Yesterday was an amazing day. We began with breakfast and me preaching my short sermon on Psalm 23, so I could upload it and get my assignment done while I still had internet access. It is good to be done with my homework for the week. I am looking forward to a relaxing week with completed assignments and no children to be responsible for. I discovered the lack of children to be quite disorientating yesterday. Every time I left a store or building, I experienced a sense of panic. I knew I was forgetting some one or some thing. I couldn't get used to the idea that I was spending a whole day with out a backpack, diaper bag, or beautiful daughter to keep track of. There were also many times that I would turn to show something to Catherine or Elizabeth and they weren't there. I miss my little girls, but at the same time I am enjoying the freedom of traveling and working with out them.

Yesterday morning as I was updating my Blog one of the other pastors on the trip wondered if she could send the address to a friend of hers. I decided to start a new blog specifically for this trip. For other perspectives about how this trip is going check out the other blog 3yearalaskatrip.blogspot.com.

After breakfast and blog creating we headed to down town Juneau. We took a tram to the top of the hill (mountain). Unfortunately I remembered I don't like heights, so I closed my eyes, and let my video camera run. To see the video of the trip up the mountain click here. I spent quite a bit of time at the top of the mountain enjoying the sights. We then came down and walked to the history museum, and learned a lot about the native people's culture. We also learned about life when the Russian's owned Alaska, the purchase, and life here early in it's history as a state. We then headed to a local homeless shelter, Glory Hole, where we prepared a meal, served the food, and ate with the people. It was a joy to hear their stories, and to be present with them.

The story of the day that struck me was on the way down in the Tram. A large group of us were heading down at the same time, and a young man was talking about how grateful he was to have found his wedding ring. I guess he took one of the trails and hiked to the top of the mountain where there is a cross. Then his wife stayed at the cross and he went on for about another mile. When he rejoined his wife his wedding ring was missing. His cruse ship was going to leave at 10:15 pm, so he was concerned and had ridden the tram back up to find his ring. He was grateful because some on had found the ring and turned it in. He said he didn't want to get a new ring blessed again (I guess he has already lost one ring). I told him that wouldn't have been a problem. If his ring hadn't been at the top, he could have just bought a new one at the gift shop and one of the many pastors in the tram car could have blessed it on the way down. He then told us he had just been up in Nome and was impressed by the United Methodist church up there. We shared that we were all United Methodist Pastors, and that the pastors assigned to Nome had just been at our annual conference where they were commissioned. He shared that he was a United Methodist too and his home church was in the D.C. area. We listened and shared what our various churches were doing and how their ministry was going. I loved the connection that joined together a group of Methodists, from across the country in Alaska.

I think my favorite sight of the day was when we were back at the top of the tram in the evening. I was hiking on the trail heading up to the cross, when I looked out over the valley, and there were a few rays of sun breaking through the clouds shining down on the valley below. It was quite beautiful.

Blessings to all of you. Today is church, and I will be attending the one in town.

Alaska

We arrived in Juneau yesterday afternoon around 4pm. It was a short flight from Seattle. We were driven to Aldersgate UMC where we learned about the history of Methodists in Alaska. It is a rich and interesting history that began with a struggle to get school teachers in Alaska. We learned about some amazing people and their journeys. We then headed out for dinner where we enjoyed seeing many local youth hanging out on a Friday night. It was fun to watch the Karaoke. After dinner we headed up to the Glacier. It was quite beautiful. Some of us also experienced what Cheryl called the "Bear Paparazzi." At first I thought seeing the Black Bears at the glacier wouldn't be much different then seeing them in the zoo, but then the fun of bear searching struck me. I quickly joined in to the crowd mentality and became an active part of the Bear Paparazzi. I had both my camera and my flip out as I crept around the elevated walks looking for bears to photograph. The bears were great at hiding, so I didn't get any good pictures. This was my favorite picture of last night. We are going to down town Juneau today, and then to serve dinner to the homeless. I think we might also be going back to the glacier. It will be interesting to see what adventures await today.