What a blessed week!

Here we are... the last evening of our trip to Kake. We have been blessed to witness the amazing beauty, wonderful people, fascinating culture and the unique characteristics of Kake.
The people have shown us a humble faith, but also how full and deep it can be. At times, talking to the folks in town and seeing their faith makes people wonder why we sometimes complicate our own walk with Christ.

We had our big community meal where we invite people from Kake to eat with us ('Peace of Kake') this afternoon. It was a nice sunny and warm day that the Lord gave us the best weather we needed.  There were 115 people from the community that attended. It was a wonderful opportunity to share a little bit of Minnesota hospitality with an amazing group of people.

All the projects that we started at the beginning of the week: raising the foundation, painting the church, repairing the van, building shelves and benches, plumbing work in the kitchen, curtains and all other miscellaneous tasks have all been completed by God's grace. Culture camp with the kids was incredible. Today we had fun playing in the water with the kids. A couple of us actually got into the freezing waters or received very wet and COLD hugs from the kids that swam :).

After the busy week, our evening was more relaxing even after playing lacrosse at sports camp for two hours and watching a movie on the beach. How cool is that! Nearing the end of our trip, everyone is physically tired but spirits are still running high. We have all experienced joy throughout our week here in Kake. There are mixed emotions as we prepare to leave, but we are very excited to come home and apply what we have learned about our faith. The whole team can reflect on our experiences and see how we can appreciate God more and live a life of love and thankfulness in everyday life. Following the simple faith just like what we have seen from the faithful folks of Kake.

Thanks first to God for providing the opportunity, enabling and blessing us in incredible ways. However, we would also like to thank those of you who have prayed, supported, and encouraged us this week. Philippians 1:3-6 "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Going Good

Aah! we finally get to blog again...


The last three days have been really good and we have been blessed with nice beautiful weather to get lot of work done. It also has kept the spirits of the team up and we have been able to meet the people of the town, talk to them and try making some friends.

The city of Kake has been very hospitable, we had a couple bring us Hudson Bay tea (Labrador tea) another family brought us about 20 pounds of Halibut and just in general the hospitality and friendliness of the people from this city has been amazing.

We have been able to make good progress on all the work projects. Painting the church is close to completion. The old car is now up and running, thanks to the work done by the awesome car crew.
Strengthening the foundation is in progress and looks good for completion by the end of this week.
The church has all new curtains as well now, new shelves are being built for storage, and benches are being made...hope they are ready to use by the community meal tomorrow. Culture camp and sports camp has been fun as always with lots of kids. It is cool to see these kids with lacrosse sticks running around and jumping all over.



We had quite a few 'God moments' especially with the various tools that we needed to do our work and surprisingly they just turn up very close to our door step. We needed hydraulic jacks to lift up the base of the building to work on the foundation and a guy who has access to jacks just drives by us....how does that happen?! When the painting crew needed an extension to power wash the siding Pastor Joey finds a person who actually has an extension lying around without being used for about a decade and still in working condition. It is wonderful how God provides.


Everyone on the team is doing good and have jelled together very well, there is a lot of good happy banter going around :)

The Painting Crew

Ray & Jim under the Astro!

Putting up the smoke house @ culture camp

Warm Welcome, Bears, Crazy Vicar, and Awesome Sunsets

The whole team made it safe to Kake after the 22-hour ferry ride. We were able to see quite a few killer whales this morning! His creation is so incredible!

We all had a warm welcome from the community of Kake with hugs and smiles. It was a blessing to have such an enthusiastic welcome with more than enough trucks ready at the dock to load up and bring us to the church.

It was a bright and beautiful day with the sun out in all its splendor. We quickly unpacked and settled in. A few team members got going with work projects right away while others were busy getting acquainted with the town's people.

Some of us took a walk in the evening to take in the beautiful sights of Kake and we even ran into some bears at the creek (about 10 of them)! The sunset was a sight to behold, bright orange and yellow with the sun reflecting over the waters from behind the mountains...it is tough to use words to describe the beautiful sight.

Near the end of the day, Vicar Matt decided to add some excitement to the mix and climbed up the church steeple to clean the moss off the roof (without safety equipment). It was a crazy move and he got a kick out of it...all in the name of helping to clean up the church.

Here are few snapshots from the day.

Pumped up for Kake

                   
                                                                                                                                           7/13/2012

Who gets to do devotion and worship our awesome Creator in front of a beautiful glacier?.... this rocking team does! All 19 of us went to the Mendenhall Glacier after breakfast to take in God's amazing creation, worship Him, pray and prepare for our ferry ride to Kake.

Everyone in the team is excited. We are loading up the boxes onto the trucks, doing last minute clean up and preparing to leave Faith Lutheran within the next hour.

Praying for safe travels, fun on the ferry and hope we can see some whales!

Next update will be from Kake :)

BTW...saw this cool water fall as well beside the glacier

Juneau where Juneau is?

2,666.95 miles, 2 flights, 7 hours of travel, over British Columbia...that's where Juneau is!
After 2 trips to Costco, 2 to Home Depot, 1 to Walmart, 1 to Fred Meyer, 46 boxes of supplies (food, sports equipment, construction stuff) the pre-team is done with shopping and gets to have a fantastic view of the glacier...

Pumped 20 air mattresses and waiting for the rest of the team to arrive and have more fun...making it a long Thursday night!

Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven - Ezra 7:23

Please keep team member John Wutke in your prayers as he is having kidney issues.  Pray for wisdom for the doctors, patience for his family and healing for his body.