Living and Growing: The faith that calms the storm
Published 5:30 am Sunday, February 22, 2026
Over the past few years, I’ve written several articles in statewide publications about two Southeast Alaskan Christians persecuted by Alaska officials.
They were of diverse backgrounds. One, a native man in his early 30s from a small Tlingit village who operated the local power plant. The other, a white man in his late 40s from a big city in the south with a career in law enforcement.
Despite this diversity, they shared common traits. They were blameless and upright members of their communities with excellent reputations for caring for others. They feared God, shunned evil, and attended church regularly with their families.
Out of nowhere, their lives were shattered by the Adversary. Flimsy allegations were brought against them which the evidence overwhelmingly did not support.
Alaskan prosecutors, short on facts but long on resources, manipulated the proceedings. The pursuit of Truth took a back seat to wins and promotions.
Like Job in the Bible, these two Christian men didn’t deserve what they got.
But they shared one indispensable virtue – an unwavering faith in God which enabled them to remain standing and not succumb to the Adversary. Their faith can be an inspiration to all of us.
Former Ketchikan Police Chief Jeff Walls arrived in Alaska in 2022 with his wife Sharon. They came from New Orleans where he had been the Police Commander for the French Quarter. In Chief Wall’s first year of leadership, the Ketchikan Police Department’s fentanyl seizures increased by over 500% and it gained recognition from the FBI.
However, the Attorney General’s Office brought bogus felony charges against Chief Walls. Over the course of the next two years State lawyers manipulated the facts and law to gain indictments from three grand juries in Ketchikan and Juneau. A Ketchikan judge dismissed all three.
Chief Walls told me that reading Psalms 56 helped get him through the persecutions of his adversaries. A profound peace came over him, a feeling that God was going to make things right.
“When I am afraid, I trust in You, in God, whose word I praise, In God I trust; I am not afraid; what can mortals do to me?”
I believe God has a plan for Chief Walls’ ordeal. It exposed corruption at high levels within the Attorney General’s Office and State Troopers. Once resolved, the flow of deadly drugs into Alaska cities and villages will be greatly reduced.
Thomas Jack, Jr., who was born and raised in Hoonah, has the strongest faith of any person I’ve ever met. The violations of his constitutional rights by State lawyers and judges are unparalleled and a embarrassment for Alaska’s criminal justice system. Those violations continue today.
During one of his trials in Juneau, Thomas and his wife Angela marched around the courthouse seven times, just as the Israelites did before the walls of Jericho crumbled. But Thomas and Angela were not joined by Alaskan priests blowing the shofar and multitudes of believers raising a mighty shout. Instead, the Jacks were abandoned by many out of fear.
Prosecutors sought a 50-year prison sentence. After his first trial resulted in a hung jury, they dangled a plea deal in front of Thomas which offered as few as two years in jail.
But Thomas wouldn’t bend or bow. His unwavering faith reminds me of the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Book of Daniel.
Those three Jewish men refused to fall down and worship the statue of gold that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. They chose to trust in God and be thrown into the fiery furnace. Their faith eventually changed a nation, causing the Babylonian king to declare, “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion endures throughout the generations”.
Thomas has been imprisoned for 15 years during the prime years of his life. Last month he turned 50 years old. The State keeps him in Wasilla, far away from his Southeast family and friends. The passing of his father last summer, who he had last seen several years ago, caused additional tremendous pain.
I asked Thomas what Scripture keeps him going in the face of all this adversity. He replied with Paul’s message in 2 Corinthians 10:
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Thomas’ story has the same potential as the Jewish men in Daniel – to change a state, to even change a nation. His wrongful conviction exposes a state government that has lost its way and is on the eve of destruction. His persecution should be our wakeup call.
The Book of Isaiah is full of verses citing the perversion of Justice before the fall of Jerusalem. The prophet marks a society, like Alaska, where honesty stumbles in the public square, the vulnerable are robbed of their rights, and judges deny justice to the innocent.
Thomas’ ongoing ordeal shines the spotlight of Truth on We the People. It marks our descent from a Biblically based moral code into a chaotic state of individualism, a “me first” attitude in which we elect officials who insult the Lord by word and deed.
The hour is getting late. It is time for all Alaskans who believe in the Word of God to unite, for priests and ministers to blow the shofar, and for believers to raise a mighty shout.
David Ignell’s journalism is inspired by Proverbs 31:8. Two of his guiding verses are Psalms 1:2 and Proverbs 3:6
