Yes,
I actually made it to Alaska with 14 other acquaintances from church who are
now my friends. We spent a week in Anchorage working under the auspices of
GraceWorks, an evangelistic group endeavoring to claim Anchorage for Christ.
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| Three Musketeers and Me |
Our
week definitely was not a vacation. To start with, the female dorm rooms were
on the 3rd floor of the renovated church we lived in—no elevator.
Each team was assigned a park in town close to a new church plant location.
Monday-Friday we had sack lunches available to the kids in that park, played
kickball, volleyball, or soccer with them, did crafts and told them a Bible
story, if possible. We not only got to know the children, but also their
mothers, grandmothers, fathers, and daycare providers.
We
attended a Thursday evening Bible study led by the young pastor of the church
plant in the vicinity of the park and experienced a “williwaw” (I think). It was an unbelievable blast of
wind that tore down an overhead shelter we had erected for the kids while their
parents studied the Bible. That was followed by a torrent of rain that surely rivaled Noah’s flood, at least for several minutes.
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| "mummified" trees at Wildlife Conservation area. 1964 earthquake lowered the water table 10 feet which was replaced by salt water. This in turn killed the trees but preserved them. Note the cloud just below the mountain top. |
I
would say the weather was the most unfriendly element during our stay, but
despite the timing of nasty weather (like the beginning of a Bible story) and the
busy schedule, we were still able to do plenty of sightseeing and fall in love
with the gorgeous scenery.
We
were able to use several mornings for designated hikes—saw the starting point
for the annual Idatrod, a gorgeious vista of city, bay, and mountains some
distance above Anchorage, and a hike along a glacier-fed stream, as well as the
glacier(s) that fed the stream, and actually saw a mama moose and her baby in
the wild alongside the road we were traveling. (Thanks, Rachel.)
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| Reindeer Racks--impressive |
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| Baby musk-ox--so ugly, he's cute. |
My week in Alaska was priceless for I gained much more than I gave. But God does things that way, doesn't He?
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