Benedictine College

Well, it's not Peru! We landed safely in Alaska and were picked up by our PPM staff as well as our host, Pastor Rick Millikin. After a quick bite at Wendy's, we headed North to our partner church in Wasilla, Mat-Su Covenant Church.

Originally our travels were to take us to Peru this week. But all of us were open to the quick change and are excited about what this week will hold for us here in Alaska! 

Aaron, Jake and Zander join Pastor Rick for the live radio broadcast of Lifted Up. We’re studying the 12 Apostles and what we can learn from them. You can listen live at 9:05 am AK time, 12:05 CST. Www.kjlp.org  click listen now and press the play button. 

If you miss an episode, you can catch it here. 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/397l6y20tf13ijs/AAByNGIbUvjP6jRa23DcvX9za?dl=0

While part of the team was down at the radio station with Pastor Rick, the other half of our team decided not to wait to get started on building shelves. We are converting an old library in the church's community building into a storage room.

In very little time, we cleared out the church's library, books as well as shelves. It's amazing how quickly we were able to get through our tasks working as a team.

The Team battles for dominance in a game of wit and strategy.

After dinner, we played 3 rounds of Codenames with the church families. It was a time packed with a lot of silly moments and laughter. What a great night of fellowship!

...and we couldn’t resist sharing in God’s amazing creation by showing the Talkeetna Mountains behind Mat-Su Covenant Church. 

The directors of the Catholic Bible Camp has a large task for us today. After several inches of snow fell in the last 24 hours, we shoveled and cleared the stairs and archery range for an in coming group. But we also conquered this epic sledding hill. 

After breakfast, three more of our team members appeared on Pastor Rick's show, Lifted Up. We read some scripture and chatted about our time so far in Alaska. The time goes by so fast when you're on the air! A half hour show felt like ten minutes.

Of course we couldn't take off from the camp without having a little fun on their famous Suicide Hill! After lunch and a warm up break, the director Rudy mentioned he had a bunch of sleds and offered to take us up there for a little post-work fun.

Our team thoroughly enjoyed sledding down the camp's hill. We also walked out onto the Frozen lake where we could see the beautiful mountains surrounding us. A couple members of our team spelled out "Alaska" with giant letters that could easily be seen by the small planes flying overhead.

Wasilla happens to be home to the Iditarod Museum. We snapped a photo with the famous Balto statue, (identical to the one in Central Park) shopped in the gift shop and watched an interesting documentary on the Alaska sled dog.

Another morning of appearing on the air. We're thinking about going pro!

On our way to dinner, we paused for a quick run to Walmart. Had to check out the souvenir isle, of course!

After a delicious dinner made by Pastor Rick's wife, we went outside to enjoy a campfire in the parking lot. Naturally we cooked s'mores, worked on our ongoing side project of creating a functional fort in the parking lot's excess snow pile... and the grand finale was spotting a moose in the yard next door!!!

Some of the areas we painted were tricky places to reach and required a few coats of paint. We did get a good system going, however, and finished strong.

We finished up over at Thrifter's Rock. The break area now has a sharp look with the blue paint on the walls and freshly painted floor. We also painted the staff bathroom in record time.

We finished up over at Thrifter's Rock. The break area now has a sharp look with the blue paint on the walls and freshly painted floor. We also painted the staff bathroom in record time.

Another post-work field trip, this time to Thunderbird Trailhead. The great thing about Alaska is there always seems to be a great hike option close to wherever you are. We've been looking forward to this hike all week!

There is a lookout part way down the trailhead that give a good look at the river below and the waterfall, now mostly frozen, off to the right. Many people stop here as the trail down to the waterfall at that point becomes more steep. But that wasn't going to stop us from completing the hike...

This morning we woke up early to head down into the city of Anchorage. We helped in the warehouse of Children's Lunchbox, a program that feeds children lunches all over the city. Due to the recent health concerns around the U.S. the program has decided to take a different approach to serving food over the next week. They plan to fill their truck with not only the usual lunches they distribute, but also pantry boxes filled with canned and dry goods to give to the parents of the children they feed. We formed an assembly line, some making the boxes, others filling and labeling. Together we quickly made 184 pantry boxes to be distributed. The staff there were excited by our quick work as well as good timing with their recent idea to do this for the community.

We spend the remainder of our morning helping out at a soup kitchen called Bean's Café. Because we brought our cold gear with us, they asked our team to organize cheese and bread in the walk-in cooler. We're getting used to this cold business.

Pastor Rick was scheduled to broadcast a High School basketball competition in Anchorage, so after our work was done, we joined him at the game. He invited Abram to do the play-by-play with him.

Pastor Rick's wife, Lesa, has cooked our team several meals this week. Friday night she prepared a salmon bake with a pistachio topping for us. It was a Red Salmon caught in the Kenai by a member of the church who brought it in for us to taste.

We drove South of Anchorage along Cook Inlet, enjoying the view of mountains, frozen waterfalls, glaciers and the fast-flowing, icy water. We stopped to make several pit stops for photos, the first of which was Beluga Point. It is a large rocky area that juts out into the water, and during certain times of year it is the perfect vantage point for spotting whales.

We went to the Wildlife Conservation to see animals that were rescued around Alaska, one of which was this little guy.

And speaking of moose, the PPM staff have been keeping track of the record for moose spotted by each of their teams. Our group blew the record out of the water by spotting 25 moose in one week! And that is only counting moose found in nature.

Our last meal before heading to the airport was at a Hawaiian Restaurant called Hula Hands. There is actually a rather large population of Hawaiians that live in Anchorage, and we couldn't leave without trying some of the local flavors. Pastor Rick was able to join us as well to say his goodbyes and thank you's for everything we did this week. He said he would love to have us come back!

It's been a very fun week! Our group shared a lot of laughs, inside jokes, sharpened our British accent impressions, and created a plethora of random memories that bonded us together.... Like this moment when we decided standing together on a rock was the thing to do. 

A note from the PPM staff to the team:

Thank you all SO MUCH for serving with us in Alaska!!! We know your original destination was Peru, but it's clear it was God's perfect plan to have you in Alaska all along. You all were a light and a joy for us. Thank you for all you did to serve, from painting and hauling supplies to packing food boxes and simply loving on strangers... your willingness to serve in any way that was needed, the kindness you showed in all your interactions, and the great efforts you all took to serve to the best of your abilities truly shone out! You all were a great blessing for us here. Thank you again, and know that you are always welcome in Alaska!