Alaska - Day 3

Don and I felt the effects of Jet-Lag this morning. We were both up at 5:30am ready to go. Since we had wireless Internet we spent the morning working and preparing for our fall/winter ministry. As soon as we return home Re-Connect starts on Monday nights at New Grounds Cafe.

RE-Connect is a discussion based outreach ministry. The goal is to provide a safe & inviting atmosphere for believers, non-believers, and those searching to all come together to talk about the questions many of us wrestle with. RE-Connect is cross-generational and allows young and old to share their life experiences and knowledge with each other. Don and I took some time this morning to put together some topics and videos ideas to initiate discussion. You will have to come check it out to see what we came up with!

McDonalds was calling so we found a break to have some breakfast with Pastor Larry. It is always good to share our ideas with Pastor Larry and get his feedback. He is an awesome resource for Don and I. We also talked about getting some time at Countryside some Sunday morning to share more about Off The Wall and all that God is allowing us to do as well as the Alaska trip for 2010. We will try to do that probably in November.

We also spent a lot of time working on AWAKE which is our College Retreat October 16,17, & 18 at Camp Patmos. We are trying to create an atmosphere for God to move in the lives of the College Students. I spent a lot of time making phone calls, emails, & facebook messages to kids and making sure they are getting signed up. Our goal is to have an intimate retreat with 30-50 college kids.

Around noon I was able to connect with Celesta Richardson via Phone. It looks like tomorrow we will drive back up to Anchorage to spend the afternoon and evening with their family before we head to Marlin Beachys Saturday morning.

After working hard all day we decided to spend our afternoon and evening with Pastor Larry and his son Rob's family. When we arrived Rob and the boys were outside chopping wood and playing with fire. We then got the brilliant idea to have a fire jumping contest (see picture). Don did well but did come away with a few singed hairs. We also saw some Caribou and Moose in their woods which was pretty cool. After dinner we were able to sit in the living room and sing worship music, share testimonies with one another, and just enjoy the goodness of our God. We finally ventured back to the hotel around 11. As we were leaving I found out that Don is pretty scared of Grizzly Bears and that I really should stop "crying wolf".