There’s a new road into Barrow, Alaska

Published 10:44 pm Thursday, August 30, 2007

On a Sunday morning last fall, Cathy Parker was getting ready for church when one of her teen-age sons called her to the family room to watch a segment on ESPN about a football team in Barrow, Alaska.

It was an interesting segment because football in Barrow is as rare as ice hockey in Jamaica. It’s not easy to play football where grass doesn’t grow, where on average the mercury doesn’t rise above freezing 247 days out of the year, where the practice field is just a player’s jog to the Arctic Ocean. In fact, only a few people out of the entire town of less than 5,000 had ever played football before the Barrow Whalers’ inaugural season in 2006.

The idea to begin a football team in that community was planted in the minds of teen-agers by famous NFL Hall of Famer Larry Csonka, who traveled to Barrow as a guest speaker for the high school. Later when school superintendent Trent Blankenship surveyed the student body to determine what activities would help them remain interested in school, he was surprised at the largest response: form a football team.

In 2006, the Barrow Whalers donned pads for the first time. Mark Voss was named head coach and put on a coach’s whistle for the first time in 23 years. He surrounded himself with mostly inexperienced men who wanted to make a difference in the lives of more than 40 young men who needed direction and hope.

Could football really give the teen-agers of Barrow hope and direction? Over 50 percent of the students in Barrow drop out of school. When they do, they have no where to go, literally. Barrow is only accessible by boat or air. For 67 days a year, the sun doesn’t even rise. The town has dealt with teen-age depression, teen-age suicide, and even murder. Drug and alcohol use among Barrow’s youth is common.

The experimental football program caught the eye of ESPN. The show did a two-part segment on the northernmost football team in America. When Cathy came into the family room and began watching this segment with her sons, she couldn’t believe the players were literally having to play on permafrost, the Arctic landscape comprised mostly of rocky soil. Their desire to play and learn the game under such conditions brought tears to her eyes.

The Parker family loves football. Cathy’s husband Carl played for the Lowndes County Vikings in Valdosta in the early ’80s and went on to play for the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Cincinnati Bengals. As offensive coordinator for Bartram Trail High School in Jacksonville, Fla., Carl has used the sport to teach teen-agers, including his three sons, many important lessons about life.

On that Sunday morning, Cathy Parker’s sons had no idea that God was about to use football to teach their family and an entire nation a lesson about faith, hope, and love. After watching more of the ESPN segment, the family loaded up and left for church.

That morning during worship, Cathy kept seeing those players from Barrow, Alaska, playing ball on the hard, rocky surface that stays frozen for most of the year. During that service, God gave Cathy an Arctic-size vision: give those Barrow Whalers a football field, as in artificial turf.

Laughter — that’s what Cathy got from her three sons when she announced to them after church what God wanted her to do. One of them said, “That’s just impossible.” They were more right than they knew. Just how do you move 500,000 tons of material into a town that has no roads leading into it? This was just one of many unanswerable questions that awaited Cathy as she began to do research for her project. Where would the money come for such a Herculean project? Cathy’s a smart woman. She works in banking. She understands financial matters and has excellent people skills. God used these skills in addition to her husband’s connections with his full-time job as the assistant recreation director for St. Johns County in Jacksonville to make the project take off. Carl had just sent out bids for an artificial turf field for the county. Cathy knew she already had a base of contacts for prices and information.

While the project was in its infancy, Cathy was sharing a devotion one morning with her three sons and one daughter. She opened her Bible to Acts 10 and was reading a story about Cornelius, a Roman soldier known for his charitable acts and his faith in God. God wanted to use Cornelius to teach Paul that God doesn’t show favoritism, “but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.” Acts 10:35b (NIV) God sent others ahead of Cornelius to meet Peter and prepare the way for their meeting.

Cathy explained to her children: “This is God. This is what He’ll do for us. He’ll go before us and prepare the way for us on our turf project.” Cathy says that’s exactly what God did every single time.

“There were always obstacles but God went before us and prepared the hearts of people even before we arrived,” says Cathy. “As far as logistics and architecture were concerned, we had the very best in the business to help us, even after being told by one logistics company that moving the material to Barrow could not be done.”

Undeterred and faithful, Cathy believed this project would come together in God’s timing and in God’s way. Remember, football in Barrow was designed to be a tool to help these teen-agers overcome social issues. Cathy believed that God was going to use Project Alaska Turf to teach more than x’s and o’s, too. God was going to use this project to bring hope, real hope of the living Lord, to the teen-agers and other people in Barrow.

