Location Tour
History of the Apostolic Assembly of Jesus Christ
It began in the Tri-Cities area of the State of Washington during the summer of 1975. A burden put upon the hearts of our Pastors, Buck and Alice Martin. Go to Alaska and start a church. As that burden grew more and more heavy, initial plans to leave in the spring of 1976 fell away and Buck and Alice knew they had to get ready to go.
On September 9, 1975, they began the long journey from Washington State, up through Canada via the Alcan Highway (at that time, still a very rough gravel road). They knew little about Alaska, believing it to be nothing but snow and ice. The Alaska Milepost map showed three large towns (that we now call cities) – Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau. After much prayer and fasting, it was not one of those towns where God directed them to go, but to a more remote area called the Kenai Peninsula. Arriving in Anchorage on September 18th, they knew that to buy land and build a church, they’d have to work. There was no work on the Kenai Peninsula then, so they prayed and fasted for God to give them work wherever he wanted them at that time. Although the Alaska pipeline project was in full swing in Alaska by then, Buck was given a job working on the Providence Hospital’s expansion in Anchorage.
The first day on the job, Buck began singing his beloved gospel songs and evangelizing to everyone who would listen. He brought home a man for lunch that he’d just met that day. The next night, this same man, Hap, and his wife, Nancy, came over again and Buck and Alice sang and Alice taught them from the Bible. That very night, in a little trailer’s living room, Nancy received the Holy Ghost according to Acts 2:38-39, while kneeling beside the couch. The Apostolic Assembly of Jesus Christ was born!
Those first few weeks, God added four more, filling them with the Holy Ghost in the small trailer, including filling Hap with the precious spirit. Each one was baptized in Jesus’ Name wherever they could find water – even using an indoor swimming pool at one place and another time using the pool at the Captain Cook Hotel. It is clear why God did not allow our pastors to wait until the spring of 1976, He already had souls waiting!
From such humble beginnings – a tiny trailer – God blessed, adding souls and providing work for the needed finances to make the move to the Kenai Peninsula, where the first building was constructed in the small town of Soldotna. God fulfilled the burden placed upon the hearts of our pastors in 1975 and 35 years later, His blessings have caused the expansion of our church two more times from the original small building. The first structure, to which a larger sanctuary was added, now houses the Sunday School, and the third structure, the largest log church in the State of Alaska, houses the sanctuary, fellowship hall and full kitchen facilities. The Kenai Peninsula is no longer remote and the three small towns are now larger cities. Alaska is not all snow and ice, and the Kenai Peninsula is a beautiful spot in all of God’s creation. This work, the Apostolic Assembly of Jesus Christ, is an ongoing labor of love by pastors who are still working fulltime in God’s vineyard, a work that will continue until we all leave this life to be at home with our Jesus eternally.