written by Kraig Josiah Rice
Everett Bachelder settled in Nome, Alaska, before Alaska was a
state of the U.S.A. At that time it was a mission field. He wanted to
win people for Christ in obedience to the Lord's Great Commission and
because God had placed a burden upon his heart.
In a letter dated September 25, 1947, containing the letterhead of
Nome Gospel Mission, he wrote the following to George Phillips,
Brother Loveless here is also greatly interested in this bottle
evangelism; and will assist us in getting them over to Siberia. He has
made several suggestions for he has been holding forth the Word here
in Nome for five years. The general drift of the current past here is
directly over to Siberia, especially in the Spring, for in the Spring
the winds also go that way. The suggestion is to place the bottles
full of the gospel in many places on the ice out here; for it will all
be frozen over about the last of October. The bottles can be put in
different crevasses, and between ice floes out from Nome beach here.
Then at break-up in the Spring most all of them will be drifted, Lord
willing, over to the Siberian Coast. The Siberian Coast is only about 150 miles from here.
A month ago eskimos came over here to Nome from Siberia in their skin
boats. About three boatloads with about thirty of them. They could
readily read the Russian tracts, Gospels, Testaments, and Gospel Magazines I gave them,
...about February, my plans are to return up here to Eskimo Land, and
that will be a good season to put the gospel bottles in the ice.
Meanwhile, brother Loveless will receive the package you send, and at
this same address. If the opening comes he will get some bottles out in the water before freeze-up.
Following you all in prayer; as the Word is going forth to many lands
in this needy time; and in this good way.
In the Name of our Dear Saviour:
"Dear brother in the Lord: In the Name of our Wonderful Saviour
and Lord we greet you.....
what a blessing it was to read further of the work the Lord has given
you to do for Himself. Only in eternity will it ever be revealed the
souls saved and blessed by this ministry of tracts in bottles and the
balloons. How wonderful that they have entered into so many countries
and states. On this last trip I floated some down the big river in
coffee bottles; and they may be carried a long way.
- Oh, that some might be saved through this written Word.
'Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.'
Ecclesiastes 11:1
E. Bachelder."
In starting his new missionary bottle evangelism ministry Everett
faced two major problems. One problem was not knowing the ocean
currents off the coast of Alaska that would partially determine where
the missionary bottles would float to, and the other problem was the
massive amounts of ice and snow that seemed to prohibit him from
floating the bottles. He took these problems to the Lord in prayer
knowing that God was greater than any problem be faced. Then he
launched out on faith. He packed an ice sled pulled by a dog team
(later by a snow mobile) and headed for the coast. He launched his
bottles and then returned home.
One of these missionary bottles in southern waters was found by an
employee of the U.S. government. This man had records, charts, and
maps sent to Everett from the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey showing
the ocean currents in reference to Nome, Alaska. The northern currents
were perfect for missionary bottle evangelism purposes. The current
charts indicated that bottles would either float south into the
Japanese Current to Asia or would float north through the Bering
Strait into the Arctic Ocean.
He used mayonnaise, peanut butter, and ketchup bottles as well as
fruit containers and plastic floats. He manufactured his missionary
bottles during the long and cold winter Alaskan months. Inside each
bottle he stuffed a response card and tracts printed in 15 languages.
He floated his missionary bottles in two different ways. One way was
to place the bottles onto a snow sled and transport them to a section
of frozen ocean along the Bering Sea and deposit them in ice caves
during the month of April every year. When the snow melted the
missionary bottles floated into open ocean. The other way was for him
to contact captains of ships that anchor nearby. The captains
volunteered to take the missionary bottles to sea and drop them in the
ocean far from shore. A captain of a tanker, a freighter, a submarine,
and a destroyer have helped take the missionary bottles to sea. The
captain of the destroyer escort launched Everett's missionary bottles
near the Kamchatka Peninsula bordering northeast Russia.
He had many helping him in his work for the Lord. His wife, Mina, and
their eight children and some friends helped stuff and pray over the
bottles, and other friends went with Everett onto the ice helping
control the snow sleds loaded with their valuable cargo as they
headed for the ice caves. It was a lot of work but it was worth it.
He was able to launch with the help of God 30,000 missionary bottles
in 30 years. He received replies from Venezuela, New Guinea,
Singapore, Norway, Ireland, and Africa just to name a few.
