It has taken Maryanne & I a while to sort out our feelings about our trip to Alaska. In the end there were two seperate questions: What did God do?...and how was your vacation? (though God is in the vacation, too). As people have asked us "how was Alaska?", the answer hasn't been easy to articulate. I'll put the vacation aspect aside and concentrate on the God stuff.
The first week we were among 540 people who took part in a Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship Conference on board a cruise ship traveling up the coast of Alaska. There were great times of worship and ministry on board, as well as outreach ministry in the ports we stopped at. Each mealtime we sat at tables with folks from all over the globe and shared what God was up to in our given corner of the world. Maryanne and I served breakfast in a soup kitchen in Juneau (the tourists don't see this stuff!). We joined 500 believers in surrounding the government building in Ketchikan to pray for the leaders there. While there we also were taken on a "christian" tour of Ketchikan and the surrounding area. The Native people who met us in these ports are spirit-filled believers who gave us a God-perspective on history and current life in these areas. We met a 70-something Master Carver who makes totem poles ($3,500-5,000 per FOOT!!!). We stood in awe as we listened to this brother in the Lord talk about his work.
As we left the ship and entered into our 2nd week, we rented a car in Anchorage and proceeded on our journey around "the loop"...900 miles of 2 lane road in the middle of the state. We spent the next 4 days visiting 3 PF families and travelling 1,000 miles.
We begin in Anchorage with the Bailey family. Barry, (Klondike)Carol, and their 2 adorable girls had spent 2 troubled years in Warren and at PF several years back. Maryanne and I hooked up with them and watched God put their lives back together! Now we got to spend time with them in THEIR home in Alaska. We had glorious meals together and went hiking with them in those breathtaking mountains!
Next day...on to visit Al & Lori Reynolds. We had just seen them back here in Pa. the week before, so it was funny visiting them almost immediately in their new home 5,000 miles away. We got a thorough overview of their life in Glenallin(sp), touring the areas where the Native people live and traveling to the Reynolds' "fishing spot". Lori works at the medical clinic right next to their log cabin where they pray for people who arrive in need of care...even praying for the dead to be raised! It was hard to drive away from Al&Lori and their warm hospitality.
Next day, however...down the road to our next stop at Doug and Nancy Jewell's in Delta Junction.
The Jewells are pastoring a church up there in "Delta", and man have they been WORKING! It's been some time since there's been a regular pastor and both the church and the parsonage have needed renovation/ rehab. Doug and Nancy are also been busy "building bridges" within their congregation and to the community. We got to spend a very precious evening with some of the brothers and sisters from the church. We held their mid-week gathering in Doug's living room and spent lots of time praying and ministering to each other. We deeply cherish the time spent with everybody there. It was painful to have to leave Doug the next morning (Nancy was actually in Warren during our visit, so we didn't get to see her). We really wanted to stay longer, and I think it did Doug a lot of good to see familiar faces from "back home"; after all, they've lived in Warren all their lives up to this time. That was the hard thing for Maryanne and I...having to keep moving down the road and leave loved ones behind.
Arriving back in Anchorage to fly home, we got to spend more time with the Baileys. More delicious meals together! The promise of another visit in the not-too-distant future. We have spent the last 2 weeks being a small part of God re-establishing ties between Praise Fellowship and all our loved ones in Alaska. It is a wild, breathtaking, unforgiving, unimaginably HUGE place. It's a place that no one in the lower 48 understands. It is like another country altogether. And it is where The Lord makes His home just as comfortably as He does everywhere else. He made it, and He is in love with it.
