It's Real

It was a long, exciting, and touching day. We woke up, had REINDEER SAUSAGE for breakfast (it's true, REINDEER... plus a little pork), and went on a beautiful hike through part of the Iditarod Trail!

Some of our crew stayed behind to pack the lunches we give out to the park kids each day, so they had to sacrifice the hike this morning for their time. Luckily, we have willing team members who didn't mind at all!

After the hike, we came back and had chapel. We have chapel every morning, but the time differs depending on our activities scheduled for that day. It's really neat, because the only other people in the service are people also volunteering with GraceWorks; therefore, the songs and the message are parallel to the lessons we learned (or will learn) in the parks. We ate lunch, loaded up, and headed over to Russian Jack or Government Hill! The Red Team met a lady last night who has been struggling, so they took her boxes of food when they went back today. These are the acts of kindness that we should all be doing, it opens up ENDLESS opportunities to share God's love and tell them about Jesus! You can tell that these people on our crew have servant's hearts.

The Green Team had two adorable cooler carriers, a devotion with the older guys, some fancy rock painters, and a nice game of 9-square going on at one point...

We came back to the church to eat, when one of the Green Team's park kids (he's going to sixth grade) walked in. Some of the kids can come to the church with us if they get their permission slip signed, and he happened to come in when the church cooked his favorite food- salmon. He got a cup of water and sat with us for a while, but once he learned that salmon was being served, he jumped right up and fixed his plate! He sat back down, and we noticed his cup was empty. We asked if he wanted anything, and he replied with "No, I finished it." We asked if he wanted more, and he very hesitantly said, "Oh... sure!" When his sweet tea got back to the table (he got brownie points from us southerners when he asked for sweet tea), he looked in the cup and looked SO surprised. "Oh man, there's ICE?!"

This was my own personal moment of being humbled. Ice. How can I get upset over something as meaningless as Coke v.s. Pepsi when there are kids in this world who rarely even get ice in their drink? Or who don't feel comfortable getting a second drink when their first cup is empty? This was the moment where a few of our team members had that realization that it's REAL. Not everyone lives a "first world problem" life. Not everyone gets to enjoy- or even KNOWS the simple pleasures of being able to have enough all the time.

This same kid later told us that one of his friends had a PlayStation 4... but he ended up selling it to help his mom pay to get them a better apartment.

We know we are supposed to be teaching the kids while we are here, but by the end of this week... I have a feeling they will teach US a whole lot more than we expect. Praise God for all of these little lessons and all of these little faces we are getting to meet! The boy from the story couldn't ride the van back with us to the park because he had to ride his bike, so a couple of us walked with him and got to know him a little better. We learned so much about him, and we could tell that a layer was peeled back tonight.

We got to our park and got to sing, play frisbee and kickball, and some even learned to longboard! It was awesome!

Please pray that our crew can build the most amazing relationships this week with these children, because that's the first step in helping them feel the love of Christ. Establish a friendship.