Praying for Fish in Alaska

I wanted to share a neat story about something that happened on our beach last Sunday. After setting up our equipment early Sunday morning, we served hot dogs for a few hours before shutting down for an informal church service in front our our tent. We put up a cross and gathered in front of it.

Throughout the weekend, we had been inviting people to come and a fair number of people showed up. Up until this point, fishing had not been good for the whole beach. Standing out with their huge dip-nets in the close to freezing water and bone chilling wind, most people did not have a whole lot to show for all their time and energy. 

Some people had been there as many as nine days and not caught anything! As a team, we were intentional about praying for the fish to come and letting people know that we were asking the Lord to bring them their catches. Things had been pretty slow up to this point in the morning, but as soon as our worship leader started and we all joined in singing praises to God, a frenzy started. Not on the whole beach, but just in the section in front of where we were set up. Our tent was about 50 yards from the shore and only the area directly in front of our worship was catching fish. 

In the 25 minutes we were singing, someone estimated that about 200 fish were caught where none had been before. The locals were calling to their friends and family up and down the beach to come and stand with them. Most people only catch one fish at a time in their nets, but some were catching five! 

It was so incredible to get to witness the Lord's faithfulness. As the day progressed, we got to share with people coming up for hot dogs how we had been praying for fish to come. Several locals had even asked before if we were praying for the fish and when they came back we got to share about what happened. Some of them were standing in that area and caught the maximum amount of fish permitted by Alaska law in that one rush. I loved getting to see how God used something as simple as salmon to let the people around us know that He cares for them, even in meeting their physical needs. 

Meredith Fick is a campus missionary intern at the University of Houston BSM who is serving at the Salmon Frenzy project in Alaska.