It's All About Love

We had a wonderful day in Anchorage today! It was a day full of orientation and fun.

We started off the morning with a VBX orientation. VBX is the special Vacation Bible School for 5th and 6th graders. It highlighted the differences between VBS for 1-4 grades and 5&6 grades. We then had an introduction to a ministry called Grace Works. This is a ministry that is unique to the Anchorage community. Teams go to 5 different sites and perform a service project in the mornings. Then, during the afternoon, the teams goes to a central location and has block party, sports camp, or some other activity in a public area. The goal is to develop community relationships, teach kids and their parents about Christ through Bible Studies, and maybe eventually plant a church! We got to see all five of these locations today and spend time with some kids at four of them. One of the places we stopped at was the Boys and Girls Club of Mt. View. These kids were really friendly! We sat down to talk to a couple of the kids and before I knew it, another youngster had run up and wrapped their arms around my neck! We spent the next 15 minutes carrying the kids on our shoulders and loving on them! After all, this really is all about love. God's love. Grace Works has been sharing God's love with these kids for a couple of years now, so the kids were very open to us. This is the exception to the rule. Most of the time, it would take a little work to get the kids begging for piggy-back-rides and hugs.

Our team's main goal was to observe the afternoon activities. We're hoping to be able to start something similar to Grace Works in The Valley (Palmer and Wasilla). However, there are more obstacles in The Valley. The culture is VERY different and a permit would be required for any type of block party or day camp on city property. It's a possibility that permits may not be given due to the that "Sharing Jesus" would be the main focus of the event. The Valley is also much more spread out than Anchorage. We would mainly be working in parks on nice days instead of at apartments on sunny and rainy days. Kids would come the events less frequently than kids attending events in Anchorage. Please add this to your prayer list! We have a lot of planning to do and lots of obstacles to work through.

We also took a hike today. God's creation is so amazing! He must have had so much fun creating the mountains of Alaska! When I have more time, I'll try to post of few of the pictures from our hike.

Keep Alaska in your prayers!