Alaska 2022

Alaska – Day 4 (May 10th)

By Laura Shoopman

Today, we began the morning with service projects. I went to Doris’ house for the first time to tape the walls. Kristen, Kailee, Grace, and I had never done this before and there was definitely a learning curve. Once we got some practice with it, we were actually pretty good.

Something we have noticed as a collective group is that even though the work we are doing is not very difficult, or we can learn with instruction from the project leaders, we can see how much we accomplished over the course of the trip. With four girls taping the walls, closets, and ceilings, we finished two bedrooms of the house while the project leaders could focus their time on something more specific or complicated.

Another group was at the church completing various projects. One of which was to dig out the church van from icy, deep snow. It ended up taking the town forklift to get it out which was perfect timing. The church group picked up the group at Doris’ house and we headed to the top of the mountain where a great lookout point is along with some windmills. It was breathtaking…. And cold!

Today after lunch, some senior boys stopped by with whale for us to try. It is called “Muck tuk”. While it was a great experience to try a piece of whale skin and fat, it was not a fan favorite from our group.

Afterward, Ninja Nick came by and asked if we wanted to go ice hopping! We piled into the church van and the beds of trucks and headed out of town to one of his favorite spots. We hopped, jumped, and leaped across ice chunks in the water. He taught us about the thin ice and thick ice; what was safe and what wasn’t. This was one of the best and most fun moments for the entire group.

We had another great day of camp sessions and boded with the kids much more. It was great to see them open up more and more each day- and us do the same. We played many basketball games, shooting games, and fun games. We realized that it wasn’t really about the basketball, but that we were using that as a vessel to allow us to exchange love and joy with them.

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