Fortunately for us, this led to some great opportunities to say “yes” to new adventures, which the new friends we were making were happy to provide.
On the first day, we met Dr. Jackie Hrabok, who is a biologist that teaches through the University of Alaska’s Nome campus (primarily online). She was living there on KICY’s property and will be one of the people that get to live in the new housing that we were building. Jackie was full of energy and excited to invite us to go on an adventure. She offered to teach us how to use Pack Rafts and brought us out to a lake just north of Nome that was made by gold-mining dredges. She was a teacher through and through, and took every opportunity to teach our team about the nature we encountered and the history of these dredge lakes, all while letting the team enjoy the evening floating around on the water.
On the 4th of July, we were invited to join the local celebration by walking in the annual parade by representing KICY. We all wore portable radios that were playing music from KICY, and we threw candy out to kids as we passed by. Afterwards, we stuck around to watch the community celebrate through games, songs, and traditional dances by local native Yup’ik dancers. It was a joy to see how this community came together to share this special day together.
There was so much more that we could tell you about, like swimming in the Bering Strait, or in a river made of melted glacial run-off water. Or we could share about our drive out to see “the last train to nowhere” or about the worship service we got to attend at Nome Covenant Church. Each day seemed to be filled with new opportunities to grow, to learn, and to build deeper bonds with each other and with those that we went to serve.
By the end of the journey, we had completed a significant chunk of work on the building project. The base floor was complete, and the first floor had all outside and inside walls up. Additionally, all the siding panels were painted with “KICY Blue”, as the unseasonably dry weather made it perfect for painting and drying while we were there.
Before leaving, we had the chance to pray over and bless the building. Each of us came up with passages of scripture that were blessings or encouragement for all those that would be served through this new building, and we were allowed to write them all over the walls and floor. In the very center, we drew our churches new logo (before we officially revealed it this past week!) and we all signed our names. Though it will all be covered up with flooring and paint, it was a special way to leave our mark on the good work we had the privilege of participating in during this trip to Nome.
And while the teams that followed us continue to work on the building, here is the most up-to-date picture of where the project stands now.
We continue to pray for the project and the ministry of KICY Christian Radio, as well as, all our new friends we got to meet there in Nome. Perhaps we’ll return one day, but for now, we trust that God has been and is at work through this ministry, and we are so thankful that we got to be a part of it.
Thank you again for all the support and prayer over the past year as we prepared for and went on this trip. And a special thank you to my trip co-leaders: Beth, Darci, and Victor. I couldn’t have asked for a greater group of people to join me on this journey. Each of you were such a blessing to me, to the team, and to the project. Thank you for your hard work and for giving up a week of your summer to go on this trip.
--Pastor Chuck Potts