Well enjoy the pictures!
In His beauty,
Ab
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Matanuska Susitna Glacier
On our last day in Alaska we visited the Matanuska Susitna Glacier. This glacier is 27 miles long and some of the tallest points were about 10-15 stories high. Side note: **For every one inch of glacier ice it takes 10 feet of snow to make- remember 27 miles of it??? Goodness gracious. We serve an AWESOME God.
Well enjoy the pictures!
Well enjoy the pictures!
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Hiking Flattop Mountain in Alaska
Welcome to Flattop Mountain---
Why yes, you are in fact as close to this mountain as you can get to by car. You must hike over a hill and then up, up, and away before you can reach the top. Are you ready?? Good, lets go.
To begin, we are going to start by walking up the stairs you see in front of you. Next we will walk straight up a pretty big hill, crossing some snow, lots of mud, and pretty cold wind.
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| Yep, that's me. We were looking for a geocache. |
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If you look closely you can see the parking lot. Now remember we are ONLY 1/10th of the way there.
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After crossing this "little hill" you begin to hike around another pretty small (in comparison) hill. While hiking around you are beginning to get closer and closer to the edge and lots of wilderness around you.
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| A little snow. With blood. |
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| Looking out into cook inlet. |
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| This was really cool to watch. As we hiked the tide came in and went out. This was when it was out so it was really muddy and murky looking. |
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| Thinking we're getting close! |
We've finally reached the 2/3 mark and I know we're all pretty tired. But come on, this is ALASKA; a once in a lifetime opportunity to see views like this and to say that you have hiked this. So let's "suck it up cupcake" and make it to the top. Also, I should add that the first 2/3 of the hike are the easiest. (You're just NOW telling me this????) As we sit from this point looking up this is what awaits us----
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| Straight up rock climbing. "I'm totally not prepared for this!!" |
After hours of hiking, we've FINALLY reached the top!!!!
Ab
A typical Alaskan Work day
Monday June 25th
First day of work! We woke up and had our group devotions around 7:30am. Then we had breakfast and heard about our service project for the day. We would be staying at St. Johns and doing some work around this church. We split into two groups-boys and girls and began to work. The boys started off by doing some mowing and weed eating around the church. Next the began to split some wood. *Remember this wood pile, it will come back into play. Us girls started off by pulling weeds out of a garden. I've helped my mom pull weeds around our house before but these weeds were crazy. It was probably a 3 row wide garden, but only one row actually had anything planted. There was one row of strawberries and 2 rows of nothing, all of which were encompassed by weeds that came up to our knees. My thought is that this garden had never been taken care of. Well of course when you are working in the woods around a bunch of weeds the bugs are going to come out. Here in VA we have mosquitoes but they rarely bother me and I never wear bug spray. This was not an option-AT ALL in Alaska. Not only do they have mosquitoes but they are 3x the size they are here. Now hear me out- I've been to Mississippi and dealt with their mosquitoes but Alaska has got them beat. I've never seen anything like them. HUGE and out for blood. After conquering the weeds and mosquitoes we began to sand and prep for staining the 3 decks the church has. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of us working on our deck. :( After lunch we headed over to the park. The goal of the week was to minister to any and all of the kids that we came into contact with. A little harder than we had planned. We would get a huge group of kids together playing dodgeball and when we would sit down to have a lesson they would all run away and at most we were left with 2 kids to minister to. (Remember these two kids ;))
Tuesday June 26th
<3 Ab
First day of work! We woke up and had our group devotions around 7:30am. Then we had breakfast and heard about our service project for the day. We would be staying at St. Johns and doing some work around this church. We split into two groups-boys and girls and began to work. The boys started off by doing some mowing and weed eating around the church. Next the began to split some wood. *Remember this wood pile, it will come back into play. Us girls started off by pulling weeds out of a garden. I've helped my mom pull weeds around our house before but these weeds were crazy. It was probably a 3 row wide garden, but only one row actually had anything planted. There was one row of strawberries and 2 rows of nothing, all of which were encompassed by weeds that came up to our knees. My thought is that this garden had never been taken care of. Well of course when you are working in the woods around a bunch of weeds the bugs are going to come out. Here in VA we have mosquitoes but they rarely bother me and I never wear bug spray. This was not an option-AT ALL in Alaska. Not only do they have mosquitoes but they are 3x the size they are here. Now hear me out- I've been to Mississippi and dealt with their mosquitoes but Alaska has got them beat. I've never seen anything like them. HUGE and out for blood. After conquering the weeds and mosquitoes we began to sand and prep for staining the 3 decks the church has. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of us working on our deck. :( After lunch we headed over to the park. The goal of the week was to minister to any and all of the kids that we came into contact with. A little harder than we had planned. We would get a huge group of kids together playing dodgeball and when we would sit down to have a lesson they would all run away and at most we were left with 2 kids to minister to. (Remember these two kids ;))
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| Some of the kids at the park. |
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| You have an awesome view no matter where you are in Alaska. <3 |
We worked at a church that was completely rebuilding because of a fire that destroyed the first building. This "new" to them building looked like a big metal room that they were beginning to separate into a sanctuary, classrooms, and one big fellowship type room. We helped by painting quite a few things around the church- rooms, doors, frames in between hanging up the new doors, putting in new door frames, cleaning some disgusting windows and playing a little wiffle ball ;) This day was probably the most work challenging. Again we headed to the park in the afternoon and hung out with the kids.
<3 Ab
Monday, July 9, 2012
Alaksa Day 1
Sunday June 24
Sunday was our rest day. Our day to catch up to their sleeping patterns and getting used to all daylight. We started our morning by going to a local church- Church on the Rock. The service, speaker, music, and congregation were awesome. This is one of the only churches in Wasilla that is actually thriving and has more than about 20 people on Sunday mornings. Alaska is the least churched state in the U.S and it definitely shows. We came back to St. Johns, where we were staying, and had some delicious spaghetti made by our cook Tom. Then we set off for our first Alaskan adventure. We drove up to a place called Hatcher's Pass and took a tour of the Independence Mine State Historical Park. Henry, Joseph and I all climbed way up past where we were supposed to be. I was terrified we were going to get eaten by a bear, stomped by a moose, or shot by someone. Luckily we made it out alive and when we got to the bottom my exact words were- "I felt like we were just hobbits." I guess it's something about running around on rolling hills on Mountains in danger that made me feel like Frodo and Pippin.
Sunday was our rest day. Our day to catch up to their sleeping patterns and getting used to all daylight. We started our morning by going to a local church- Church on the Rock. The service, speaker, music, and congregation were awesome. This is one of the only churches in Wasilla that is actually thriving and has more than about 20 people on Sunday mornings. Alaska is the least churched state in the U.S and it definitely shows. We came back to St. Johns, where we were staying, and had some delicious spaghetti made by our cook Tom. Then we set off for our first Alaskan adventure. We drove up to a place called Hatcher's Pass and took a tour of the Independence Mine State Historical Park. Henry, Joseph and I all climbed way up past where we were supposed to be. I was terrified we were going to get eaten by a bear, stomped by a moose, or shot by someone. Luckily we made it out alive and when we got to the bottom my exact words were- "I felt like we were just hobbits." I guess it's something about running around on rolling hills on Mountains in danger that made me feel like Frodo and Pippin.
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| Independence Mine State Historical Park |
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| An Old engine |
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| Old mining community |
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| View from above |
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| Mining railroad |
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| Cuties |
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| Hobbits |
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