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thanksgiving
A Time To Be Thankful—A Time To Share
W
here did the time go? I cannot believe that it has already been a whole
year since I was wrote the last Thanksgiving newsletter! I want to take
this opportunity to Thank You for all of your help through this last year.
Your prayers, financial support, in-kind gifts and time volunteered to help with
some of the many things that have to be done, We are indeed thankful.
However, the day is drawing near, it seems like each year the time goes by
faster and faster. Actually we do look forward to the holidays, always with a
little anxiety and apprehension. We try to anticipate how many people we will
serve, how much food it will take or money to sponsor the event and make it a
real success. This year it is a real challenge because of the economic conditions
and more and more people coming to the city, it presents a real problem. We will
serve everyone that comes to the Mission one way or another. We do not count
David M. Williams success by how many we serve, but by how many we had the opportunity to share
Program Director
the Gospel with and how many came to know Him as their Savior as a results of
Larry Aldrich our Chapel service and personal witnessing.
Operations Manager
Randy Hess But, we do need help with food for our Thanksgiving dinner and for your
Maintenance Supervisor
“volunteer help” (opportunities for you to serve are listed in the Directors Desk
Larry O’Connor page of this newsletter). Many people would be without a Thanksgiving Dinner
Greg Mann if it were not for the Mission providing it. We want to continue to be the outlet to
Roger Klein
help people during this season and we need YOU TO SUPPLY THE MEANS.
Donn Baker
John Lofquist
Client Supervisors special needs for thanksgiving
(Thanksgiving Dinner will be served on WEDNESDAY November 26, from 3 to 5:30 PM)
David McKnight
Van Driver Lots and Lots of Turkeys – Stuffing Mix – Cranberry Sauce
Solomona Talivaa Green Beans – Corn – Instant Mashed Potatoes—
Maintenance Onions – Celery – Fruit Cocktail – Dinner Rolls
Canned Sweet Potatoes – Marshmallows – Pumpkin
Anthony Boone Apple and Pecan Pie.
Donations
Neil Givens
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Learning Center
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Darlene Whaley
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Kitchen Manager
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The kitchen staff I am honored to work with performs under
some very challenging conditions. Menus can change
t e at any moment as we are dependent on the kindness of
d a those who donate food items and equipment.. Food must
www.anchoragerescue.org
We invite you to visit us on the web or
drop us an E-mail with your comments
and suggestions
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OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE
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v.D VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
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give you specific details about team assignments Lord, we love You so very much.
and schedule your time to work.
remember it as a bad time but as an boots hurt my feet I felt compelled to
exciting and adventurous time. grow my hair long and start smoking
Flash forward to Winnemucca, grass. I also started dressing in
NV in the late sixties. It is from bellbottom pants, polyester print
here that I can piece together a more shirts, and platform shoes, but we
e s
ni e complete picture of my life. Grade won’t go there. I probably would
s
o u es school, Bridge Street, the premier of have been better off just slipping on
im L “Planet of the Apes” at the cinema, a pair of cowboy boots and calling
st a el and fishing in the Humboldt River. it good, but my dignity and my
te ich
Mom was hired as a “21” dealer at
the Winners Casino. In an industry
feet forbade it. Anyway, four-inch
platforms are much cooler. I think
M that was predominantly male at that there’s a picture of me in one of
time, my mom had the rare honor those “outfits”, floating around out
of being the first woman dealer in there somewhere. I hope it never
Winnemucca. She had her picture falls into the wrong hands as it
“The Collapsible Man” in the paper even; go figure. I have would most certainly be used as a
to mention here a man by the name tool for blackmail.
Hello! My name is Michael, of Joe Mackie. He was the owner I didn’t realize it at the time,
and I am “The Collapsible Man”. of the Winners Casino and took care but what I thought was innocent
I call myself that because as I look of our little family for a time. He experimentation with drugs and
back on my life, I can see chains of gave my mom a job, got us into a alcohol would set the pattern for
events that led to my collapses and little place on Bridge Street, and my life of repeated collapse. I wish
reconstructions, the cycle repeating even bought my mom a car, so she I could go back to that point in my
itself over and over…… wouldn’t have to walk to work or life, knowing what I know now.
