More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
MTM - Interview with Corey Schmidlkoffer Part One
What if you reached 24 without ever hearing the gospel in a way that made sense? That’s the question at the center of Corey’s gripping story—an Alaskan childhood marked by addiction, years in juvenile detention, and a November night under bright stars that felt like a crossroads. Two surprising messengers—a man in a drug house and a grieving father—tell him the same thing: give your life to Jesus. In treatment, Romans 5:8 lands like an arrow, and the room shifts from shame to hope. Corey can’t keep quiet. He starts meeting new arrivals at the front desk, telling anyone who will listen that Christ died for people like us.
From there, the journey turns to the church itself. Corey loves the Book of Acts and longs to see its heartbeat—shared meals, Scripture, generosity, and mission—alive in real time. With a mentor’s nudge, he opens his home. What begins as ten friends around a table becomes a living-room church packed with people coming out of addiction, prison, and camps. No programs. Just worship, the Word, and names that matter. For eight years he pastors that growing community, measuring success by transformed lives rather than polish.
Then a moment in a homeless camp reframes the mission. Many faces are Alaska Native, and a woman from Unalakleet asks the clarifying question: do you want to do something? The answer points to the villages—over a hundred communities with little or no gospel presence, many accessible only by plane or river. Corey and his team embrace the challenge, honoring culture, building trust, and choosing presence over spectacle. This is frontier ministry in the truest sense: slow, relational, and relentless, aimed at bringing clear hope where it’s rarely heard.
If stories of raw redemption, simple church, and bold mission stir you, press play, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find it. Subscribe for part two as we head into the villages and the practical realities of reaching Alaska’s remote communities.
https://www.frontieralaskamissions.com/
https://www.jacksonfamilyministry.com
https://bobslone.com/home/podcast-production/
I want you to hear a good story today. About two years ago, I was thinking my daughter and first three prices. And that was very incredible to hear. And I had no idea at the time that there were craft items in Alaska that really had no graphical output. And it was estimated by his testimony and by his story. And for these various crafts, many of which you can't get there the road. So you have to find some how to get to these various crafts, wherever they're they're located. And so I'm just going to do that. And I know you folks listen to me every week, so I'm going to turn this over to Corey Smith. And let him share with you his story, which I found to be quite fascinating, very interesting. So Corey, I'm going to I'm going to turn it over to you, and I just would love for you to share pretty much what you shared at that church that day, plus all the new things that have happened in the last two years. So brother, take it away.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me on with you, Dr. Jackson. Any chance that I can get to sound the alarm for Alaska and the great need here, uh I I find it a great honor. Uh I think often about how uh out of eight billion people on this earth that our God would would hand select me and my wife and our family, our children, and our team uh to reach the unreached villages of Alaska. And so it's a it's an honor to be on with you. Uh, I thank you for the work that you're doing and have done and um and just uh take it as the highest honor to be able to share about Alaska and the great need that Alaska has for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And and so, you know, we um I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, uh, grew up without any real understanding of the gospel at all. You know, I tell people all the time that I was 24 years old before I ever even heard the gospel. Uh and and so I I grew up uh with no hope and without God in this world, with my eyes blind to the truth of the gospel. Uh and as a result of that, I I spent most of my early years um struggling with drug addiction uh in and out of juvenile detention center. Um, you know, from the time I was seven years old was the first time I ever smoked marijuana. I was 12 years old when I was uh fully addicted to multiple substances, um, and from the age of 15 to 18, spent three years in juvenile detention center. Uh, when I was uh released from there at 18 years old, I moved to Arizona for some years and um found myself addicted to heroin and every other substance you can really think of. Um and it wasn't until I was 24 years old, returned back to Alaska, and I found myself sitting in a uh a house where they were using drugs, and uh I was shooting cocaine directly into my neck, and a man who was smoking crack looked at me and told me I needed to get help. And uh and I'll tell you this much when the guy smoking crack tells you that you need to get help, it's probably time to get some help. And uh and so uh I looked at this man and I said, I, you know, I I wouldn't know how to get help. And he looked at me and he said, You need to give your life to Jesus. And I looked back at him and I said, Give my