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.

Trial and Error

Today (July 20th) was our first day in the parks! We are all thrown off from Georgia being on a different schedule, the consistent daylight, and I know it's strange for you people reading because of the time difference! So yes, July 20th (today for when I'm starting to type this), was our first day doing what we mainly came here to do: teach and hang out with the kids. We have two teams, and each team goes to a different park. Here's an example of what our parks look like, this is the Government Hill park (and our view from the playground):

I'm going to try my best to get a lot of pictures and stories from both teams, but we technically weren't supposed to take many pictures today... So I just had to sneak a few quick shots. Our Red Team is assigned to Russian Jack park, and our Green Team is at Government Hill. We met all sorts of kids, ranging from ages 4 weeks old to 17 years old. We had a BLAST! We were so busy playing games and chatting away, our time in the parks flew by!

One story really stood out today though, and it gave me a whole lot of hope for this week. Three girls from our crew were leading a Bible study for the teenage girls at the park, and they asked the girls if they were Christians. The girls replied saying no, they didn't really believe in anything- but we were nice people so they respected us and liked us enough to listen to us.

Is that not awesome? That's what we are trying to remember throughout this week when there may be a child, teenager, or even an adult that seems closed off or guarded. We want them to like us enough for being "nice people" so that we can earn the opportunity to share the Gospel with them later. By the end of this week, we may have those girls engaging and chiming in during the lesson, because God can do anything. 

We also split up and went on prayer walks around the neighborhood and prayed over houses, apartments, cars, and even people just walking down the sidewalk. (P.S. The weather is not too hot, not too cold, and no humidity what so ever, so LOTS of folks are on the sidewalk walking! It was really neat, we could definitely feel God's presence.

After playing in the parks and prayer walking, we got the opportunity to go sight see! We went to Eagle River, Mount Baldy, and a beach to watch the sunset (and skip rocks). It was all SO beautiful!

Jeremy even had the chance to minister at the ice cream truck. He started talking to the driver, and he ended up inviting her to our Park Party this week!  

Thank you for the prayers, I'm finishing this up as we are about to go eat breakfast and take on Day 2! LET'S GO!

Fasten Your Seatbelts

Today was the day! At 6:00 a.m., our Alaska team met at the church to take off on this anticipated journey. We loaded up the luggage, prayed, took a quick group picture, and hit the road to Hartsfield-Jackson!

We arrived at the airport, took a bathroom break, checked our bags, took another bathroom break, then headed to the dreaded security line. Luckily, the line moved smoothly and no one had any trouble whatsoever- out of all 32 of us! We found our gate, grabbed a snack, then at 11:05, we jumped right on our five hour flight to Seattle!

Once we all got on the plane, we could all sit back and relax. Oh, and enjoy the AMAZING view!

Everyone was relaxed and rested, and a few of our team members even played an in-flight game of trivia... where Shane and Krista were the winners. The flight was especially awesome for our folks who have never flown (or don't remember flying), because we all got to share the excitement! Justin Cason also was kind enough to purchase a book for us all to read, called, "Serving Evangelism." It was wonderful, it definitely made me giddy about this upcoming week!

We landed in Seattle and had about 45 minutes until our flight to Anchorage departed, so everyone took that opportunity to eat real food! A group of our team actually sat down at a table with two strangers, and after a little discussion we found out that BOTH people were from Georgia! God always finds a way to open little doors to meet more people and build relationships- even in Seattle!

Our three hour flight to Alaska was still relaxing, but after traveling all day... we were getting a little restless. But luckily, the even more beautiful Alaskan scenery welcomed us to our week-long home!

We landed around 9:15 Georgia time (5:15 Alaskan time). We met our GraceWorks leaders, who are SUPER kind, and we were greeted with a delicious meal! After a long 11 hours of traveling, it was safe to say that most of us were ready to go to sleep after we got situated. We are actually staying in an old church that has been converted into bunk rooms for churches to come and stay with GraceWorks. Most of the team decided to go to sleep, but since Alaska is daylight for 20 hours of the day, some of us couldn't quite get into that "sleep mode." So, we explored around where we are staying!

We checked out a trail, a lot of houses and yards, some mountains, a harbor, an interesting little restaurant called "Pho Vietnam 4," and we also found a park! There was trash on the playground, so we cleaned up a little bit!

We were chilling out in the park, when we saw a man that lived next door cutting some fish up. We walked over, and talked to him for about 30 minutes.

Somehow, the conversation moved to everyone daring Jared to eat one of the fish's eyes. Tammy (Jared's mom) said she would pay him $20, so of course he took the offer. The man's son cut him out a fish eye, rinsed it off, and handed it over to Jared... 

We have a video but the wifi isn't too strong, so check my Facebook for it!

Nonetheless, it's been a LONG day. I'm currently in our bunk room at 11:15 (3:15 a.m. Georgia time), and here is a picture of how light it is outside:

The light is definitely going to be an adjustment, but for the most part we are having NO trouble sleeping! Please continue to pray for us, especially as we head into the parks to spread the Love! 

82 More Hours

There are officially only 82 more hours until we depart from Lavonia First Baptist and head to the airport! Over the past few months, we've been reading devotions, fundraising, and growing closer as a team... all in preparation for this incredible journey. We are so excited, and I, personally, have never felt more led by the Lord to go somewhere. I just know that there is a lot in store for the people we come across in Alaska and our own team. Thank you so much for your prayers, they've definitely been felt by the entire Alaska team!

Next week, this blog will (hopefully) be FILLED with pictures, stories, updates, videos, and experiences as we grow, teach, and learn - so be sure to check in daily! Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers, keep 'em coming! :) Like I said before, we are so excited!

I REPEAT: WE ARE SO EXCITED!