A new church is rising on Nunivak Island, Alaska. Meet some of the Christian elders in the village of Mekoryuk.
It’s never been an easy feat to construct a large building on Nunivak Island, Alaska. It still isn’t. That’s why this year’s work on the new Mekoryuk Covenant Church—which will be completed by Samaritan’s Purse volunteers over four months—is such a milestone for the Native Alaskan community.
Samaritan’s Purse teams are working June through September to complete the new church building. This photo marks progress in early July.
Before planes, the Bering Sea’s shallow and shifting currents surrounding the island proved daunting to larger oceangoing vessels. Nunivak’s first trading post was established quite late in its history—in 1920. The first small school, at the settlement of Nash Harbor, came in 1923. The first church building dates to the 1930s. It wasn’t easy for the Cup’ig people to get outside materials carried in, and driftwood was not always available.
In 1957, a cinder runway was laid near the village of Mekoryuk. The second church building went up there soon after in the early 1960s. This was a time of rapid change for the culture, and certainly the airstrip played a helpful role.
But it is a small runway, not an airport, and pilots need visibility to make the sharp descent. Nunivak—with its winds and clouds—is not known for good weather, even in the summers, much less during the long, dark winters. So, you have to really want to go Nunivak to get there, even today. And flying—whether for moving people or transporting building materials—is not cheap, which limits new construction in the community.
Newly arriving volunteers pray with those departing Nunivak Island. Samaritan’s Purse planes are making two trips from the Alaska mainland per week to transport personnel and materials.
Even so, the third church structure in Nunivak’s history is rising at the edge of Mekoryuk. In fact, in less than a month it will be finished and dedicated to God’s glory. Despite rough weather and many logistical hurdles, our work there is going well. Samaritan’s Purse volunteer teams serving there in waves since June are keeping the construction on schedule, all while completing home repair projects in the community and sharing the Gospel.
Excitement is growing among the island’s 200 residents. The new building will be the hub of many gatherings—worship, marriages, funerals, celebrations—for perhaps the next 100 years.
The people of Mekoryuk, which is now Nunivak’s only year-round settlement after Nash Harbor was abandoned in the early 1970s, are proud of their unique language (Cup’ig) and the island’s culture of hunting and fishing. They also cherish the presence of this church in their community. The congregation’s faithful core of older adults care deeply about the Gospel and also about the younger generations. Dozens of children and youth attend Sunday events, and their hunger for God bodes well for the future of this place.
Profiles in Faith
To understand a church, you have to know the members of the congregation, the body. The Mekoryuk Covenant Church is made up of men and women who’ve struggled and overcome in a unique environment. They truly love the Lord and each other. Profiled below are just a few of the Christian elders who call Nunivak home. There are many others who have testimonies, and much more could be added to these brief stories.
Samson and Lydia Weston
When you enter Samson and Lydia Weston’s home, you quickly notice at least two signs: “He who kneels before God can stand before anyone” and “Amazing Grace.” These few words express a great deal about their lives.
Samson Weston was struggling with serious health issues and then silently called out to God for help nearly 40 years ago. “Something changed” at that moment, he said, and he’s been walking with Lord ever since.
Eight decades ago, Samson was born at his family’s “fish camp”—one of numerous summer fishing sites—on the southern part of Nunivak Island. Many parents could not afford to feed their family back then, he said, so adoptions were common. “It was hard, I hear,” Samson said. He was soon taken in by a Christian family, the Westons of Nash Harbor, who would later become missionaries to other Native Alaskans.
Samson did well in school and left Nunivak for Mount Edgecombe High in Sitka. He was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs right after graduating (1964) and served many years in the maintenance supervision department for Alaska’s Kuskokwim Delta schools. He married Lydia in 1966.
Now Samson serves on the church board, but before 1985 he hardly ever attended worship services. Lydia, on the other hand, has followed Jesus Christ since the day as a young girl that she received Him as her Lord and Savior. She prayed for her husband for years. They were both startled by the way God answered her.
Samson Weston drives his boat around the island and along its rivers.
In the mid-1980s, a doctor told Samson he needed a heart operation. He was anxious about it and asked what would happen if he didn’t go through with the procedure. As he remembers it, the doctor told him, “There’ll be curtains for you!”
So, Samson had the operation in San Francisco and came back to Nunivak, but there were some complications. He was later flown over to Bethel and thought he was going to die. He asked the attending doctor, “Do you believe in God?” The doctor said, “Yes, I do.”