life to Jesus, you know, what is Jesus gonna do for me? Jesus doesn't want anything to do with someone like me. And and I remember that man looked at me and he said, Jesus came and died for people like us. And uh and when he said that, it was like an arrow to my heart. It was it was it was like the truest thing I had ever heard in my life. And I got up from that home, I walked out of the door, you know, I was somewhat frustrated and angry, but also very aware of the fact that a man smoking crack just told me I needed to get some help, you know. And uh and so I walked out of that house and I remember looking up, you know, it was it was November 2009, and I looked up, it was a cold night in Alaska, and the stars were just shining so bright. And uh I just remember looking up at those stars, and I I just had this thought there has to be something more than this. There has to be something more than living the way that I'm living right now. Um, and so uh a couple weeks later, I found myself at one of my best friends. He had overdosed and and died, he passed away. I was at his funeral, and his dad came up and stood next to me over his casket and looked at me and said, If you don't stop, you're gonna be the next person in that casket. And I looked over at him and I said, I don't know how to stop. And that man told me, You need to give your life to Jesus. And so for the first time in a matter of two or three weeks, uh I was told by two very unsuspecting people that I needed to give my life to Jesus. And I know now what I did not know then that God was breaking into my life uh through all of the addiction and through a whole lifetime full of never have heard of him. Uh he was breaking into my life. And so uh uh, you know, a short time later, I found myself uh homeless in an abandoned home, and I began crying out to a God that I did not know, and I was weeping and I was crying and I was probably cussing and screaming, and I just I I just remember saying, God, if you're real, then you you I need you to do something about this, about my life. And uh I tell people all the time, similar to C.S. Lewis, I I went to sleep that night as an unbeliever, and I woke up the next morning as a believer. Uh and the way that that happened was I found myself when I I I woke up out of what I perceived to be a blackout, and I was on the phone with Anchorage Police Department crying and weeping and telling the dispatcher that I needed I needed to get help. I didn't know what to do, but I didn't want to live anymore. And then I I I come to the realization that I was talking to Anchorage Police Department, and like any person addicted to drugs and living that lifestyle, I hung that phone up as quick as I could possibly hang that phone up. Uh and I found myself sitting in that house and I was just weeping. I just I was weeping. And and I realized that this was the answer that I had prayed the night before before. Uh, and so I called Anchorage Police Department back, and they came and picked me up. Uh I went to jail, and from there I was uh accepted into Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Program. Uh and I went to that program, still no clue of who Jesus is and what he actually came to do. Uh, you know, I think so often, especially in America, we grow up uh hearing, you know, Christmas and Easter and these days, and thinking we know something about Jesus, but I had no clue who Jesus really was and what Jesus actually came to do. I had I had never heard in my life that Jesus died for people like me. And Jesus himself said that he did not come for those who are well, he did not come for those who are righteous, he came for those who are sick and those who are in need of a savior. Uh and so while I was in treatment, uh a man from a village in Alaska, Point Hope, Alaska, uh his name was Amos Lane, he came into the treatment center, and uh he was a resident, uh uh another resident, and uh the word of God, I remember I was sitting at this table in the meal hall, and the word of God was pouring out of his mouth. And I looked at this man and I said, What are you talking about? And he said, That's the word of God. And uh and I said, I want to know the word of God. And he said, You need to go up into that office and just start reading in Romans. And so I start reading in Romans. This is the first time I've ever opened the Bible up in my life, and you know, I get through chapter one and chapter two, and you know, it says things that are very true and right and real. Uh, but it says things like the righteous wrath of God is poured out on all ungodliness. And I remember thinking, well, this is horrible news for someone like me, you know. And uh and so I go back to that brother and I say, Man, give me something good to read. This is enough this is not good news for me. And he said, Brother, it's Romans. You have to keep reading. And so I went back up in that office and I started back at chapter one. He says, Start in chapter one and don't stop till you get to chapter 16. And I got through chapters one and two, and the the the spirit of conviction fell on me. And I realized in that moment that I had I had sinned against the holy God, and I was deserving of the wrath of God. But I kept reading, and I got to Romans chapter five in verse eight, and it says, God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_02:Amen. Amen.
