ACC: Merry Christmas and our Last 4F Update of the Year!

Dear Friends across the World….
As of yesterday, there was hardly any snow on the ground- on Dec. 6th! Weather has been warmer but now dropping- guess who is dreaming of a white Christmas! All of ACC! We as a campus are celebrating the birth of our Lord early as students will be leaving Dec. 14 for their homes across the tundra and the lower 48 states. As I have asked every year from you, please pray for our students to return following their 4 week break. It is a crucial time that they have in making healthy choices or not….some will struggle and wonder if they should even return to ACC. The answer we have for them is YES. Pray with us for some who cannot return due to financial matters (second year students only). Here is the rest of our Christmas Update:

Finances: I don’t usually start with this “F” but will this time! Please strongly consider ACC in your end of the year giving. Our letter should be arriving soon as it describes the funds that are contributing in part towards our vision to be pre-accredited as a collegethis year! Also, we have sent out to almost 60 churches the ACC Scholarship Christmas Tree ornament project. Last year, this brought in nearly $60,000 solelyfor our student scholarships. Pray that many will take the ornaments home, give towards the fund, and pray for their student they have chosen. If you would like to have these for your church, please contact me immediately and we will fed-ex you a pack. Thank you for your Christmas giving to ACC!
Faculty: Please pray also for a weary staff as we head into Christmas and have a much needed break from an intense fall of ministry. Please pray for our search for a Director of Admissions as well. With a staff our size, we seem always to be in a search for staff- many sacrifice greatly to come to Alaska and serve here. We are a family and a great team to work with if God should ever nudge any of you to join us temporarily or permanently.

Freshmen: Our students have been serving on mission and service trips like crazy! A team of 15 spent their Thanksgiving break in small village of Noorvik (north of the Arctic Circle) leading a youth retreat and serving the villagers there in the Quaker church. They blessed an ENTIRE village with their presence and our students loved being in an Eskimo village for the holiday. We send our students out monthly, at a fairly high cost, to minister in Jesus’ name across the state. Pray for more students to come after the break as well as new and returning students from prior years. Finally, a few students have had significant pain this past week- almost unbearable without our loving community and Christ. While I cannot give their names or situations, please pray.

Facility: Still a few openings for work teams! Projects await the hearty who wish to serve on their vacation with a mission purpose. We celebrate a 10 fold increase in the use of our new Peninsula Conference Center this past semester with many various groups renting from us. The largest event- packed out- was the New Hope Counseling Center (our Center) had 189 guests who donated $17,000 to this ministry. WOW!

If you were in Eagle River, AK last month, you made history. The ACC banquet was held at Community Covenant Church with over $37,000 raised- our largest fundraiser yet! Thanks to the 200 friends who came to hear tear-filled testimonies of God’s grace in our student’s lives.

As we approach Christmas I am reminded of hope. Many of our village friends lack hope. Without hope, other things infiltrate lives that are extremely unhealthy. Pray with us for the hope of the Christ child to enter the lives of our Alaskan Native friends across the tundra and pavement in Alaska.

Merry Christmas from Alaska!

Dr. Keith J. Hamilton
President
Alaska Christian College
35109 Royal Pl.
Soldotna, AK 99669
Office- 907-260-7422
Fax- 907-260-6722
KJHamilton@aol.com

“Preparing Young People for Whole-Life Discipleship”