At that point, Samson, who had heard the Gospel as a child, prayed to the Lord in his heart, confessed his sins , and asked Him for forgiveness. “That’s when everything changed for me,” he said.
Samson Weston, at left, has been helping unload Samaritan’s Purse planes as they arrive with volunteers and materials.
A faithful Christian for nearly 40 years now, Samson helped spearhead the recent initiative to construct a new church. The second church “wasn’t quite built the way it should have been built because of the materials available at that time,” he said. When Samaritan’s Purse agreed to construct a new church this year, it was an answer to many prayers—for safety, for space, for a new start. The modern, larger building, with its Triodetic foundation and other high-quality elements, should stand solid and accommodate the needs of the congregation for years to come.
Samson especially looks forward to the church’s new classrooms for children. “I am really proud of that Sunday school program. The kids are into it,” he said. Lydia too has a heart for children and helps translate curriculum from English to Cup’ig at the Nunawarmiut school.
Samson and Lydia hosted and fed our advance team late this spring. Samson is also eager to help out when Samaritan’s Purse planes land twice weekly at the airstrip close to his home.
“Every morning I look at the new church from our garage window,” Lydia said. “God heard our prayer.”
Prudy Olrun
“Miss Prudy,” as she’s known today, was born in 1940 on Nunivak Island. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother remarried a man from Nash Harbor, where the family lived in a small, semi-subterranean home—a dugout structure of the traditional Nunivak style. She recalls as a girl sitting on a reindeer hide for a mattress and listening as her parents brought their large family together to pray and sing in Cup’ig.
Prudy Olrun exudes an infectious joy and thankful spirit.
“I knew they were prayer warriors,” Prudy remembers. “When there was church going on, we all had to go.”
Her mother and stepfather passed away early, and Prudy’s later childhood was spent shuttling back and forth between Nash Harbor and Mekoryuk via her brothers’ dog-sled team. Her older siblings helped raise her.
“I think I was rotten,” she said of herself as a child. That seems at odds with her sweet personality today, but it’s best to take her word for it.
Ed Kiokun, Prudy’s son-in-law, stands in the high grass at the site of his grandparents’ semi-subterranean dugout at Nash Harbor. Prudy grew up nearby with her family.
As a young woman, Prudy married Daniel Olrun, who was the love of her life for 60 years, until his passing in 2020—on her birthday. He too came from a family of faith. Prudy fondly recalls Daniel’s mother working with her and many of the other village children to practice Bible verses on Saturday in preparation for Sunday services. Daniel’s grandfather was also one of the leaders in the church of his day.
Prudy and Daniel drifted from the faith of their parents when, early in their marriage, they moved to Bethel on mainland Alaska. They got into alcohol, and “we couldn’t stop,” Prudy said. They would attend church only rarely.
Prudy has weathered many of life’s storms and perseveres in her faith in Jesus Christ.
After one night of drinking at a relative’s home, Daniel somersaulted their car into a ditch as the couple drove home along an icy road the next morning. Glad to be alive, they decided to quit drinking. “It wasn’t easy,” Prudy said, “but with God all things are possible. Nothing is too hard for Him. Wow! New life begins.”
Daniel and Prudy were never the same again. Eventually, they returned to Nunivak and continued raising their family in the church. Daniel later served as Mekoryuk’s mayor. Prudy is today a proud mom, grandmom, great-grandmom, and great-great grandmom.
Two of her children, Daniel Jr., and Bea are active members and leaders in the Mekoryuk Covenant Church. Bea and her husband, Edward Kiokun, who is the tribal council president, work with the congregation’s youth. “They do a beautiful job,” Prudy said.
Though she’s had her share of trials and sorrows, Prudy comes across as joyful and as thankful as a person can be. Her faith in Jesus Christ leads her to be grateful in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18). She said, “I thank God each day for supplying our needs.”
At a worship service this summer, she sang “I’ll Fly Away” with Samaritan’s Purse staffer Russ Richardson. He said, “This is absolute assurance of salvation. We at Samaritan’s Purse want everyone in the world to hear and enjoy this confidence, that they’ll know where they are going when they die.”
Prudy knows for certain where her eternal home will be. “It will be worth it all when we see Jesus,” she said.
Prudy Olrun and Russ Richardson sing “I’ll Fly Away” at a church service this summer.
Please pray as our teams continue this church construction project on Nunivak Island over the next few weeks in advance of the fast-approaching winter. Pray also for the people of the church—young and old—to grow strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Prudy Olrun drives her four-wheeler around town past the older church building.
