Forest Fires — Soaring for Christ

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."

The Lord cut Kokrine Hills Bible Camp short with active forest fires this summer. The Soaring for Christ Cherokees flew for the High School and Discipleship Camps.

We were thankful for the openings God provided in the smoke to fly the campers home from Discipleship Camp. Some flights had to be done with instruments, but we mostly re-routed for better visibility to avoid fires & storms. We flew a lot of the flights with two pilots to reduce the workload due to the challenging conditions.

Jeff also flew some staff flights for Kokrine Hills' work camp and then flew "The Word” back to Big Lake. The fires are greatly reduced now due to all the rain the Lord provided in the past weeks.

At camp, the work teams were able to repair the heavy equipment used for maintaining the runway and they stained a lot of the buildings.

This year had a lot of unexpected changes due to the fires but we are thankful we serve a God who guides our steps.

"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

Isaiah 40:28-31

The two pictures on the left are from the Chitanana Fire that developed on the route to camp this summer. Due to the drought conditions, warm temperatures, and lightning strikes, a couple of dozen fires sprung up in the general area over the following week. The picture on the upper right shows the fire burning three miles upriver from Bible camp and the bottom right shows some of the smoke over the Kokrine Hills.