Lutheran High School, Parker - CO

Lutheran High School has arrived in Alaska! Everyone and all their bags made it safe and sound. We stopped by Anchorage Overview near the airport on our way to our lodging location. It was such a beautiful view of downtown Anchorage, the Cook Inlet, and of course the amazing mountains. 

Sunday is church day!! We went to Chugach Covenant Church (C3) for church on Sunday. This is the church we will be partnering with all week. 

T.J., Katherine, Bella, Logan, Vonnie, and Peter did an awesome job leading worship at church! Everyone enjoyed singing along. 

Pastor Ben preached an encouraging sermon on spiritual gifts. 

At the end, Pastor Ben introduced Tiffany and Lutheran High school to the church and shared our mission for the week. 

This winter in Anchorage was a very snowy one. Due to the amount of heavy snow C3 lost two storage sheds. This week part of the team will be building one new shed to replace them. 

This is what we are starting with, a blank slate. Pray the rain holds off!! 

A few of the girls from the group are helping at Heart to Heart Pregnancy Center. This is a faith based organization that helps provide free clothing, blankets, diapers and other necessities to expecting and new moms. 

Galina and  Arianna are working on switching out winter clothes and bringing in the spring/summer baby clothes. 

Liv and Bella are working together to separate and bag lots of diapers! 

Heart to heart is donation based and largely volunteer run. Many people will over buy different size diapers and need to donate unopened packages. This is a huge need for many new parents. 

The boys have been rocking the shed project!! Tuesday afternoon they had walls up on the shed!! They are making great progress and having fun doing it. 

Mark, Vonnie and T.J. had a picture perfect moment. 

Mrs. Cox had the time of her life using this Giant immersion blender to help make soup! It has been fun learning new things and getting to use giant versions of our own kitchen tools. 

On Tuesday they served lunch to about 250 people. That's a lot of soup and sandwiches.

We took the team out to Wild Scoops Ice Cream for a little sweet treat! They definitely have earned it after the long full days of ministry. Half way there!! 

Back at it again! Sandwich and soup making is a never ending task here. Now that it's warming up in Alaska more and more people are coming to Downtown Hope center receiving food, clothing and other essentials. 

Downtown Hope center has a really great culinary school program. This program is open to people who want to get into the culinary world as chefs or bakers. The bread that they use for sandwiches is made by the culinary students and staff who have graduated the program. 

Abby, Rebecca, Liv, and Mrs. Cox are busy making those sandwiches then wrapping them and putting them in go bags to hand out. 

Downtown Hope center is a women's homeless shelter. The women who are staying here are able to have a place to sleep, shower and get hot meals inside. 

In addition they hand out the sandwich and snack bags along with soup to an additional 250 people every day. Anyone is able to walk up and receive food. 

Galina, Arianna and Allie had the opportunity today to serve people lunch. 

5.27.24 Entering into a clothing closet to help sort and prepare clothing for those who will need it is an honor. Allie did a great job at serving and expanding her talents in spatial usage. Being able to pack more into each storing bin is a blessing she was able to leave behind. 

We ended this day feeling tired but satisfied with all the hard work and effort the whole team brought today. From sandwiches, and clothes, to sheds, and gardens. Today was full of teamwork and God's love...especially during park time!