SPEAKER_03:And in that moment, I was brought back to that man who told me Christ died for people like us. And a couple things happened to me in that moment. I believe that I was saved from the wrath of God and from my sins, and I received the salvation that Christ Jesus came to offer sinners like me. And the second thing that happened was is I thought to myself, how is it possible that there are Christians all over this world who know, who know what Christ has done? How is it possible that me, a 24-year-old, have never heard this gospel, this good news? And I was gripped by that. I was gripped by the reality that if Christ is who Christ said he is, which I believed in that moment that he was, because I knew that the peace that I had experienced and the sins that had been forgiven, the reconciliation that I had experienced in that moment back to the Father, I knew that Christ is who he says he was. And I was marked and gripped by this reality. I need to tell everyone about who Jesus really is and what Jesus really came to do. And so that day, uh 55 men in that treatment center heard Romans 5.8.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And uh every single day I would walk down the stairs of this treatment center and I would go to the front counter and I would ask the person at the at the counter, I would say, Hey, do we have any new people coming in today? And they'd look at their calendar and they'd say, Actually, we do. You know, 1 p.m. we have a new guy coming in, and I'd be sitting there waiting for him. And uh it just gripped with the reality that it I believe is one of the greatest injustices in all the earth. That's right, that we as believers in Christ who have been saved by Christ would hold on to this news, this declaration of the good news of who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do. Uh, so from from treatment, I uh graduated from treatment and was just wrestling with the things of the word of God. I I remember reading through the book of Acts in treatment and thinking to myself, I cannot wait to be a part of this thing called the church, you know. And uh and I got out of treatment and I went to church and uh in that process I was I was somewhat confused, you know. I was confused by what I had been reading in the word of God and what I was witnessing in the church, and that that set me on a journey to search the scriptures, the word of God, and to really know what it is that Christ desires for his church. I I love the church, I love Christ and His Church, His bride, and and I want nothing more than to see the fullness of what Christ intended for his church, and so I set out on a journey to search the scriptures and to look at Jesus and look at the church and begin to ask the questions of Jesus, what is it that you desire for your church to look like? And I I found myself a mentor, Dr. Dan Gerrell, a father to me in the faith, and and he graciously sat with me as I wrestled with the things of God, and I wrestled with the scriptures, and I was about two years in the faith, um, immature in so many ways, uh probably overly critical in many more ways. And I remember coming into his office one day, and I I I asked the question, I said, Why is it that we are not seeing on earth the things that we're reading about in the scriptures? That if God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why are we not seeing these things? And the wrestle of my heart wasn't necessarily even around the supernatural things or the miracles, it was around a people who were so in love with God and so in awe of Christ that the expression of our lives would be ones of hospitality and brotherly love and affection and sharing of our resources and opening up the scriptures and actually knowing those who we call part of our family in the church, and living on mission with Jesus to see the world reconciled back to the Father. I I wrestled with these things and I said, Oh, I want to see the church and her fullness. And and my mentor looked at me and he said, Corey, why don't you just do it? And I thought I I looked at him and I said, Well, what do you mean? And he said, Well, you tell me what is it that you want to see? And I said, I want to see people so in love with Jesus that the things of this world pale in comparison to his beauty. I want to see people so in love with Jesus that the love that he's shown to us would be expressed to the people in our city and our state. I want to see households, families restored, fathers and mothers and children. I want to see the gospel. And uh and he looked at me and he said, Well, you have a home? You have a Bible? You can sing some songs, you can share a meal. And so that week