Monday, November 22, 2010

.Fall Blast.


Wow, I am so blessed. Since I've arrived in Alaska I have already had two opportunities to go out to villages. This past week I was able to be apart of the planning for the High School retreat, known as Fall Blast. There was quite a bit of writing/ responding to emails, buying/ shipping food, and putting together PowerPoint slides for the worship music! We tried getting everything organized so that the retreat would go off without a hitch, and I'd say for the most part, things went great.

It was such an encouraging weekend with an amazing speaker named Luda. She is a Russian women who speaks on the KICY radio show, sharing the gospel  with the Russian audience. There were also a few college students from ACC who shared their testimonies and what the Lord is doing in their lives as of now. It was very powerful and encouraging. The Lord put together an amazing staff of people who love working with the youth, which definitely added to the success of the weekend.

This was part of the crew.
Nikki Dill, Max Fancher, Me, Julie, Tom [our pilot], Alyssa, Jaculine, and Byron


This weekend was such an amazing time, and I loved getting to know some more of the students in the different villages. I believe we had a total of 35 campers from villages including: Unalakleet, Elim, Shaktoolik, White Mountain, Koyuk, Golovin, and Nome, basically all of the Norton Sound Region.

[here is a map so you can see what I'm talking about.
This retreat was for the Norton Sound region,
and the Mountain Village youth worker conference I went to before was for the Yukon Delta].

So. I took a ton of pictures but I will post a few so you can get a feel for where I was. We met in Elim for the retreat, so all the students began flying in from their respective villages. As the groups started arriving we mostly set up registration and played games. Basketball seems to be the favorite, but alot of the kids also love, I mean LOVE the game Ninja [which is all the rage at LGYC, too. I thought it was funny that they all play it too].  


This is the game ninja in action.


The guys played basketball every chance they got.

  

We also played the Alaskan version of sharks and minnows
called Caribou Caribou!
[The caribou are waiting by the wall and there are
two wolves in the middle waiting for the
delicous caribou to cross onto their tundra!]

We also played a group game called electricity, similiar to
telephone. Everyone links hands. The beginning person
squeezes the next persons hand and it continues on down
the line. Once it reaches the last person they have to run
back to the front of the line and so on and so forth!
After dinner on friday we headed over to the church for Chapel.
This was Luda. Our amazing russian speaker.
Listening to her life story, and how the Lord has
used her life to reach so many people was truly inspiring.

On Saturday moring, we were greeted by an unbelievable sunrise. Suzie, Tom Mute, and I headed over to the chapel to get the powerpoint set up fot that mornings chapel. Tom reminded us that the Lord's mercies are new every morning! He also reminded us that it is always morning somewhere in the world. So we are promised that the Lord's mercies are always new!

Great is His faithfulness!

After lunch, we took the entire group on a hike.

Once we made it to the top we decided to play a game! For this game we all got in a circle, squeezed real close to one another and one the count of three all sat down. The tricky part was that you really had to trust the people around you. In order for it to work everyone had to fully sit down at the same time, if you didn't trust the person behind you it broke the circle and you fell down.

The first few times we lost a few people.


 but finally we got it!
Here is a shot of the entire group at the top.

This is my friend Deborah that I met.

My roomies for the weekend: Nikki and Julie!
And a group resting before out descent back down.

When we got back to the bottom I had a bit of time to walk around Elim. This is looking out from in front of the school.
and this is out infront of the chapel.
Before I knew it the weekend was basically over.
On Sunday morning we took a few goup pictures before all
the kids starting heading back to their villages.

Here is our entire group of guys.

the girls.
and the staff.

This was such an amazing weekend. I met so many amazing people; both leaders and students. I am so thankful that I was able to experience Fall Blast, this is truly something I love. Being a part of youth retreats where I am able to counsel. Spending time getting to know the kids, listening to their stories, laughing at their crazy stories in the cabin, and worshipping with them in chapel.

Here is a final picture of two amazing girls I got to meet:
Roberta (Wassuq) and Jennie.


Keep your eye on them...they are going to be amazing leaders!

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