Sunday Eve

I am very tired. But not from working. I had today off. My fellow mission worker, Jodie, and I went exploring. We found a hiking trail about 20 minutes from town that we had passed on our Saturday glacier trips. We decided to check it out. Wow! The trail paralleled a beautiful waterfall and shoal. We kept walking and found ourselves halfway up a mountain. It's bear country so we were very careful to make a lot of scary people sounds like cocking a rifle. No bear encounters today, but yesterday we saw two at the glacier (I didn't get pictures because I was driving. Darn!)
I will post a new photo album on fb tonight or tomorrow. The views were breathtaking. Better than fireworks on this Fourth of July (I don’t think they have much fireworks here because fireworks in the daytime would be like eating chocolate with a stuffy nose. What a waste!)
Jodie is in charge of the VBS portion of the GraceWorks ministry. We have had some stimulating conversations this weekend about childrens ministry and specifically evangelism. When a team arrives from the lower 48 (to stay a week), they are supposed to come equipped to conduct VBS with unchurched kids at a city park. WHOA! That’s a tall order. It’s very different from VBS at your local church where most of the kids already have exposure to Bible stories and Christian-speak. Some of the teams come well-prepared and the week flows smoothly without much fuss. But sometimes the team members have no experience with street urchins and it can be a bumpy ride. Even after one week I am starting to feel protective of “our” kids. I’m sure you’ll hear more on this as the weeks progress.
Small group this week. I will not be leading a team. Some of us staff people are taking off for Denali National Park on Wednesday. We’ll do a safari through the park then some errands in Fairbanks. Return on Saturday. I'm just certain I'll have some bear pictures to post by then.