That’s the reason the entire team from Barrow and their coaching staff were invited to Jacksonville last May. Cathy’s plan was to have players from Bartram Trail High School befriend players from Barrow while coaches befriended coaches. The Bartram Trail head football coach is a Christian. Cathy knew the coaches from Barrow would be influenced by him and other coaches while they were in Jacksonville. Cathy told the Barrow coaches if they could get to Jacksonville, the rest of their expenses would be covered. The team did not have the resources. Yet at the last minute, an Alaska businessman stepped forward with $40,000 and paid their way to Jacksonville. God was going before them and preparing the way, just as He prepared the way for Cornelius.

While the coaches were in Jacksonville, Fruit Cove Baptist Church invited them and all the players to a Sunday service. At the end of the service, the pastor extended an invitation for people to receive Christ. Brian Houston, an African American offensive line coach for the team, responded to the pastor’s invitation. He took the pastor’s hand and told him he was coming to give his life to the Lord because he’d never seen the love of the Lord the way he had seen it on his trip to Jacksonville.

That night Coach Houston returned to the church to be baptized. Before the baptism, Coach Houston called his grandmother in Alabama and told her of his decision. She could be heard screaming for joy over the phone. She said she had been praying for him for years. Through her prayers, Brian Houston’s grandmother had gone before him, preparing the way for his baptism.

Three months after these boys returned to Barrow, they began practicing football in the crisp August air. During this time Cathy Parker continued to work the phones and the Internet, speaking with company executives, logistic companies, and the artificial turf company in Duluth. The total cost of Project Alaska Turf had escalated to more than she ever imagined, $800,000. Yet the field her sons told her was impossible to build and logistic companies told her was impossible to deliver slowly came together. With every phone call and every contact, God was going ahead of her and preparing the way.

Not only did the Barrow Whalers get their field; they got their field in time to play their first football game on Aug. 17. Cathy Parker was there to receive her well-deserved praise from the team and from the city.

By kickoff, Project Alaska Turf had received attention from television crews from around the country. Rarely is a sporting event in Alaska national news, much less one in a town of less than 5,000. Yet there was Cathy Parker on the NBC Nightly News being lifted on the shoulders of the Barrow Whalers as they walked onto their new turf. “When you win tonight,” she said, “don’t throw me into the Arctic.”

Last year when the Whalers won their first game on the last game home game of the season, they celebrated by jumping into the Arctic Ocean. One player said they were so happy after winning their first game they didn’t even feel cold when they jumped in.

Even though temperatures were dipping into the 30s by game night, they didn’t feel the cold of the August evening either, not with Cathy Parker sitting high on their shoulders. All these players felt the warmth of her love and the love of hundreds of people from across America who sacrificed money, time, and effort, not just to build them a field, but to communicate to these youth from Barrow that they are important, that their lives are precious, that they matter to America, that they matter to God, so they should make every effort to live up to the potential they were created for.

As Cathy walked the streets of Barrow and met the people of the town, she was greeted like a celebrity. In talking with people she discovered something which strengthened her faith. Years ago, missionaries traveled to Barrow but had struggled to reach many people or change the social conditions that plagued the town. Many still rely on ancient religious systems where the advice of witch doctors is trusted more than the Bible.

While these missionaries struggled to make a great impact, they succeeded in building a core of believers who have been praying for years that God would send someone to help them, someone to show their youth there is more to life than drugs, alcohol, and dropping out of school. Some were telling Cathy, “God sent you.” It occurred to Cathy that God had gone before her to Barrow years ago through missionaries to prepare the way for Project Alaska Turf.

If football in Barrow is as rare as ice hockey in Jamaica, then ProGrass Artificial Turf football field in Barrow is as rare as a skating rink in the middle of the Sahara Desert. What’s also rare is the willingness of people to accept visions from God that seem impossible to accomplish. Cathy isn’t the only one who receives them. It’s much easier to laugh, like Sarah in the book of Genesis and like Cathy’s sons, at God’s visions, than to respond with faith. We say, “That’s impossible,” and the vision fades. We forget that Jesus said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” Luke 18:17 (NIV)

Today a new road has been built into Barrow, Alaska. It’s not a road built over permafrost. It’s not the road down to the new ProGrass Turf field. It’s not a road for trucks or snowmobiles. The new road to Barrow is the one made to the hearts of the players, coaches, and townspeople. It’s the road that’s leading people to discover the hope, faith, and love of Jesus. For Cathy Parker, that’s the real vision God gave her in church that day. The new football field was just the tool God used to transport this message to Barrow, Alaska, and the Whalers of Barrow High.

(Funds are still needed to finish paying for this project. Donations can be made online at www.projectalaskaturf.com)

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The Rev. Michael Helms is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Moultrie.