Click Your Heals Together and Say 'There's No Place Like Home'

August 29, 2011

Dear Friends,

I wanted to drop a line and update you since we saw you this summer (and to those of you we haven’t caught up with yet). I just finished up a five week trip back in PA/NY/NJ on home assignment (eight weeks with travel and Staff Conference). I spoke in 5 churches and met with many of our supporters.

Karen and Ryan flew out on August 10th and we had a very full 5 days in PA/NJ together. Our trip home was not a direct path. We left PA and drove Ryan to Kansas to get him set up for his year at Fort Hayes State University. The morning we were to leave the Philadelphia area a check engine light came on but all was fine for a while which is good because we had a very tight schedule and no time for a repair.

After leaving Ryan in Kansas we headed due north to Staff Conference and leadership meetings near Regina, Saskatchewan. That’s above North Dakota. During that leg of the journey the engine started running rough. We had it diagnosed in Regina with assurance we would make it back to Abbotsford where our regular mechanic would work on it. We also developed a leaking tire which no one had time to work on. After staff conference I drove home alone (Karen had flown home a few days earlier to work on Payroll). During the trip home, the radiator began acting up during the long mountain climbs (there are quite a few between Regina and Abbotsford). Needless to say, between engine problems, a leaking tire and radiator challenges I prayed lots and God was good and I made it home with a somewhat functioning car. Now we need to get everything looked after.

It was an eventful trip home. But that’s the way the whole trip went- trusting God and moving from one event to another, facing one challenge after another. And all along the way we got to see God working. Pray for good results from the trip. While we did not raise any new support yet, there are a number of churches and individuals considering joining the support team.

This fall is already filling up. In my new role as Field Director for the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and Washington State, I have a number of pressing issues to deal with staff about. I will need to make the rounds to visit each of the nine staff members/couples and also check in with a supervisor who handles some of the staff in the Vancouver area.

My main role with NAIM remains Church Planting/Development. After a summer away we are reconnecting with local native people in the Vancouver area as well as our Klemtu friends and family. Already, after one day home, we are helping one Vancouver family bring their daughter home from Northern BC where she is stranded. Yesterday a Klemtu couple called and asked if they could come for a stay at our house in a few weeks. On September 17th I will be performing a wedding for a Campbell River couple. Who knows what other opportunities await. I would like to make one to two trips to Klemtu this fall before winter sets in because that is never a good time to travel on the coast. There is much we want to teach the believers there so that they might be better equipped to handle ministry in their own community.

I also will be connecting with various Church mission teams about their summer experience and begin preparations for next year.

Karen remains quite busy in her role as Financial Administrator for NAIM. In addition to her many responsibilities in that position, she is trying to train various new office staff in their positions. So her plate is quite full for now. Of course Karen continues to connect with as many people from Klemtu as she can (and then a few more after that).

Life is an adventure, whether in a van travelling cross country hoping and praying that the van makes it all the way home or in ministry where we never know what challenges lie ahead. But God is good and provides and sustains all along the way.

I would like to start making Skype calls to the Church during the Morning Worship Service as a means of checking in. For many our supporting Churches this should be no trouble to make happen. If that is something your Church would like to pursue, please let me know? I am doing it already in other venues and it works out quite well. It is fairly simple thing to set up.

Thank you for your gifts of support and prayers for this ministry.

With gratitude,
Scott and Karen Markloff

Prayer Requests:
1. For Karen and her responsibilities for overseeing NAIM’ finances
2. For Scott and his new responsibilities as Field Director
3. For the couple coming to stay with us in a couple of weeks, both for making a commitment to Christ as well as for their relationship (I am leaving them unnamed for confidentiality reasons which is particularly important to the lady, God knows who they are)

Life to Life Ministry

For many years I have tried to capture the essence of our ministry with NAIM among Native people through these almost twenty years. When people ask me what a typical day is like, I don't know what to say. No two days are the same. When people ask what are you doing, I usually have a long list: interacting with Native people from the Coast of BC both in their villages, in the city of Vancouver as well as in our home. We also work with youth mission teams taking trips to Klemtu. Karen works in the NAIM office as the Financial Administrator. I am the Field Director of Washington State and also Chair the Coastal Ministry Committee as it oversees the Solitude boat ministry. There is more. It all sounds so disjointed. It also sounds so clinical and sterile.

So I thought about what was the common thread weaving its way through all of that. That thread is 'Life to Life Ministry'. I describe it as two lives shared together with the hope of sharing Christ's life together. Its about being a part of Native people's lives and their being a part of ours. It always holds out the hope that together we might find faith in Jesus Christ and a rich full life in him.

That is what Scott and Karen are about. In NAIM we call it 'Face Time'. It's really just relationships with a purpose. All we do is to either connect relationally with Native people or facilitate others so that they might connect with Native People, always with the hope of living out the love of Christ with others.

So there it is. Now you know what Scott and Karen have been doing all these years. It's been a wonderful adventure full of joys, and laughter, and tears, and heartache and disappointments and life shared together. Along the way we have seen people come to faith in Christ, be strengthened in their faith and even seen two Fellowships started in Klemtu and Campbell River.

For those of you who pray and give, thank you for being part of the adventure too.

Reviving This Blog

Hi All,
Just wanted to begin reviving this blog. I haven't used it in a very long while. I, Scott, have been back in PA and NY for about a month now. I've had a chance to see many of you and that's been awesome. Please pray for us as I continue to look for new support for our ministry. Thanks.