I was born in Aurora, CO. in 1957. take a cab. What I remember most “The Collapsible Time Traveler?” I
My father was an Air Force M.P., my about him was his policy of giving guess not.
mother was a housewife. My earliest any kid that needed it, a free haircut By the time my twenty-first birthday
memory is of the assassination of at the casino. I learned later that he rolled around, I had enlisted, and
J.F.K. I remember the stunned had connections to the “mob”, but I was booted out of the Army. I was
silence and then the tears of the didn’t hold that against him. In my married and had a new son. And I
adults, and I remember how scary book he was a sweetheart of a guy. was generally just partying my way
and confusing it all seemed. It was His end came in the form of a small through life. But on my twenty-first
also about this time that I noticed I place crash that killed him and his birthday, my father-in-law got me a
had a little brother. What I mean is, family. Reportedly it was a mafia job as a “21” dealer at the Nevada
he’d probably been crawling around “hit”. Club in Laughlin, NV. This was to
down there for awhile, but his My brother and I knew it was time prove a turning point in the story of
presence didn’t really register with to move again when our mom pulled “The Collapsible Man”. My income
me until that time. I remember that up in front of the house towing a U- increased greatly along with my
he smelled funny and made strange Haul trailer. Next stop Reno, NV, appetite for gambling, booze, and
noises and had the annoying habit of where I started Junior High. Uh oh, drugs. This soon proved to be too
drooling on everything, but when he moms got a load of cardboard boxes, much for my wife, and she promptly
smiled at me with that big toothless must be time to move. Sparks next, divorced me.
grin, I loved him instantly. My bro! then Fallon and here’s where the After my divorce, I re-enlisted
The rest of my early childhood real story of “The Collapsible Man” in the Army and was discharged,
I remember only in bits and pieces, begins….. honorably, three years later. Back
usually a memory involving a move I started High School in Fallon, to Nevada and the casinos for
from one place to another, Seattle, NV, and soon found myself hanging me. That’s where the action was,
Bellingham, Blaine, and other points out with the “wrong crowd”. The the gambling, the booze, and the
in northern Washington State. school was divided into two factions, drugs. For the most part I worked
My mom, by now, a single parent, or classes, of students other than as a “21” and roulette dealer. But I
moved a lot in my baby years, nerds, who in fact had no class. You was soon asked if I wanted to learn
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but always provided for my either belonged to the cowboys or the to be a “craps” dealer. This would
brother and I. And I don’t surfers (hippies), and since cowboy prove to be another turning point
in my life. I excelled at the game losing it all. There probably was a serious problem. “The Collapsible
and this proved to be both a blessing point where I could have stopped Fool”.
and a curse. A blessing in that I was and salvaged a little of my life, but What happens in Vegas doesn’t
pretty much guaranteed a job in any if nothing else, “The Collapsible always stay in Vegas. I left that town
casino in the state. A curse in that Man” is consistent. six months later, a little wiser, a little
it left me unaccountable, uncaring, It all came crashing down in more humble, and a lot skinnier. Plus
and dissatisfied. These years are a December or 2003 when I was a few scars on my head to remind
blur to me. A casino hopping, booze arrested and charged with fraud in me of the “good time” that I had
fogged, drug induced blur. Frankly, a gaming establishment, cheating there. My destination, Peoria, AZ,
I’m amazed that I survived. for short. I’d gone to work drunk to enter in a rehab program. I wasn’t
In 1994 I was dealing cards at one night and was caught on there long though before I became
a casino in Wendover, NV when the camera giving the casino’s money disheartened and asked my brother
hostess from the Fun Bus sat at my away. They frown on that for some to buy me a plane ticket to come up
table. Her first words to me were, reason. The desert around Vegas is to Alaska. Almost immediately I
“Are you married?” I replied that I supposedly full of unmarked graves fell back into the lifestyle that had
wasn’t married. Her next words so of people who did what I did, but I become the bane of my existence.
startled me, that to this day I think got off lucky with just, a one to four Drinking and drugging.
of them and smile. She said, “Do sentence. Lucky me! I entered the “NewLife”
you want to be?” That woman’s My wife filed for divorce in Discipleship Training program at
name was Virginia and a year later January 2004 and it was then that I The Rescue Mission in the middle
she was to become my wife and best thought I’d reached bottom. Locked part of 2007. After what I like
friend. up, the love of my life kicking me to refer to as “false starts”, I find
After a somewhat rocky start, which to the curb, my life ruined (again), myself settling in, growing more
involved a drug arrest, probation, it couldn’t get any worse than this I comfortable with my sobriety, and
and the suspension of our gaming thought. I was wrong. more importantly, growing closer to
cards, we ended up in Mesquite, NV, Moms are a wonderful thing. God. I’ve still got a long way to go
where we both got jobs as dealers. Mine was always there for me. though, in both my sobriety, and my
Within six months we had both been Mine wrote me in prison and kept knowledge of Him, but at least now,
promoted to pit boss. We were on my spirits up. Mine put money on I’m traveling in the right direction.
the fast-track now, to success or my books. Mine never gave up on I’ve never been a religious person,
failure, depending on how we played me. And mine died of cancer, while and have always had trouble with
the hand. Given “The Collapsible instead of being at her side where the concept of a God of the universe.
