Missions Alaska!!

I flew in Friday around 1:15 Texas time! But...my journey begins on the 14th of June.

My parents drove me to Garden Valley, Texas to the Global Expeditions head quarters!! I got all check in and took my luggage to my room. Then went back to the building were all the other countries were meeting. I then met several people going on my trip! Kayla who helped me get started(I was on Kayla’s team) and Emily who also helped me get started! This is my first trip with Global Expeditions!!! We played games all after noon!! The next day we started VBS training, we tried out for parts in the dramas! I played one of the drunken people in the Freedom drama!! We then started working on VBS. Aarlene and I did the bible verse and object lessons for VBS. We had so much fun! The second day of training was Evangelism. We went to two sessions that taught us how to share the gospel and our testimonies!! On Wednesday we left at 8:30 am for the airport!! Our flight took of at 2:45 and we got to Alaska about 10:30 -11pm Texas time! I HATE FLYING!!

We spent the night at a church in Glacier View! We went to our villages the next day! My team had 16 people all but two were from Texas!! The other two were from California and Ohio. We stayed at a little church call Kenny Lake Community Chapel; they do a lot of mission work in Chitina, the village we served in for 6 days!! Our first day consisted of moving fire wood. So we moved the fire wood for Pastor Len. It got hot enough out side that we took of our jackets. Our arms got all scratched up!! Haha but we had a lot of fun doing it! One of the girls nearly fell down a very very rocky hill! The next day we went to Chitina a very small village about 30mins from Kenny Lake. There is about 100-150 people in Chitina, about 20 of them are kids and teens ranging from 2-15, or at least that we met.

Kenny Lake Chapel has a member of their community that has lived in Kenny Lake and the Chitina area her whole life. Her name is Rebecca and our service project for the week was to fix up a cabin in Chitina for her to live in for a year, and hopefully more. My team and I moved furniture, car motors, 10+ bags of trash, and a whole lot more!! About 5 other girls and I got the pleasure of scrubbing cat poop off the floors in this cabin and painting the inside of the house I believe I still have some primer in my hair!!! We would eat lunch at about 3pm Alaska Time which would be 6pm Texas time, then go back to Chitina and play with kids and do VBS!! They loved VBS, one day our story was about a boogie man and how God will always be there for them! So we taught them the Veggie Tales song God is bigger than the Boogie Man!! That was their favorite song!! At night we would do a church service that included worship, a drama that the drama team worked very hard on, a testimony from one of the missionaries on the trip, and a sermon, then at the end the kids would get up and sing their favorite VBS song from earlier that day!

One night during church service the drama group performed the Everything drama by LifeHouse. The next day the kids who were in the service performed the drama for us! They hit all the main points and understood all of it!! They were all under the age of 10! Alaska has the highest rates of Suicide and Alcohol abuse in the U.S...so anything we can do to reach these people, and let them know that God loves them is wonderful, even the simplest drama. Please be praying for a little boy named Kyle and his older sister named Katie. Kyle (8) and Katie (10) became Christians through Rebecca. They are soooo happy! They worship God with all of their hearts, but their mom and older brother Joshua (18) practice Witch craft and Wicca, so their home environment is not the best! Just pray that they will stay strong in their faith!!

One day my MA (missionary advisor), another friend and I were walking back to Rebecca’s house to finish up some painting before lunch, when out of the trees about 20ft. away walks a HUGE daddy Moose!! We had been told that if you see a Moose slowly back up and DON’T take out your cameras…well we stopped, then got out our cameras and walked toward the Moose!!! Didn’t quite follow the rules there but he just looked at us and kept on walking!! It was amazing!!

The day before as a thank you for all the work we had done on Rebecca’s house and another building one of the village council leaders brought us Moose patties and Caribou stew with beans!!! It was sooo good!! Pastor Len gave us some smoked Salmon too! That was my favorite meal!!

We learned many new songs, which are great for long bus rides!!

My favorite part of the trip was probably on the last night when the Pastors wife Brenda told all the kids to give us a rock, from some she picked up out side, and she told us that she hopes when we look at that rock, we will remember how God used us this week and all the relationships we built with the kids and the youth group from Kenny Lake!! I literally started crying because I didn’t want to leave!!

During the trip I learned that I need to rely on and trust God more, and that I am almost positive He is calling me to Missions after high school!!

Message if you have questions!! I would love to answer them!
Sarah<><