Aldersgate United Methodist Church

We arrived in Anchorage safe and sound. After eating dinner at a local restaurant called Arctic Roadrunner, we headed to the downtown area to shop and explore for an hour. Many of us found the items we were looking for right away! It felt good to eat and stretch out a bit after a long day of travel.

We then headed North about 45 minutes to Wasilla. We spent the night at a church there where another PPM team is serving this week. They knew we had an early travel day the next morning and needed to go right to bed, so they actually blew up spare air mattresses and had our lodging area all set up for us! What a nice way to be welcomed to Alaska!

We ate a 5am breakfast (don't worry, our bodies tricked us into thinking it was 9am) and loaded the trailer with our luggage. Off we went, a 6.5 hour drive with all our stops. The ride to Fairbanks was incredible, with lush vegetation, fields of purple fireweed flowers, and the rugged Denali National Park to observe out our windows. The views were no less than breathtaking! We also made some strategic stops to stretch, take care of business, and of course eat a second breakfast! (Or was it an elevensie?)

After arriving and settling in, we had a brief meeting with Adam and PPM staff, chatting about the week ahead, guidelines and the God moments we should be looking out for throughout our week. 

Then Pastor Tillary and a woman from the church named Dorthy met with us to share about the church, the community and general Fairbanks area. They and numerous others from the church are incredibly hospitable, rolling out the welcome wagon, providing us with fresh towels, ice and cooking each night of VBS. We have felt so loved on from the moment we arrived!

We've been taking turns helping out in the kitchen with cooking, food prep and cleanup. In this photo we are making a Mexican Lasagna. We're all giggling at the funny slurp sound the cheese mixture was making.

We went with our new friend Dorthy to the Fairbanks Visitor's Center. She introduced us to a lady named Dixie who was an old student of hers. One of the many things Dixie is known for is that she created a traditional fur parka that is on display at the Smithsonian Museum! We saw a photo of it at the center.

We were all hanging out in the parking lot chatting with Pastor Tillary and Dorthy. It seemed like a good time for a group photo. And notice the tall church roof! That is what we are painting on the inside of the building. Wow!

One of the unique things about our VBS skits is that we have a mini host, Elvis the Elephant. Elvis shares a lot of back and forth dialogue with Pastor Chris.

We've started to notice the kiddos are attaching themselves to different members of our group. Mia is one of our group who seems to be a kid magnet!