You know, I really appreciate great friends. Friends that are there through thick and thin. Those people who are with you to help overcome obstacles that clutter your life. These are the friends who help create the exceptional memories of the past.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of the pastors I have had the privilege to share with in a little place called Healy, Alaska. Going through a difficult situation back in the early eighties, Jim Duncan was my consoler.

When I first moved to the interior of Alaska in the eighties, I wasn’t familiar with the churches in the area. It was a small place but a lot of churches. Valley Chapel was located adjacent to the Parks highway that ran from Anchorage to Fairbanks. The church had a sign on the highway and it was easy to find. One day I drove by the sign and pulled in to the church parking lot. At the time I was really troubled.

My three boys were with me. They stayed in the car as I knocked on the door of this little mobile home next to a beautiful log church. The door opened and a tall, young man a few years my junior appeared. He introduced himself as Jim Duncan, and I proceeded to cry on his shoulders and tell him all my troubles.

For weeks after that, he counseled me and spoke truth into my life, and into my children’s lives. It wasn’t long that I was given the opportunity to lead worship in the little log church. I spent a lot of time in that beautiful place.

The boys and I attended church whenever the doors were open. We took showers there since we had no running water at our cabin. I spent many hours in the basement recording and writing Christian music that I share with people today. What great memories.

I remember that winter; Pastor Jim came to us and invited the boys to a Winter Snow Retreat down at Big Lake, AK. It was a spiritual retreat where teenagers from all over Alaska would come and be rejuvenated by the fellowship and in God’s power. Pastor Duncan was the youth director of all of Alaska. Not only was he letting the boys go free, he invited me to be a counselor. I had goose bumps. I couldn’t believe that I would actually go to my first youth camp at 40 plus years old. I was pumped!

What a blessing for me to be there with hundreds of youth praising and worshiping God. I was overwhelmed.

A few months later, Pastor Duncan left the church and ventured to Soldotna, AK. I lost communication with him for all these years, and I miss him. Today I emailed him and told him how much he meant to me almost 30 years ago.

At this same time my boys and I met a couple a few years older than me, Karl and Eda Jewett. This incredible couple took us under their wings. They fed the boys and I tacos many Friday nights. They picked us up for church and gave us rides to Fairbanks for groceries. I remember one September, Karl and I went rode hunting for moose. Many days we helped them butcher a road kill and they shared the meat with us. This is only a small sampling how they added to our lives.
They are still living in Healy and attending Valley Chapel. We haven’t seen them in years but they are still near and dear to Jan and me. We owe then so much.

Still another, Dewayne Guisinger; what can I say. He and his wife came to Valley Chapel after Pastor Duncan. It was hard to get used to a new pastor who, in my opinion, followed such a great man like Jim. But Pastor Dewayne took up in the footsteps of Pastor Jim.
Dewayne was and an all around great guy. The boys and I helped him on road kills and went hunting with him. (I didn’t go with him when he went ptarmigan hunting at -40.)

I continued leading worship while he was there even though he was a great singer is his own right. Dewayne was the one who coined the boys and me as ‘mountain men.” He will always be one of my best mentors and friends.

Pastor Guisinger was my pastor when the boys and I decided to leave Alaska and move to Nevada. He tried to talk us out of it to no avail. It was a very hard decision.

The boys and I headed south down the Alaska Highway in a beat up old, Chevy Luv pickup with a canopy. Only one son could ride in the cab at any one time. We made it to Nevada in three and a half days with very little rest. I was the only driver. What a few days but that’s another story for later.
In 1990, after marrying my best friend, Janice, we returned to Alaska. Pastor Guisinger was still there and picked up where he left off.
It was spring break and Jan and I arrived in Alaska with my three boys, one of Jan’s daughters, and a friend, all stuffed in a 1987 Crew Cab F150. When we got there, we decided to walk the three miles to the cabin and check it out since I’d been gone for several years. This particular season, winter was still around. We walked in a foot of slush, and arrived to see a cabin in disrepair. My poor new wife, who wasn’t expecting this kind of adventure, was a trooper. She had no complaints even though we were wet and freezing.

We then went into Healy to see if we could find Pastor Dewayne. Of course, he was there for us. He got hot showers and we washed our wet clothes. We enjoy renewing our friendships with the whole Guisinger family. I can’t wait to see him again someday.

Last but not least, Pastor Jeff Nelson and his family arrived in Healy from North Dakota the following year. Dewayne moved down toward Anchorage.

Jan and I continued traveling from Nevada to our homestead for the next three summer breaks before we moved up in 1993. Pastor Jeff was gracious to us and our kids, and continued to provide incredible leadership with our wild bunch.

When we finally moved up, Jan and I participated in many ministries in the area under Jeff Nelson’s mentorship and tutoring. He was and is a man of God. We had some great times together. Today, he and Janelle are missionaries to Africa for about 16 years. Their kids are grown and I follow their lives on Facebook.

Wow, I can’t even express within this short script, the incredible feelings that flow every time I think of these dear families. I don’t see them. I talk to them infrequently, but they are in my thoughts. You can’t have too many great friends. They were there when…….

David Erickson

Sign In to know Author