From Chi-Waukee to Chugiak: Rally Day Week Madness

That's right rally day week madness. It sounds foolish, like I only took one English class when I was at school, oh wait I did only take one English class at school but regardless that is the one phrase I could use to describe this past week.

This past Sunday we had our big fall kick off of all the events and different things going on at Our Redeemer, and my week leading up to it was insane. The week started off pretty easy with my classic day off on Monday, followed by a Tuesday morning round of golf with one of the members of the church here, and where I put up my worst score of the year. Like were talking about Uncle Joel kind of numbers here. Anyways so then Late Tuesday night we had "a storm unlike one I have ever seen in my twenty seven years here" as Chuck told me the day after. We had wind gusts of up to 130 MPH for six hours straight here. I started the storm off outside enjoying it with a cigar and nice seat in my lawn chair. Soon enough though I ended up heading inside due to the fact that the trees were parallel with the ground, and starting to snap.

To make a long story short, I didnt have power at my house until late Thursday night, so just over two full days without power. We got power down at the church after not having it for about a day and a half so I was able to go back to work on Thursday. I had plenty of work to do still so I ended up working three twelve hour days in a row which was pretty killer but everything got done in plenty of time, and the Bears destroyed the Colts on Sunday so it all turned out to be just fine. I certainly was happy though to see my day off this Monday. Most certainly I earned that day off this past week.

I'm in the process of attempting to implement a few new ministries here at Our Redeemer so Rally day was a big opportunity to have my grand unveiling of the ministries, and I will continue to talk them up in the next month or so until each one has their big kick off.

This past weekend we also started construction on our new playground that we received here at Our Redeemer for all of our little guys to play on. Saturday was the first big day day of construction and after a full day of work we got much of the base work done. The soil here, well really isn't soil, its more like a mixture of rocks, boulders, and a bit of dirt is quite fun to try to dig through. That has been one of the biggest difficulties since starting this project is trying to sort through all the dirt to just be able to lay the holes. We are over halfway done with construction thus far through the help of many awesome volunteers and we should have it completely done in a weeks time or so hopefully.

In addition to Rally Day this past weekend we started Children's Church which is our version of Sunday school up here. This is the first model of Sunday school that I have ever used like this so it has taken some time to adjust to it, but I am excited to learn more about it, and learn a new way to doing ministry to kids that age.

Tomorrow is the huge Bears Packers game, So I will be heading up to a local restaurant with a couple buddies I have met up here from a church just north or me, who also work at the golf course that I play at quite often. I have a church meeting at seven our time however so I am hoping that the game will be in the Bears hands by the third quarter so that I dont miss anything too big. It would be far to sweet to watch the packers lose more games then they did last season in the first two weeks of the season, but I know that traveling up to Green Bay is going to be rough especially since the 49ers angered them a bit last week.

Apart from that life continues on rolling up here, the week to week preparation is going to get easier as I adjust to it, but there is quite a bit more to do now that we are no longer in the summer months here. But it is nice to feel busy quite a bit more often, rather than sitting at my computer wondering what I should do.

I pray for you all at home often, and miss you quite a bit

Alaskan Snow Princess Update: None

Bears: 1-0

Cubs: Hopeless

In Christ,

Ryan