RIEKS RETREAT in West Yellowstone , MT

July 2007                                                              (view current photo album)

Dear Family and Friends

Old Faithful

Old Faithful is probably the reason many people come to Yellowstone National Park . It is truly an awesome sight as are the many other God-given features of the Park. Our reason for being here for the fourth summer is much less spectacular than Old Faithful but much more rewarding than just touring the park. We have 20 students from all over the southeast, including one from Ohio who have given up their summer to come to the park and work for minimum wages in order to minister to their fellow employees through Bible studies, establishing a relationship with fellow employees, sharing Christ through their own actions and inviting others to worship in West Yellowstone and join them on hikes. When the young people come in to West Yellowstone on weekends we are here to listen to what happened during their week, some times great, other times less than great. We prepare them a home-cooked meal on Sundays after the worship service, give them big hugs, and send them out to enjoy a little free time from their jobs. A few hours without beds to make, toilets to scrub, floors to clean, pots and pans to wash, people to serve, and the many other jobs which most have never experienced until coming to Yellowstone. The pay is little but the opportunities to share Christ are many and that is the real reason they came. Young missionaries may well continue this mission after leaving Yellowstone .

Yellowstone Christian Innovators for 2007

This is our first picture together following the commissioning service. Front row ( L-R ) are “house parents” from Westwood Baptist Church , Alabaster, AL , Butch and Vi Riek, Brenda and Ed Geiger, Liz and Jean Page. Directly behind Jean is Brad Lartigue, resort missionary for the Yellowstone and Big Sky areas of Montana . Brad will be celebrating 17 years in this position and has been featured several times in mission magazines and articles from the NAMB. This year he will be featured one again in the Georgia magazine and in the Annie Armstrong Missionaries edition. There will also be pictures of the innovators and the house parents in some editions.

There are many needs in this assignment, the greatest of which is funding for food to feed the innovators on weekends and to provide the food for the picnics at each location. The first one held at Old Faithful required food to feed 96 people, most of them young students with enormous appetites!! Brad receives funds from many people who are aware of the Yellowstone Christian Innovators and the part they play in leading others to Christ. Often their fellow employees are internationals and they seem to hunger to know more about Jesus. As our students get to know them we try to provide bibles in their own language that they may better understand just how much God loves them. Westwood Baptist Church and a former innovator provided the bibles distributed by the Innovators. Perhaps you know of a way for us to continue to receive Bibles in other languages. We have young people here from Russia, Kosovo, Columbia, Singapore, Hong Kong/China, Mongolia, the Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Turkey, France, Finland, and Jamaica. I could have missed some? You get the idea of what our innovators are experiencing as they attempt to establish relationships with their fellow employees.

The Alabama Hicks including Jay Gordon

One of our associate pastors from Westwood visited us for a few days. His name is Jay Gordon and he is pictured here in the red shirt. Jay has been an inspiration to us and to so many others during his years at Westwood. He has a heart for missions and that is one of the reasons he visited here, the other being I had been after him to visit since our first year in 2004!! It is hard to explain the importance of what God has called us to do here but just being here to mentor these students and provide meals for them was reason enough for us. If you happen to see Jay he has a lot of pictures that he took and he would just love to show them to you

May your summer be one of joy and praises. Thank you for your prayers and support. We feel those prayers and they help us to continue even when we get discouraged.

Love in Christ,

Vi and Butch

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom.10-17 NKJV)