49th Ministry: The First of Many

I have made it to Alaska safe and sound. God has put together a great team. My teammates are Scott Wyneger, Chris Bemis, Amy Gibson, and Laura Falbey. We are short one girl because she was unable to raise the support needed to come. It has been great to hear my teammates’ stories of how there support went . In order to go to our training time, we were required to have at least 80% of our support raised. Laura had only 35% raised with one day left to reach the 80% mark. Her church let her know that they would support her and gave her enough support to reach 80%. The team praised God for that because we really needed her, not just for Amy’s sake, but to complete the team as well.

The drive up to Alaska was beautiful. British Colombia (BC) is full of trees. It took Chris and me two days to drive through BC and the trees never stopped. We would top a hill and look out and all we could see was more hills covered in trees. The logging mills up there are vast. One mill in particular stretched out for at least a mile. The terrain does not become rugged until you get into Yukon Territory. The mountains there look enormous because of the low elevation. The elevation is around 1,000 feet and the mountains reach up about 4,000 feet or higher. Chris mentioned that it look like we were driving to the mines of Moria for those of you who are Lord of the Rings fans.

Our first couple of days in Anchorage was spent getting a feel for the city. It has been a little hard to get my bearings. I have not gotten lost yet, but I have had to make some U-terns. On the 27^th we went to Change Point Church. The church has three services and has about 3,000 people. The feel reminds me a lot like the church my brother and his wife go to in Billings. On the 29^th the team went out looking for places to live. The housing up here is outrages: for a two bedroom, one bath apartment it is anywhere from $875 to upwards of $1,300. Most apartments include heating, water, and cable. The prices are not bad for the guys because we can split it three ways; the girls had a harder time finding what they could afford. We were able to find a place that we all like. The girls will have to share a room, but the apartment is good sized and there was an opening right across the hall that is a two bedroom place where the guys can live. The area looks like it use to be an old army base, but it is in a nice neighborhood. Another perk of where we are livings is that it is close to the airport and to a grocery store. So God really blessed us with a nice place.

The guys lived in a facility provided by the Wesleyan Church of Anchorage and the girls stayed with some people that Chris knows here until we were able to move into our apartments. Living at a church for two weeks has been an experience. Chris and I were sleeping in a nursery and Scott was sleeping in the hallway because he snores. For showers, the guys went over to where the girls were staying. I had my first incident using a coin operated laundry facility which was a nice learning experience, but I am glad the apartment has its own washer and dryer. For food we have been eating sandwiches, going to Costco and Scott bought a little BBQ grill that we have use to cook burgers and salmon.

Most of our ministry work has been planning what this fall semester will look like. During the month of September we will go to Fairbanks, Juneau, and Sitka to meet with students, share our faith, and get local support. We will be spending a week in Fairbanks and the Crusade students from the University of Alaska in Anchorage are going to becoming up to help over the weekend. I am looking forward to the trip to Juneau because we will fly into to Juneau, stay there a week and then take a ferry to Sitka for a few days. The ferry ride should be beautiful.