356 Louise Lane
Fairbanks, Alaska 99709
Phone 907-479-3779, cell 907-322-8807
zerbe@alaska.net

February 10, 2005

Dear Friends,

On the road again.  Greetings from the Zerbes on the road again in the “Lower 48” (states) on a short and busy furlough!  We left Fairbanks on November 2nd and flew south until we caught up with the birds and Les’ parents in Winston Salem, North Carolina.  We live in a missionary house provided by Pleasant View Baptist, but right now are in Ft. Myers, Florida, for meetings in two supporting churches, then to St. Augustine to visit two more.  Our family’s pithy saying for these gorgeous days is “Florida in February.”

Missionary Earl Malpass has been filling in for me by flying into Manley Hot Springs for church on Sundays.  Our older son Jarrod, in his third year at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, is keeping the furnace burning at home and the water pipes thawed while we are “Outside” (out of Alaska).  Oddly enough, the drain pipe in our NC house froze several times, and we were into the “Jane’s-hair-dryer-on-the-pipe” routine.  Go figure.

“Les, when are you going to finish your book?”  I’ve also been working on my memoirs --a book titled Journey to the Edge of the Sky, a journal of missionary aviation in Africa and Alaska.  I started writing four years ago, and keep remembering more anecdotes to include.  Visiting with my Dad and Uncle Paul in January gave me interesting historical background on my grandfather, who made his own journey.  William Zerbe was a German who lived in Poland (“because the rent vas cheaper”) and worked in Russia, who immigrated to the United States.   Jane and I are editing the manuscript again (Is it the third or fourth time?), trying to get it polished for publishing.  Writing the rough draft was the easy part.  Correcting and editing is taking a lot of time.  Jane gave a book about bush pilots’ wives in Alaska to my dear mother, and mom could barely read it for the glaring errors that interrupted the story line.  I don’t want my readers to have the same reaction.

Blessings. 

 God has blessed us with meetings in a few new churches.  We had been seeking new churches to replace several that dropped their missionary support due to church splits or building programs.  So far two work teams are coming to help with the hangar this July and August, and a third team may come in September.                                                                                                                             

Alaska’s youth. 

 Be in prayer for the youth of Alaska.  I cannot get out of my mind the teen campers who begged us to adopt them or at least not to fly them back to their villages.  Missionaries in the Arctic report frequent suicide attempts, many successful.  In fact, suicide among teens and young adults in Alaska’s villages is six times more prevalent than in the Lower 48.  I’m thinking that we need a Christian boarding high school.  Is this something that we could do?  Pray for God’s leading for us.                                                                                     

Soon we head back to Alaska to do the chaplain work for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in March.  Pray for us to for good weather and a safe flight on our way.  Thanks so much for your faithful giving and praying over the years.   

Faithfully yours,

Les Zerbe
Les and Jane Zerbe

SOURDOUGH SAM SEZ:

“I’d like to be in Florida in February,
but I’m a true sourdough—
sour on winter in Alaska but not
enough dough to get out.”