Shungnak is part of the Northwest Arctic region, a very remote area completely disconnected from any roads to neighboring villages. Meet Anthony Sherman, his wife Irene, and their son Hezekiah. Tony moved to Shungnak to take a mission position that the Alaskan conference had been looking to fill.

“My wife and I came to Shungnak because this is where God was calling us to. We had been doing vacation Bible school here for some time and we believed that it was time for someone to move here and it was on our hearts to do so.”

When the Sherman family moved to Shungnak, they did not have any running water and only a wood stove to heat their home. For the first three weeks they lived in the small church and then moved into the parsonage right next to the church.

“The challenge is being out in the middle of nowhere. When you don’t know anybody, well you know the people out here, but when you don’t have friends and when you can’t get out whenever you want to, or when I want to see my family in the Philippines I can’t really do that because it costs so much money to travel.”

“Some of the challenges that we deal with are the logistics, the climate, the different struggles that are present in the village.”

“But I have my husband, my son, and I have God with me.”

“It’s been a positive experience for us as well because we’re in the center of God’s will. To be in the center of God’s will, there’s no other place to be.”

Tony works at the local clinic as a healthcare provider. Along with his colleagues he is the first to address all the health problems and concerns of the locals in the village. Tony and his team respond to emergencies that range from suicides to snowmobile accidents. If any emergency is beyond what the local clinic can manage, he uses a medevac plan to transport patients 160 miles to Kotzebue.

Through his position Tony is able to gain the community's trust and respect. He does not waste any opportunities to connect with people.

“Besides our work at the clinic, what I do for my profession here, we spend a fair amount of time with kids as well as elders. During the week on Mondays we have a youth group that we do for kids that are eight years and older and they come to our house”

“On Tuesdays and Wenesday evenings we try to make it a chance to get out to people’s houses. Wednesday night we have Bible studies with a family. Thursday nights we will take our musical instruments and do some singing with elderly people that are in our village. Sabbath we will have Sabbath school for kids. We will try to hold adult services. Saturday night we’ll make a trip out to another elder’s house. We try to be in people’s homes as much as possible.”

The church and parsonage were built in the 1970s, but have not had an active mission post since the late 1980s. For a few years the building has been used for vacation Bible school by the Delta Junction Adventist Church.

Tony and Irene have been holding Bible studies in their house since the church is not suitable for any fellowship during the winter months.

“Our dream for this church is that some day there will be people in it. Right now it’s not really fit for services in the winter or the summer. It needs a lot of work and right now we have no membership, we have no attendance, but our dream and hope and confidence is that God will provide us with a fellowship here.”