we called up ten of our friends and and and we just we shared a meal together, we broke bread, we sang some songs to Jesus, and we opened up the word of God to the book of Acts, and we just simply began to read. And we asked the simple question of what would it look like for us to walk in obedience to the Word of God. And we continued to meet with this group of people in our house, you know, we didn't we didn't set out to plant a church. I was two, two, two and a half years in the faith. I I just wanted to love Jesus and love people and see other people love him and love people, and so we we began meeting in our house and and uh six months later there's probably forty, fifty addicts, people coming out of addiction, people coming out of prison, people coming out of homeless camps, packed into our living room, many of them hearing the gospel for the first time, and a church was planted uh in our living room which grew into a beautiful expression of a church, and for eight years I I had the privilege of pastoring that church. Uh and and one day I was in a homeless camp in Anchorage, Alaska, and I was sitting there with a group of people who had who had been struggling with many things, and and it hit me that day. I began to weep. Uh I had spent many days in this homeless camp with those people. I heard their stories, I knew their names. Some of them had been to my house. But this day was a a unique day in this homeless camp, and I began to weep as I was sitting there and and a woman looked at me and she she was from Unilecle, a village in Alaska, and she said, Why are you crying? And I looked at her and I said, These are all your people. And it hit me that day that all of the people sitting in that homeless camp were native Alaskans from villages in Alaska. And she looked at me and she said, You want to do something? And I said, I do. And she said, Well, then you need to go to the villages of Alaska. And I growing up in Alaska, I never even considered such a thing. I never thought it was a possibility. Uh, you know, there's history and there's racial divides, there's cultural barriers, there's so many things that I I've perceived as a hindrance to take the gospel to the villages of Alaska. But that day, when Debbie said that to me, it was like another arrow in my heart, and I knew. I knew that God was calling us to the villages of Alaska. And so I came home, I said to my wife that I believed that we were supposed to start going to the villages of Alaska. Uh, she cried and said, How is this even possible?
SPEAKER_02:She said you were crazy, didn't she?
SPEAKER_03:She she certainly thought I was crazy, which I am a little bit crazy for Jesus. And uh, but you know, I just was gripped with this reality that there are villages in Alaska, many villages, uh, you know, at least a hundred villages of a la in Alaska that have no gospel presence. And even those that have a gospel presence, they're they're struggling and they're dying, and they need the gospel, they need laborers, they need people who are gonna come and share the gospel with them. And so this was 2018. Um we took our first trip out to Bethel, Alaska. It's the largest village in Alaska, it's in western Alaska, it's the Yupik tribe. Um we got there.
SPEAKER_02:Well, let me let me stop you there. Let me stop you there. Yes, go ahead. Our time is gonna run out for our this this particular session. I'm gonna bring you back and and we'll do another session for next week, if that's okay with you. And I'm gonna interrupt us and me and you will keep talking in just a minute. All right. You're listening to more than medicine. My guest today is um is Corey Schmidtelkoffer. Did I say it right, Corey?
SPEAKER_03:That sounds great.
SPEAKER_02:All right. He's with Alaska Frontier Missions, and uh he shared with us uh uh an awesome testimony which was w is well worth the money. And uh we're gonna con finish this session for today, and I'm gonna bring him back for next weekend, and I'm gonna let him finish telling all the stories about going to the to the villages, which I'm uh is gonna be a fascinating story. I've heard some of this already. But we're gonna wrap up this session today, and Corey, I thank you for your time and you're listening to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson. We'll be back again next week, and you'll be able to hear more stories from Corey and Alaska Frontier Missions.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Doctor Family Ministry or the schedule of speaking statements, go to our Facebook page, Instagram, or website at Dr. Family Ministry.com. Don't forget to check out Doctor Family.
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