Archbold Evangelical Church

We are so excited to be in Alaska! For some of us, we are returning for a second year in a row. For others of us, it’s our first time in Alaska. Regardless, we are expectant that The Lord has some incredible things in store for us this week! Please pray for us as we partner with Peninsula Grace in Soldotna this week! 

This afternoon we met with the Peninsula Grace youth group at the local high school. Here we enjoyed games of ultimate frisbee and capture the flag. We had a wonderful time getting to know these students. Many great connections were made and we are excited to continue seeing them at the church throughout the week.

This week Peninsula Grace Church is holding Vacation Bible School. Our team has the pleasure of cooking dinner for all of their volunteers each night. The students did a wonderful job at taking ownership and responsibility of the meal. They greatly enjoyed serving the community and getting to know each family. We're excited to continue this throughout the rest of the week.

This morning part of our ministry was grocery shopping. We headed to the store and shopped for all the supplies for tonight’s VBS dinner! It was a great way to be apart of a smaller group and get to know each other better!

Since we split up into smaller groups this morning, another team worked on more construction based projects. In the church’s sanctuary, this team took down old sound tubes. Then filled in the holes and sanded them smooth. Tomorrow we will finish this project by painting over the areas.

Stephen and Nathanael were excited to be back in the sanctuary after dedicating some time to the sound tubes last trip!

This team worked on decorating the vacation Bible story room again! This room is used to reenact Bible stories. It brings these stories to life for the children. It's so much fun to watch how engaged the children are during this time!

Look at the cute theme for the story of Zacchaeus!

Our 4th group worked on tidying up the playground. First they made a trip to the store to get the necessary tools and equipment. Then they worked on getting all the rocks back into the playground structure. They then edged this and will be replacing what holds the rocks in so they no longer spill out. Here is a picture of Pedro working alongside Paul, a member of Peninsula Grace. Pedro enjoyed getting to know Paul and his story!

Half of our team went to Amundsen Educational Center today! AEC is a post secondary training school and is dedicated to “building hope”. Most of their students are Alaska Natives that leave their villages to receive trade training and discipleship at AEC. Our team helped organize a storage closet and move furniture, but our conversations with Mike and Elder Joshua were so much more memorable. 

Mike, the executive director of AEC, shared about village culture and the epidemic of suicide that is prevalent in Alaska. Alaska Native males are 7x more likely to commit suicide than any other Alaskan. We commit to pray for that to change, and for people to find true hope and peace in Jesus. 

Joshua, the residential director at AEC, shared his testimony of God rescuing him from addiction. He challenged us to remember to pray for AEC, Alaska, and all those in bondage to addiction. 

We were back at the Kenai food bank this morning. Our biggest job was moving logs to a new area to be able to split them tomorrow. Once we moved all of the smaller logs, we started up the chainsaws and began cutting the bigger logs. These logs will be given out to locals to heat their homes in the winter. This is a huge relief for the food bank as we begin stocking up for winter.

Tuesday night after VBS we headed to Kenai beach. Here we made a campfire and huddled up close to one another to block out the wind. Although it was quite cold, this time was a memorable experience. We were able to share and reflect on the ministry from earlier in the day. We also took time to affirm one another and share how we have seen them shine Gods light this week and show their servant heart. (Believe it or not this picture was taken at 9:30pm!!)

By Tuesday evening we had only seen one moose so we decided to take it to the road and find a moose! We ended up seeing 7 moose! We prayed in faith we would see a moose, and also played Watermelon Man which we know helped call the moose into view. 

On Wednesday evening we went on a hike and although the trail was heavily populated with mosquitoes, it was worth it because… we saw a bear! It was a baby bear that was climbing into a tree so we  chose to give it some space in case the mama bear was close. 

Thursday night we prepared one final meal for VBS volunteers and their families, and participated in VBS for one more night. We are so honored that Peninsula Grace invited us into their incredible ministry this week. They had a record number of kids attend VBS this week, and we praise God for the eternal impact made on the lives of kids and their families through VBS. 

We also made a stop at Portage Lake, which was a favorite spot of our team last year. We skipped rocks and enjoyed looking at more glaciers! Creation is beautiful, and we thank the Creator for these beautiful gifts.