The night before we evacuated staff, I was looking at the list of needs our staff had for immediate housing and assistance post-evacuation. I then switched over to the list of people who reached out to us with offers of housing and other resources. The length of this list with offers of support was at least double that of our staff’s needs, maybe even triple.

The outpouring of support and generosity we have seen from this community is truly remarkable. It is a light that shines in this darkness, and gives me tremendous hope that this community will endure.

Because Holden Village is much more than a small, former mining town in the Railroad Creek Valley. Holden Village is a community that holds and supports each other. That acts as Jesus’s hands and feet in this world. We have come together before to weather difficult storms, and I have so much hope and faith that we will come together again.

For those of you who want to know how you can help, there is still so much we are figuring out about what the next few months will look like. But there are three things you can do to help us right now.



It feels only right to end with our beloved Prayer of Good Courage, which we are living and breathing more than ever right now:

O God,

you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,

by paths as yet untrodden,

through perils unknown.

Give us faith to go out with good courage,

not knowing where we go,

but only that your hand is leading us

and your love supporting us;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

Elise Peterson

Co-Executive Director

Holden Village

P.S. Bjørn and the small skeleton crew remain safe up in the Village. Please continue to hold them in prayer as they prepare to endure several winter storms on the horizon

PHOTOS: Carl Norquist, Joe Ricker, Emery Moore, Maddie Pohl, Ellen Callender, Abby Russeth, Abigail Thompson

Newsletter Edited by Carl Norquist