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Greenland

Greenland is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world. Jesus said, “Go into all the world to the ends of the earth.” Surely Greenland is one of those places. It is the largest island in the world, and it is basically covered about two miles deep with ice and snow. It has only about thirty thousand people and most inhabitants are native Inuit. I flew in from Iceland, about a two-hour flight over the ice caps and awesome glaciers. The scenery is absolutely spectacular. I landed at the airport built along a fjord in Narsarsuaq. There was no town, just a few workers and Inuit people living near the hotel. There are thousands of glaciers in the water. It is indescribable beauty.

The mosquitoes are absolutely the wildest, maddest mosquitoes that I’ve ever encountered. They attack your face. Most mosquitoes will land on your arms or your legs, but these just zero in on your face. When you go outside you need a mosquito net around your head to protect your face from mosquitoes.

What a wonderful day: The walk with the cross was so beautiful in this land of flowers, streams, mountains, icebergs, snow, water- falls and wonderful smells. The sky changes to many colors. There is sun and then clouds, it rains, turns cool, soon the sun- rays break through again, it seems like paradise. The road is only
a couple miles long and then a trail winds up toward a glacier. I met a many people hiking along the way. There was a lovely American woman coming down the trail singing, “How Great Thou Art.” When we met we began to sing together. I witnessed to a lot of other people. There were some men from Norway, others
from the Netherlands. We ate and rested along the trailside. It was cold and windy with a light rain and fog. I took some beautiful photos of plants. There’s a special beauty about the small plants and flowers in the Arctic and Antarctic that is really wonderful. I saw more of my favorite plants, the lichen and moss. Tonight I had a wonderful Bible study from the last four chapters of Job. “Oh God, may I be pleasing in your eyes and may you find pleasure in my doing and being, for Your glory alone. I seek only your face and will, oh my Lord and my God.”

Narsar: Up early at 3:00 a.m. today. I went out and read the Bible and sang to God by the water and icebergs. Then, I took a small boat over to Qassiarsuk, where Eric the Red settled in 950. There are still some ruins at Qassiarsuk. I carried the cross where the first church in the western hemisphere was built about the year 1000. Hallelujah. I then took a boat back across the fjord to the ship and we set sail at 2:30 p.m. on a beautiful trip. Oh I thank you Jesus, the glory of this land is magnificent. It is one of the most beautiful places one could ever imagine.

After carrying the cross around town, a very special man
rushed up and wanted to know all about the Bible and about
Jesus. I spoke with him and he went away rejoicing. Finally,
I took another small boat, much like a banana boat, to
Julianehab. It was a beautiful trip. There were icebergs
everywhere; it was just awesome. We sailed along the fjords
to this colorful town of about 3,000 residents, the largest
town in south Greenland. A fur factory is located in Julianehab
and the people do a lot of fishing for seals. I had whale for
supper and another day, seal meat. It may seem strange to
some but for these people it is their entire way of life. As I
carried the cross around town, many of the native Inuit were
very rude, shouting, “Go away, you are crazy”. The Inuits
seem much more resistant to the cross than the Danes who
live in Greenland. It is unbelievable that so many of these native people are drunk all day. They are drunk in the morning, afternoon, and night. It is a town is full of drunks. The astounding thing is that it seems the women are worse than the men; they drink one beer after another.

I carried the cross around the entire area today. There were basically no roads between any of the towns in of Greenland, there are just roads around town, so I went from one edge to the other, from the port and the fish market to the last houses. At the port, workers were gutting and skinning the seals. The local Inuit were skinning the seals. Many would eat the heart, liver and eyeballs raw right on the spot. There were hundreds of skinned seals lying all around. Surely this would drive Green peace crazy. But life is viewed differently here. There is only the sea and a bit of land, there’s nothing really around here to farm and no other meat or livestock. Locals look at seals like the western person looks at the chickens, duck or beef. They think no more of eating seals than the westerners do of eating hamburgers at Burger King or McDonalds. It is strange for us, but life on this planet is different from place to place.

I did meet a few followers of Jesus today. Many of the people were angrily waving the cross away, several said outright that they did not like the cross here. These are the unfriendliest people to the cross that I have ever seen in the world. Once in awhile you would find someone who wanted to talk but often another local person would come up and try to drive him away. I felt that there was not so much a personal hatred towards me but there seemed to be a hatred for the Danish people who ruled the nation.

Greenland is one of the most beautiful places on earth with the greatest hurt and despairing peoples. I truly felt sad about the struggle of the people of this nation and their inner pain.

Pilgrim followers of Jesus,

Arthur and Denise Blessitt
Luke 18:1