One missionary bottle did not float very far. It floated to the north
of the Seward Peninsula in Alaska. There was an old Alaskan Eskimo
there. The primitive Eskimo custom there, when one was old, was for
him to go by himself onto the ice, and allow himself to freeze to
death. This old Eskimo did just that. He did not want to be a bother
to his children and family in his old age. But God loved this man and
it was not His will for him to die before he received the gospel. The
Eskimo was slowly freezing to death on the slab of ice when God
piloted the missionary bottle right up to him. He saw it and crawled
over to the edge of the ice and grabbed the bottle from out of the
water. He read the pamphlet that explained how to receive Christ as
Saviour and marveled to understand that God was interested even in a
lonely Eskimo hunter like himself. He went back to civilization and
wrote to Everett, whose name was on the leaflet, these words,
One missionary bottle took 3 years to float to Singapore in Malaysia.
The missionary bottle arrived at the same time and place where a
Buddhist young man was standing on the edge of a high cliff
overlooking the rocky, dangerous coastline. He was there to commit
suicide over an unhappy love affair by throwing his body off the
cliff to the jagged rooks below. From his high viewpoint he saw a
bottle in the ocean being rammed again and again by the waves against
the rocks. The missionary bottle did not break.
The man, instead of jumping, had his curiosity excited and thought to himself,
"I read your tract and then I knew somebody loves me."
God had used His Word in a bottle to save the man (in more than one way).
"A bottle that refuses to break I have got to see. Before I
jump, I will wait for the thing to shatter."
But God was not going to let that missionary bottle break, not when an eternal soul was at
stake. The man was dying of curiosity and got tired of waiting. He
carefully descended the cliff, grabbed the missionary bottle out of
the water, and read the literature inside. He read and believed that
Jesus Christ loved him. He took the information to a nearby Christian
mission station for explanation and there the missionaries taught him
and prayed him through to salvation in Jesus Christ.
In a letter to me (Kraig Rice) dated October 29, 1985, Everett penned the following,
One time Everett made a visit to the town of Barrow, Alaska's most
northern Eskimo village. There, he met an Eskimo who related the following testimony to him,
I wrote to him about God piloting some of the missionary bottles from
Bread On The Waters to Russia. He replied,
He also told me,
Everett was 74 years old in 1987, serving the Lord with all his heart.
In another letter to me from Everett dated September 17, 1987, he
stated he had never named his gospel bottle evangelism ministry.
One of his missionary bottles landed on Aruba, a Dutch island off the
coast of Venezuela. There a seminary student was sitting on the beach,
depressed over his future, when a Bachelder bottle was providentially
sent to him. Inside the bottle there were the usual 8 or 10 tracts in
different languages. A Dutch tract was there and as he read it the
Lord worked in his heart. When he found the bottle he was at the
crossroads of his life. It was either go into business and make money
or continue on in seminary and do the will of God. When he found the
bottle he felt he should go ahead and serve the Lord instead of
grasping at the deceitfulness of riches. God speaks to different people in different ways…
"It was a great joy to receive your letter along with the enclosures
including that very absorbing story of the history of your ministry.
It really does thrill me every time I think of the fact that anytime
of the day or night some bottle or float may be washed up on some
beach somewhere, or even found while floating out on the ocean. One
of the submarines we heard from had found one floating on the
Mediterranean Sea. It was a Christian who sighted and found it, and he
wrote us that the finding meant so much to the skipper, that they
even idled the engines and paused for prayer."
"You do not know me, but I have meant to write to you. What a
change has come into my life! After reading a Christian message in
your bottle, I came to Christ. Then my whole family also found the
Lord. I am sorry I never wrote you."
Each year this Eskimo and his family celebrate the exact day when he
found that message in the bottle and accepted Christ as his Saviour.
"We have the feeling that many of ours also land on Red China or
Siberian soil, but so far have not had direct word from anyone, except
for the young man in Odessa who found one which had drifted into that
part of the Black Sea from the Bosphorus via the Mediterranean Sea."
"The one who originally inspired me to go ahead and float bottles
was George Phillips of Tacoma, Washington. He has gone to be with the
Lord and in fact just before the Lord took him home he sent us all his
equipment including stationery, bottles, hot sealing equipment and
special tubing to use with it."
Total Reported Results: Out of the 30,000 Missionary Bottles he
floated, he had 60 known conversions to Christ out of the 1,000 bottle
finders who wrote to him over a period of 30 years.
My web address is
www.7-star-admiral.com
Click on the bottle to go to the main missionary bottle ministries index page.