Presbytery Embarks on Other Specialized Ministries Hospitality House
National missions committee of Presbytery of Yukon passed a resolution during spring 1957 meeting asking that the Board of National Missions appropriate money to buy or build a Hospitality Center in Alaska. Doors were opened that same year at 1406 Airport Way, Fairbanks, with three girls as residents.
Hospitality House came into being because of the need for a place for rural girls to live while looking for work in Fairbanks, going to and from school, or, while in town for medical care. Hospitality House was operated by the Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and was additionally supported by gifts from other churches and individuals. No girl was refused admittance because of race, creed or Alaska residency.
Hospitality House attempted to assist girls in making the cultural transition from rural to urban living through:
In 1969, Hospitality House foundress Mable Rasmussen wrote that within three months of opening its doors, Hospitality House proved that a home was definitely needed for girls who were coming in from the Arctic and from villages along the Yukon River.
"In addition to the need for a place to live, these girls needed training," Mable wrote. "They came from homes where there were no modern appliances, no electricity, no gas. Most were used to melting snow or ice for water and gathering willows for fuel. They lived mostly from the land.
"Much has been said about the life of people of the arctic as well as those in southeastern Alaska, in fact, much has been written, so I need not add to that.
"When we began Hospitality House we found it very difficult to get local people interested in the project. There were many who did feel there was a very real need for a place for these girls to stay, as well as for young people who came from the villages on their way to boarding school. They wandered around town and it was not long before some of them became involved in trouble of one kind or another," Mable added.
"Over the years we have met with many changes. Whole families of Native people began coming to town. The age of the children in need of assistance began dropping -- from 18 to 16 to 14," she explained.
Title to the property was transferred Dec-ember 6, 1974 to the Synod of Alaska, Northwest. In a 1989 letter, Neil Munro stated that for the past thirty years, the Presbyterian Hospitality House had served young people in Fairbanks. The Hospitality House program had changed over the years due to State of Alaska requirements concerning the treatment of pre-delinquent youth. The program had now developed into a system of group homes rather than one large institutional facility. By 1989, the program was no longer located at Airport Way. The property at Kellum Street was for sale.
A Presbyterian camping facility was developed in 1953 by Bert Bingle and others on a 60-acre hillside, with good beach frontage, on the south end of Harding Lake 45 miles from Fairbanks. It was called Harding Lake Camp.
The property was turned over to the Presbytery of Yukon corporation on April 7, 1961 by the Harding Lake Camp, Inc., and is now probably the most valuable piece of property owned by the Presbyterian Church in Alaska. Buildings include six bunkhouses, a main lodge, a manager’s house and chapel -- all well-built log structures. Also included are two wash houses, a cook’s cabin and other outbuildings. The camp will comfortably accommodate 80 guests plus staff.
The Bingle/Harding Lake camping program has always been, and continues to be, a special interest of the University Community Presbyterian Church in Fairbanks.
In 1966 the camp served the 4-H, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Campfire Girls, Military Protestants and Catholics, and Hospitality House, but by 1975, the camp was facing serious financial difficulties and was in need of much renovation, and restructuring of leadership.
It had been redesignated Bingle Memorial Camp about 1975, and had operated without formal bylaws for many years.
In 1976, the camp was operated by two committees that served at the pleasure of the Christian Education Committee of the Presbytery – the Program Committee and the Property Committee. The Program Committee recruited its members at large from churches participating in the ecumenical (Council of Churches) camping program, namely First Presbyterian, College Presbyterian, Methodists, Episcopalians and Catholic churches, plus a Protestant group from Eielsen AFB.
The Property Committee was composed of members from the Presbyterian churches in the Fairbanks area.
Presbytery took a renewed interest in Bingle Memorial Camp about 19___. A purely Presbyterian camp program was no longer feasible, but this did not preclude Presbytery from maintaining its investment in a valuable piece of property which did afford Presbyterian young people, as well as others, with good camp facilities.
Formal corporation dissolution papers were filed with the State of Alaska on July 8, 1977.
While we are on the subject of Presbyterian camping opportunities in Alaska, we should mention King’s Lake Camp, located near Wasilla. King’s Lake dates back to 1938, when Mr. and Mrs. Clyde King gave three acres of their original homestead for the purpose of providing a camp for the youth of Alaska.