Man’s” track record, I’ll let you take I should have been, I was serving But through my studies here at the
a guess as to how this little scenario a term in prison, for some stupid Mission, I’ve come to believe that
played out. Give up? mistake. It was the worst experience such a God is not only possible but
In 2002 my wife developed of my life, getting that call from my quite probable. I often pray that
chronic neck pain and later had brother. I was summoned to the He would reveal himself to me in
to have surgery. The outcome of prison chaplain’s office, and handed a way that I could recognize and
this was to give our household a the receiver. “Oh Mike, we lost our understand, so that I would know He
constant and steady stream of some mom”. My brother’s words cut to is present in my life and that He is
very potent pain pills, and it only the heart of me, and I still hurt to this God. By faith……………..
took a little while for the both of us day. I miss her so much.
to become hopelessly addicted. I was released from prison in
I’ve discovered that you can only October 2006, dropped off at the May God Bless You All
keep up a juggling act for so long Vegas bus station wearing prison
before the items you are juggling blues; the $23 “gate money” burning
begin falling to the pavement. a hole in my pocket. I had two “The Collapsible Man”
What had once started as a dream choices. Go to the halfway house
realized was quickly turning into a that they had arranged for me, or go
nightmare. Once again, gambling, to the bar. Halfway house or bar?
booze, and drugs were replacing Halfway house or bar? When I woke
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car, house payments, family, and up shivering on the cold pavement
work as priorities in my life. I was the next morning, I knew I had a
Living Memorials Do You Remember?
. . . .touch lives as they honor the memory If you do let me hear from you!
of loved ones and friends.
In Memory of My Jesus, I Love Thee
Esperanza M. Casas
Frank L. Casas My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine.
by Martha Cashen For Thee all the follies of sin I resign;
In Memory of My gracious Redeemer, My Savior art Thou,
Mickey Robert Dinsmore, II If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
by John and Donna Poff
In Memory of I love Thee, because Thou hast loved me,
Elvin Jackson And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
by Etta M. Schandelmeier I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow
In Memory of If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
Alvin Syren I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
by Mr. and Mrs. Sy Syren And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
In Memory of And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow
Dave Traver If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
by Etta M. Schandelmeier
In mansions of glory and endless delight,
In Honor of I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright,
Dr. Richard Newman I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow,
by Arlene Manook If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
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The End of an Era We no longer consider ourselves a rehabilitation
program or a recovery program. Most of the men who
come to our door have never been habilitated therefore
Name:________________________________________________
Address: ______________________________________________
Please send this coupon with your donations.
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Our Ministry of
Chapel Services for November
u e Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
e s c 1
r Is to
Calvary
Baptist
Church
The least 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The last God’s
Place
Abbot Loop
Community
Anchorage
Pilgrim
Anchorage
Gospel
Anchorage
Vineyard
First
Presbyterian
Wasilla
Assembly
The lost Church Nazarene Singers Fellowship Church of God
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
God’s Church First Anchorage Christ Calvary Lighthouse
“URGENT” Place of God of Assembly of Church of Community Church Christian
† Prayer 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
† Paper Towels New Light
Community
Calvary
Baptist
Attorney
Greg Grebe
Calvary
Baptist
Evangelical
Covenant
In His Name
Sandy
Change
Point
† 45 Gallon Trash Bags Church Church Church Church McCollum
† Fresh Meat
30
† Coffee God’s Nightly Services 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm
† Bathroom Tissue Place
† Laundry Soap
† Disposable Shavers
† Cleaning Supplies STATEMENT OF FAITH
† Dinner Napkins The Anchorage Gospel Rescue Mission is a Non-Profit, Non-Denominational
organization. We receive NO municipal, state or federal funds. We are not a United Way
† Shampoo Agency. Your financial support and In-Kind donations make it possible for us to provide
“URGENT” for the poor, needy and homeless people in our community. Also, your donations allow us
to provide a Drug and Alcohol Recovery program. All Donations are fully tax deductible.
We will give you a receipt for your donation.
Anchorage Gospel
Rescue Mission Anchorage Non-Profit Org.
ue
U.S. Postal
Emeritus:
Cliff Hodgins RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED
Rev. Willard leisy
Advisory Board:
Paul Kelly
MEMBER
Association of Gospel ue
sc Missions
re
An association of Rescue Ministries