Kelly Tshibaka visits Bethel, Alaska

Josh Korthuis and U.S. Senate Candidate for Alaska Kelly Tshibaka at the Kuskokwim Riverfront on October 6th, 2022 during her Bethel visit. (Photo courtesy of Josh Korthuis)

by Josh Korthuis

Thank you to all who prayed for U.S. Senator Candidate for State of Alaska – Kelly Tshibaka’s Oct 5-6 trip to Bethel, Alaska this week. After a plane delay, she and her assistant Heather Gottshall were able to arrive in Bethel, Alaska from Anchorage.

We were able to meet with Bethel’s City Manager, go to the local Alaska Commercial Co grocery store to get lunch, talk with people, invite anyone to the Townhall Meeting at the Long House Hotel, had a meeting with local pastors/Christian spiritual leaders who prayed blessings over Kelly Tshibaka (who is a follower of Jesus herself), visited and knocked on various doors to meet with local residents, have the Townhall meeting with some inquisitive people, including the local City Mayor Mark Springer and servant leader of the people: Bob White, who helps about 56 village communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Region with water and waste water issues (he helps with practical needs), who also is a gospel minister (he helps with spiritual needs) for Camp Hope https://www.hopeinalaska.com/about (consider supporting this: he tells others about JESUS!!) Bring on the Kingdom of Heaven to invade Western Alaska!

Now, let me continue about Kelly’s trip again We met with Bethel’s local radio station KYUK where she was interviewed about fishing (this is a big topic out here!). Check out the interview yourself: https://www.kyuk.org/…/us-senate-candidate-kelly.

Though the Townhall Meeting was small in numbers, there were many questions that Kelly answered and she gave each person her full attention until all their questions were fully answered. Kelly is a person who truly cares about our needs and is willing to help all Alaskans in the best way she can, but it’s our vote for her that will make that happen.

We were able to have a meeting with Bethel Native Corporation’s (BNC) President/CEO Ana Hoffman the next morning Oct 6 to discuss various topics including Kelly’s stance against current Senator Lisa Murkowski’s tie-breaking vote of US Secretary for the Department of the Interior Deb Haaland. Which this action hurt oil jobs in Alaska. Which robbed us Alaskans from having abundant wealth! Murkowski’s decision to hire Haaland was a failure on her part. See https://mustreadalaska.com/biden-haaland-make-it…/ for more detail.

After our time at BNC we took off back to AC (Alaska Commercial Co.) for a late breakfast and Kelly talked with some of the locals there. We got into the truck and drove through a residential neighborhood along 6th & 7th Avenue for Kelly to knock on doors to introduce herself and find out what issues mattered to them. After speaking with a handful of residents, Kelly shared that “We got a least 2 converts,” which reminds me of scripture “Do not despise these small beginnings…” Zechariah 4:10.

As the time was getting closer for Kelly and Heather’s departure, they asked me to go to a local landmark in Bethel to make some future advertising video shoots. I thought about it and decided let’s go to Front Street near where Bentley’s Porter House Bed & Breakfast is (where Kelly & Heather stayed at, great hosts by the way! Check it out for any future visit to Bethel).

Front Street is right along the mighty Kuskokwim River, which is about 300 miles long connecting many villages up and down the river to Bethel, which in the winter time freezes over and is turned into a State Highway so you can drive to and from Bethel to all the villages alongside it. From personal experience as kid, I loved to snow-machine on that river because I could go as fast as I wanted to and my dad said I could!!! —as long as I could control it.

So the landmark for the video shoot was a sign in front of the river that says, “Welcome to Bethel, Hub of the Kuskokwim,” which is where I got to have my picture with Kelly Tshibaka.

Bethel is the gateway to supplying resources to all the villages around here. The only way to get supplies to/from this area is by boat or plane, we have no connecting roads out here to other villages, no connection to Anchorage’s road system what-so-ever. Bethel and the villages are their own islands out here. So we all connect by boat or plane only, which can be a pain in the butt due to all kinds of weather conditions that change frequently on a moment’s notice.

With all of this said, it was now time for me to take Kelly and Heather back to the Bethel International Airport to get on their flight and head back for further campaigning to do. I am ever grateful for how genuine Kelly Tshibaka and her staff are and taking the time to visit Bethel, to visit Western Alaska. I pray each and every Alaskan chooses only Kelly Tshibaka to be our next United States Senator for the State of Alaska, I know I will.

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