July 5, 2016

My apologies for the delay in updating you on our fantastic mission trip fun and work!  Yesterday and today got away from me, but here is a quick rundown of yesterday’s events:

     
We found out that there was a Freedom run in the morning, and since we didn’t have any mission work until the noon parade, about half of us ran the 4 miles!  I have always wanted to run in a race with my family but for a variety of reasons, haven’t been able to, and what we all realized was that running with your church family is just as fun!  What made it even better was when we turned the corner for the last 100 yards or so, the rest of the group who didn’t run was there cheering us on!  The best part was being able to share in the community event with the locals!  We chatted with several families before the race and was even able to spread the word about VBS once the “Kids’ Cookie Dash” got started.

Some of the group participated in the Willow 4th of July parade by handing out “Otter Pops” to the kiddos!  They are essentially pop-ice, and the kids went nuts over them.  The parade was also another fantastic way to get involved with the community and share God’s love through casual conversations with other parade attendees and participants.  Next was the community picnic which was probably more awesome for us to participate in than the locals because to see so much of the community turn out to fellowship with each other was so inspiring.

Once we returned, the work began.  Half of us began prepping for VBS while the others went out to split wood for the week’s deliveries.  We definitely all experienced the “growing pains” we’ll call it, of getting started with the mission work we all came to do.  Everyone is ready and eager to work and also not sure of what is exactly needed, so patience and kindness was needed by all.  Once we all reminded each other that the one and only reason we came to Alaska was to share God’s love, all the other “stuff” became trivial, and the wood got split and the VBS prep finished.

Dinner (as with every meal) was awesome…take note to always bring a good chef with you, thank you Gwen!  After dinner, we had our first high/low discussion of the week.  Everyone had great experiences and God moments to share.  The theme that clearly came through was the sense of togetherness and teamness.  God spoke to each of us in different ways and worked through each of us multiple times throughout the day.  The involvement that each of us had with the community during the morning and lunch events were everyone’s favorites because we really got to experience how these folks lived.