Flexibility Includes Painting and Cookies

So this week has gotten off to a great start! We are now in Ketchikan at the First Baptist Church. As you probably know, it took a 36 hour ferry ride to get here. It was actually really great. I didn't expect to like it at all. We camped out on the top deck of the ferry in lawn chairs and sleeping bags. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. Most of the time we were weaving in an out of these little narrow bays that were enclosed by snow capped mountains. We even got to see some whales! So we got off of the ferry at 6am...not so fun...and got to our host home, then went to church services. The highlight of my day was finding out that they have a drumset...and to make things even better, they don't have a drummer, so I got to play with the band during Worship. With no practice, by the way. It was awesome! I hadn't played drums in about a month and a half. Talk about withdrawels! A big surprise came when we found out that VBS here got canceled. This was were the "flexibility" part of the summer came in the we have been hearing about so much. We found out instead that we would be helping the church out with some different stuff and hosting a Block Party geared towards kids, and complete with bounce houses. On Monday, we went to the local high school with the pastor (who is also the Culinary Arts teacher at the school) and baked about 20 dozen cookies for a youth camp they are doing next week. That was fun stuff. Last night we went to an older couple's house for dinner. And boy, it was a real Alaskan meal! We had grilled silver salmon and homemade frenchfries. A-MAZING! Then we played this amazing game with dominoes called Mexican Train. It was a blast. The man had us playing a million rounds. He was quite the competitor. By the way, I won. Them being an older couple, I didn't expect it to be such a good time, but they were awesome. It might sound superficial, but the people in this church are a lot of fun! Today we painted the sanctuary of the church and catalogued the Director of Missions library. It's been a pretty good day. Tonight we had prayer meeting. It was great. We song some worship songs and just straight up prayed for 30 minutes. It was good stuff. To back track a little bit, a woman from the church took us out to eat Chinese food for lunch, then the pastor's oldest son took us out for Mexican food for dinner. So exciting. I love me some Mexican food! It was really nice to fellowship with some people from the church. They really have a heart for lost people and they are definitely a praying church. They are also very welcoming and want to do everything they can for us. So for the rest of the week, we are doing some odd jobs around the church...filing a lot of papers, maybe some more painting, pulling up blueberry bushes...and then there is the Block Party on Thursday. Hopefully it will be great.

So something that God has been showing me over the past 3 weeks is that there are so many people that have gone through so much stuff in their lives, but they are still faithful and close to God. I've had many conversations with people from several different churches while I've been in Alaska, and so many of them have so much pain and hurt in their lives. In many cases, these people are some of the most predominant leaders in the church. I've talked to people about their painful divorces, difficult loses in their family, and many other things. It's amazing to see that despite all of the bad that they have gone through, they still choose to follow Jesus. A lot of people tend to blame God for the bad things that happen in their life, or stray away from Him to find quick fixes, but there are so many people that depend so heavily on God instead. That just amazes me. I have a hard time not letting things get in the way of me and God, and I haven't had any huge tragedies in my life. But these people that I talk to have had some of the worst things imaginable happen to them, and they are rock solid in their faith. I definitely look up to these people a lot. This summer is definitely as much a learning experience as it is a mission experience. I feel like God has taught me a lot already, and he still has 7 weeks to teach me a lot more. My friend, Maria, wrote a blog talking about "seeing and being" Jesus...meaning that we should try to see Jesus in other people in order to know how to be Jesus to others. I feel like that's what has been happening with me. I have been surrounded by some of the most Godly people I have ever met, and I have learned so much from them about how to shine the light of Jesus. I suppose that this week, even though we aren't doing a whole lot of hands on evangelism, I think God still has some cool stuff in store for the week. I'm sure He has a lot to teach me this week too.

Prayer Requests:
-Block Party on Thursday
-Energy (We are doing 7 AM mornings again)
-Opportunities to share Jesus