Arrival in Verkhnimbatsk- June 11th

We arrived in Verkhnimbatsk on Wednesday morning at about 5am. At the other villages the boat pulled up to the barge like station, but not in Verkhnimbatsk.

The boat we traveled on was called the Professor Matrosov. In the Winter time the boats are stationed at Yeniseysk. We met the second in command and he told us all about it.


Instead of pulling up to the station, the passagengers getting off had to board one of the life boats. This whole procedure took quite a while because they had to make quite a few trips and unload a lot of cargo. It felt weird climbing down the ladder into the lifeboat and I am sure my little girl would not have enjoyed it at all.





The village of Verkhnimbatsk is about 500 people and is in the middle of nowhere. In the Summer time you can get there by boat in two days from Krasnoyarsk. Or you could take a plane from Krasnoyarsk to Turukhansk and then wait for the weekly helicopter. In the Winter time you can also get the weekly helicopter or take a Winter road for 5 days. We planned to stay five days in Verkhnimbatsk. But on our first day I was talking with a local in the shop and discovered that a special helicopter was going to Kellog the next day because a Ket festival was on.




This is Vladimir. He's the local policeman in Verkhnimbatsk and oversees several villages in the district, including Kellog. Mika knew him through previous contacts and his trip last year. Vladimir is of Finnish descent. Vladimir arranged the house of a relative for us to stay in. We thought we would get to know him more and that he might have a part to play, but it turns out that this was not meant to be.


A house in Verkhnimbatsk. Russian village houses are actually split into two dwellings. So one dwelling is only half the size of the house you see.


Some merchants came through on the boat and stopped in Verkhnimbatsk for a few days to sell clothes in this make shift market.



A shop in Verkhnimbatsk.


The most significant thing to happen while we were in Verkhnimbatsk for one day was a meeting I had in one of the shops. I walked into a small shop to discover that the lady working there was Ket. There were not very many Ket people in the village, at a guess there would only be a handful. I got talking with a Ket woman named Tamara. I talked with her about the Ket culture and about God's love for them. I explained that I knew that they had lost their reindeer. Tamara wanted to know how I knew this. I explained that I knew from research and a Russian made documentary I had seen. Tamara responded that this was an awful documentary. I understand her perspective, in that it is not nice for a culture's dirty laundry to be hung out for the world to see. I still think the documentary was largely accurate though. Tamara asked me what languages I spoke. My answer- Russian and English and no I did not speak Ket. Tamara was bitter and angry with me and said that I did not care about her culture and that I simply wanted to come and see a dying nation. This hurt me a lot. I explained to Tamara that I have been interested in Siberian Peoples for 19 years now, and that I am genuinely interested in them and that I had brought an Evenki reindeer herder with me. But she was too hurt and bitter herself to really want to listen to me.

I walked away very sad feeling rejected and also that she had rejected Jesus' love for her. When I arrive back at the house we were staying in Yura was standing in the kitchen. As I began to tell him the story, I began to cry. It really hit me. Then our team got together for a time of prayer. I was overcome with grief for this lady and for the Ket nation and I began to weep uncontrollably. I could not even speak. After some time I fought back the tears. I was afraid. I told God that if I experienced that same grief in Kellog that I would be a broken man by the end of the trip. After fighting back the tears I began to praise God with a Russian song. We then layed hands on Yura and prayed for him but also for the Ket and Evenki and all other Siberian nations. Yura stood in the gap for them as we prayed. The Holy Spirit overcame me and gave me the words to pray in Russian, better than I ever had before. I could not even pray in English. It was a powerful prayer. God filled me with hope for the Siberian nations by showing me Yura, a man who was filled with love and passion and had responded to Jesus.

The grief was simply too hard for me to carry. But God carries this grief with him all the time. Only God can carry grief and hope at the same time. He allowed me to see the depths of his grief for a few minutes and then gave me hope again. This has altered my perspective on Siberian nations significantly.