Ministry Sometimes Means Inflating Slides

So today marks the end of our week at FBC Ketchikan. It has been an incredibly productive week. Just to give you a run down, we have painted a Sunday School room, the church sanctuary, cleaned out and organized the church office and multiple storage rooms, baked 20 dozen cookies for camp, knocked out a wall, and put on 2 Block Parties complete with 2 18 ft. inflatables that we set up and took down (at 300 lbs each). The purpose of these block parties was to draw in kids so that we could tell them about a youth camp and children's camp that will be going on in the next two weeks. The church here actually owns a camp called Orton Ranch, which we will help lead the week after next. The Block party yesterday went really well. There were tons of kids and we handed out all of the pamphlets for camp and had several sign up on the spot. So that was exciting. We were actually supposed to go out to this camp yesterday to take groceries for the youth camp that they are having next week, but we weren't able to for various reasons. By the way, it's a couple hour drive out to the camp, then a 2 mile hike in...and a difficult hike at that. I must say, God knew what he was doing, because I definitely didn't have the energy to make that trek to camp. Doing the Block party the day before was quite physically draining. So we got to chill all yesterday morning and sleep a little bit before doing our 2nd Block Party. Let me tell you, yesterday was a true Alaskan day! It was cold, rainy, and windy...but we still managed to do the party. It was a good time.

Today we are moving out to Coffman Cove. It's on Prince of Wales Island, which is the 4th largest island in the U.S. This town only has about 200 people. There is one small grocery store and a gas station. Sounds like Tar Heel! That will definitely be an interesting experience. We also hear that there isn't any cell phone service and I don't have high hopes for much Internet. But I will live! We aren't completely sure what we will be doing yet. The schedule says Youth ministry. That could mean anything.

So this week has been pretty great. As I've said in my previous post, we have learned the meaning of flexibility in missions this week. I'm actually glad we got to do all the work that we did. I liked the feeling of productivity and we really helped the church out a lot. One of the things I've learned this week is that doing God's work may not necessarily always mean coming in direct contact with lost people. This sounds a little crazy a first, I know. Let me explain. This week, we have been helping out a church by doing some manual labor. Well I honestly believe it helped make a difference. By us getting all of that stuff done, we are allowing other members of the church to go out and share Jesus because they are not having to spend time inside of the church doing what we did. This all goes back to 1 Corinthians 12 when it talks about us having many parts of the body, but we are all part of the body, nonetheless. I think us being behind the scenes this week has shown us yet another part of ministry. A lot of times we don't have appreciation for the people that do the more menial tasks, but they are necessary. Now this isn't to say that we are always supposed to be behind the scenes. I firmly believe God will ask us to do bold things in order to reach people for Him. My point is, the behind the scenes stuff and the out front center stage stuff is all necessary and important. This week we got to experience the behind the scenes stuff, which I'm grateful for. I think it's really cool how we thought we would just be teaching VBS, but God has given us different and unique assignments each week. I feel like we are getting a very well rounded missions experience. I'm very grateful that God is showing me all these different aspects of ministry. I never thought I'd learn so much on a trip where I was supposed to be the teacher!

Prayer Requests:
-Safe trip to Coffman Cove
-Ministry at Coffman Cove Baptist Church
-ENERGY!
-Team Unity
-Ministry opportunities for all of my fellow summer missionaries