It’s now 5 days since we arrived here and we have been
through one Sunday. In many ways it is
all a bit overwhelming. Iqaluit is the
main city of the territory of Nunavut with 6000 inhabitants and all the facilities:
supermarkets, cinema, hotels, gift-shops, museums, and library. However it is still a frontier town, rough
around the edges. There is a ring-road
of 3 miles of tarred road but the rest of the roads are gravel or compacted clay. Most people drive trucks, 4x4 vehicles, rather
than cars because the roads are tricky and in the winter it gets down to
-50C. And yet 1 in 3 of the cars is a taxi as most
people can’t afford to own a car. The taxis act
as the public transport costing $7 (£3.50) per person per journey. At the same time the city is a rectangle of 2
miles by 4 miles and beyond that there are no roads. It is quite claustrophobic. It is 75 miles to the next settlement of 450 people, Kimmirut, which has just 2 small shops for supplies. There is no road to it. It is 30 minutes by plane at a cost of £230 one-way or 6 hours by snowmobile in winter. You can’t just head off to Portrush if you want
a change of scene. There is no change of
scene. It forces you back to yourself.
Despite its remoteness the whole world is here. There is community of 70 Lebanese with their
own restaurant. There is a community of
200 Filipinos. The women’s study group
in the church were having their final evening and we were invited. In that group there were Inuit, including the
Premier’s wife, a lady from Trinidad, 2 or 3 from the Philippines and 2 African
ladies. One of the Inuit ladies’ husband
was present and he is from Fiji. He is a
missionary to tribal peoples, his Father being a tribal chief in Fiji. For the last 10 years he has been working
with Indian tribal chiefs in Canada and the US.
He is here to work with the Inuit tribe.
We attended Church on Sunday. There are 5 other churches but they are all
non-Inuit. Only the Anglican Church serves
the Inuit community. At 9.45am there is
an English service and at 11am a service in Inuktitut. In the Inuktitut service the liturgy is from
the Canadian Book of Common Prayer with facing pages being in English and Inuktitut
so it easy enough to know where you are.
Sunday morning was communion which was lovely. From 7pm to 9pm there was a service of Praise and
Testimony with the opportunity for individual prayer. This was all in Inuktitut yet one could feel
the presence of God. The Inuit people have
all kinds of problems. One of our hosts
said that she reckoned that as she had looked around all those who attended the
Inuktitut service in the morning she could say that all had encountered suicide
in their family. It’s hard to
imagine. So there was lot of pain
expressed as people were prayed for. I
had the privilege of praying for one young Inuit woman who wanted prayer to
give her life to God. God is a real refuge
for these people. Please pray for this
young woman.
I will be preaching next Sunday at the English service and
at the Inuktitut service, with an interpreter.
That should be interesting. Pray
for me that God will speak through me to them.