The camp is situated on approximately 300 acres of land and at one time had been used by over 1,500 youth each summer. Some of the groups using the facilities included the Alaska Crippled Children’s Association, Camp Fire Girls, 4-H, YMCA, the Presbytery of Yukon, Lutheran Churches, American Baptist Churches, the First Christian Church, and youth from Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson.
A new 58’ x 72’ recreation hall was dedicated on May 16, 1965, including two ten-foot porches, a large room for a dispensary, and a summer camp store. The main hall, about 36’ by 60’, featured a six-foot stone-faced fireplace.
The camp included a 40 by 60 foot dining hall with an adjoining modern kitchen, a cooler, a freezer, a recreation building, an administration cabin, three staff cabins, a caretaker’s home, boat and swimming docks, 18 sleeping cabins and two modern wash houses.
The camp accommodated 100 to 150 campers at a time. There were swimming and boating areas, fishing, hiking, and worship opportunities.
King’s Lake Camp was organized as a non-profit Alaskan corporation whose Board of Directors including representatives of the user groups as well as individual members from among the citizens of the Greater Anchorage Area and the Matanuska Valley.
(People know King’s Lake today as Meier’s Lake Camp -- owned and operated for several years by the Episcopalian church, and now owned by the World Wide Church of God.)
In 1991, the session of University Community Presbyterian Church brought to presbytery a proposal to use a portion of the moneys derived from the sale of the Hospitality House property to finance needed expenses for Bingle Camp. They were supported in this request by the First Presbyterian Church of Fairbanks.
Presbytery approved a loan request from the camp for $15,000 to be repaid from moneys expected from the Bicentennial Fund. The purpose of the loan was to complete the winterization of the camp’s retreat house. Some $50,000 was later directed to Bingle Camp as was an additional $35,000 to finish the retreat center.
The Prison Ministry in the Fairbanks area is incontrovertibly intertwined with the name of Mable Rasmussen – founder of Hospitality House, yes, but also longtime and current chaplain for the Prison Ministry program of First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks. The Rev. Mrs. Rasmussen was ordained in 1987 specifically to meet the changing requirements of the State Department of Corrections’ prison chaplaincy program, for which she had been a volunteer since 1981. Today, at age 90, Reverend Rasmussen still serves as chaplain and counselor for the inmates incarcerated at the Fairbanks Correctional Center. Mable spends about 30 hours per week at the prison and has trained something like 200 volunteers. Just this year, however, she is turning over administrative duties in order to concentrate exclusively on counseling.
Prison Ministry in the Anchorage area currently is focusing on the work of Mary Magdalene Homes Alaska, Inc. – a ministry to women seeking to leave prostitution. This is an ecumenical project but brainchild of the Eagle River Presbyterian Church. Several women of the Eagle River church, including Ginnie Bowers, Teri Inch, Alice Meyers, Carol Bonney, Eileen Halverson and others, have worked on the project since 1996. At a special meeting held July 10, 1996, Presbytery of Yukon endorsed the project and granted approval for the project steering committee to seek funding from denominational grant programs to implement the project. The object of the project is to provide adult female prostitutes the resources necessary for successful transition to a more productive lifestyle. These resources might food, housing, clothing, and opportunities for personal, emotional and spiritual growth. Additionally, access to vocational training, education, medical, dental, and counseling services may be sought.
The long range vision is to obtain a home, in a residential neighborhood, large enough to house four to six women and one house manager. The idea would be for women to reside there for up to two years while obtaining education, skills and resources needed for gaining control of there lives.
The initial program has been one of support for women while in prison and shortly after release. The Rev. Dianne O’Connell served as facilitator for the “in-house” support group during 1997 and Sandra Wagenius facilitated the group during 1998.
It was reported during the fall 1998 meeting of Yukon Presbytery that Presbyterian Women had pledgted $26,000 to the project!
The Division of Higher Education, Board of Christian Education, United Presbyterian Church in the USA completed a preliminary study of need and opportunity regarding a Presbyterian Campus Ministry in Alaska in October of 1960.
The Presbytery of Yukon has traditionally supported both the ministries at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks campus, as well as the University of Alaska, Anchorage campus and at the campus of Alaska Pacific University.
Mary Jane Landstrom was among those instrumental in initiating the Anchorage program.