North Dakota oil boom offers mission field
Sven Hauge goes every Thursday to the “man camps” surrounding the oil fields near Williston, North Dakota, and holds worship services that feature preaching, praying, and singing. Sometimes a few men show up, and sometimes nobody does.
“That can be discouraging if you put great importance on counting heads,” he said. “But most of us have learned that it isn’t about numbers.”
Three years ago, Hauge heard God calling him and other members of the Christian Motorcyclists Association to minister in the booming Bakken oil fields, where hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling pump out more than 450,000 barrels of oil a day.