Men of Faith in Canada and Alaska
A few years ago, Ray and I toured a coal mine on Cape Breton Island. At the museum that day, The Men of the Deeps coal miner chorus was practicing in the museum’s auditorium. Oh, their singing was beautiful.
Ray and I recently listened to their album of Christmas music. One member of the chorus told a story about Christmas Eve in the mine when he was a very young miner. When the rail car took the miners out from the deep that day, he was anxious to get back to the surface. He was the eldest in his family and his mother was expecting him to pick up presents she had placed in layaway. He also needed to buy a present for his girlfriend (who later became his wife).
He was dismayed when the car stopped in the dark. He began to complain. An older miner told him to be quiet. Then, there in the dark, a lone miner began to sing “O Holy Night.” The experience was deeply moving to the young miner, and he relished telling the story many years later on the album.
I am especially touched when a man shows deep emotion about his faith.
Anyone who knows many details at all about World War II has heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor is important because it killed so many people, damaged America’s primary port in the Pacific Ocean, and destroyed important resources of the U.S. Navy. America declared war on Japan the next day.
Most of us know very little about the other attacks on America, the ones that occurred in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, beginning on June 3, 1942. The Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands. Sporadic fighting lasted over a year. Many of the Unangax and Aleut people were evacuated from their homelands. While doing research about those events during World War II the other day, I found this wonderful photograph of men showing their faith in Jesus. The photo is in the collection of the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area. The National Park Service did not identify the church.
I love that every person in this photograph is a man, showing his faith in Jesus. Isn’t the Nativity scene beautiful, especially when you realize that it is in Alaska? It is almost as if the scene is a window to what might be on the other side of the wall.
Perhaps the saying, “Wise men still seek Him,” has been used too much to continue to have deep meaning, but it is still true. Wise men still seek Jesus. Wise women and children do, too. Jesus told us that, if we seek, we will find.
Ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7