photo by paul obregon

I caught sight of our vision for missions when I met the Piepmeiers of Kiana, Alaska, during chapel service at the North American Mission Board, where I serve. These brave missionaries mesmerized me with their story. It was a cold day to those of us in the American Bible belt, but it was like spring to the Piepmeiers whose village is 40 miles inside the Arctic Circle. They go for months without sun and can only measure temperatures down to minus 60, the lowest reading on their thermometer.

My heart went out to this couple whod uprooted from their home in Missouri to answer His call to Alaska. Their confirmation came when the family piano sold, an item too bulky to move and one they never advertised as being for sale. The Piepmeiers needed the money it would bring to survive in an isolated economy where they pay $8 for a gallon of milk and $4 for a gallon of gas.

John and Kim wore the native dress of their Alaskan neighbors, she in a colorful smock and sensible pants and both of them in snuggly moccasins, a reminder that many of NAMBs 5,204 missionarieslike the International Mission Boards 5,376 missionariesmove far away and to a new culture. Yet others serve at home, remaining in their familiar surroundingsoften in their own communitybut with a call to tell His story and change their world, their Samaria.

Welcome to On Missions Special Report on the North American Mission, an annual review of the work of missionaries and on mission Christians and churches. You'll read stories about people like you, who are answering His call, telling His story and changing our world. And you'll read about the phenomenal lives and work of our Week of Prayer missionaries, who inspire us every year as role models for leading others to Him.

We hope you enjoy this issue and will consider it a keepsake. In it youll learn about the on mission success of the Piepmeiers (see page 35) and many others as you travel with us across our vast continent to places as foreign as Kiana, Alaska, and as familiar as your own backyard. And we hope youll be inspired to participatein your own way, at your own pace, as God leads youto a mission field of your own.

Carolyn Curtis, editor, On Mission, ccurtis@namb.net