Updates from Anaktuvuk Pass 6/3/10 & 6/4/10 by Eric O'Neal

6/3/10

Today may prove to be the longest day of our trip. After staying the night in Fairbanks, our team woke up at 5:30 am to leave for the airport, Wright Air. The team was divided between a morning and an afternoon flight. The morning flight that I was on had to stop in Coldfoot until the fog cleared up in AKP. We fought off swarming mosquitoes in Coldfoot for about 20 minutes before taking off again for AKP. By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we stepped off the plane in AKP with no bugs to be found. Each of us celebrated the fact that we could see our own breath in the 40 degree weather.

After dropping off our luggage and supplies, our team joined Keith and Sally for a hot lunch. The completion of lunch marked the beginning of team nap time, which was followed immediately by VBS decoration time. VBS starts tomorrow at 2:00 pm. Youth group, on the other hand, started tonight. It went from 7:00 - 8:30 pm, broke for open gym for an hour and a half and then resumed from 10:00 pm -12:00 am. Putting our need for sleep aside, it has been great to reconnect with our friends in AKP. As the 25 village-youth were filtering out after youth group, I heard one of them tell Spencer Stilwell, "Welcome back home".

Pray for our rest, we're going to need it. :)


6/4/10

Today marked the beginning of VBS. At 2:00pm the small Chapel in the Mountains was filled with about 20 kids, ranging in age from pre-school through fifth grade. A few of the teenagers that met our team at youth group last night came today as volunteer help. VBS was a little hectic at times with crowd control but overall went very well for our first day. Our theme this week is "Heroes". Today the kids learned about Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. And, just like Moses, true heroes give God the credit. That message was good for our team to hear considering all the work that has been put into this trip. God, give us hearts of servants.

Pray for consistency for both VBS and youth group


Stay tuned for continued updates throughout this week!!