Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Nov 12/99) - Mark and Carmen Van-Vleit are on a mission.

The young couple have just returned to the Arctic from British Columbia to help organize the New Beginnings Christian Fellowship Church, and they held their first service on Sunday in the Aurora College gymnasium.

"We want to plant a church that's going to reach the community," said Mark. "So many of the youth here need hope and vision and purpose, and we want to share the love of Jesus Christ with them and help bring peace into their lives."

At age 29, Mark may be the youngest pastor in the Arctic. He described New Beginnings as a non-denominational church open to everyone, but he expects his and Carmen's own youth and their approach to faith will make it particularly appealing to Inuvik's younger residents.

"We're really into contemporary music and our vision is to have music play a big role in our worship," he said. "We're younger and have a lot of instruments and we want to reach out to everybody -- young people are especially more inclined to go to church if it's more exciting, more upbeat and more radical."

Mark said he also hopes to be able to relate to Inuvik residents through his own personal experiences, that include overcoming a substance addiction.

"I was into drugs, into pretty much everything," he said. "I started at 13 and stopped at 23, when I began dedicating my life to the Lord.

"My background is drug abuse and learning disabilities and an attention deficit disorder," he added, "so I can relate to the kids here and tell them what I'm doing and why -- I'm a younger-looking guy, too, and can fit in with the young crowd."

Happily for Mark, he said he's also spent a decade of his life in the North, and it was here in Inuvik that he met and then married Carmen Jones five years ago, and where they began turning their lives around.

Carmen went on to study as a minister in training through the Higher Dimension Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and then the pair moved to British Columbia where Mark trained and was ordained a minister through the Christ for the Nation Institute in Surrey. He described their return to the Arctic Circle as unexpected.

"We had no intention to come back to Inuvik and were all set up in B.C.," he said. "But the Lord pointed us in this direction and we do have a great love for the people here."

Backed by the Abbotsford City Fellowship Church, and aided by Brad and Leah Gray who are visiting from B.C., the Van-Vliets are faced with the daunting task of beginning a new church in Inuvik while also settling into the community and holding down jobs to support themselves and their two children. Carmen said, however, that coming back to Inuvik feels like coming home, especially since she's working closely in the church with her sister, Tammy Rogers.

But is there even room for a new church in Inuvik?

"So long as there're people in the community that need saving, need change, need help and need to know the love of God, then there's room for another church," said Mark, who described New Beginning as rooted in Pentecostal Protestantism with charismatic and evangelical leanings. "We want the other churches to know that we're not here to create divisions but rather to help, and to work alongside them."

Sunday's service attracted a modest turnout of 28 people, the majority of them youth, but also held the promise of good things to come.