NADCE and Call news

Hello everyone. I just returned from a beautiful week in sunny California and wanted to update you on my trip as well as the call process here in Alaska.

The week in California was amazing, the speakers were great, time away from the church for a bit was great, and most of all seeing friends and making new ones was by far the best part of the whole conference.  The conference ran Tuesday night to Thursday around noon, but I was in California from Monday morning to Friday late afternoon.  It gave myself quite a bit of down time, but most importantly to see many of my friends from the program who I missed and Adam and Kyla as well.  The theme of the conference was #connect so I was able to meet many new DCE's and some very respected DCE's in our synod as well.  The worship experience when I was there was absolutely phenomenal.  We were led in worship by Kip Fox who lead the worship at the last national youth gathering that was in Orlando, Florida.  So it felt pretty cool to go from seeing him in front of 25,000 people to now only in front of 150.  We had about 1/4 of the DCE's from synod represented at the conference so there was many connections to be made.

Now to the point im sure you are all waiting for.  Last Sunday Our Redeemer as a congregation voted to officially extend me a call for the position that I currently am serving under now.  So now I basically am praying quite a bit and deciding whether or not I believe that this is where God wants me to be. The date for a decision that I am shooting for is when I come back for midyear in a couple weeks, but it could go quicker, or it could take longer.  I am not one to test God so this answer will only come on His time.

More than anything I hope that you all will pray for me and my understanding of what I believe God's call is for my life.  It is not my will, but His.

Thank you all for the support that you have given me through this year thus far, and the continued support and prayers that I know I will receive.

Blessings,

Ryan

January Devotion

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

“Don’t worry.” How many times has someone told you this, or have you find yourself telling someone these wise words? It’s such an easy thing to say to someone else, however when we find ourselves in a similar situation it is so hard for us to take our own advice.

I consider myself a very easy going person, and able to roll with the punches that this sinful world throws my way on a day-to-day basis, however I was not always this way.  After my father had passed at such an early age I worried about everything you could possibly imagine. If my mother was five minutes late from picking me up from basketball practice, if there was a tornado warning, even crawling into bed every night was a challenge for me (probably the biggest), and an even bigger one for my extremely patient mother.

I found myself attending Christian counseling often, and finally one thing got through to me, and that was prayer.  My counselor, Doug, wrote out a prayer for me on a small sheet of paper to keep in those awful Velcro wallets that we used to have growing up.  I was to read this prayer every time that I was worried. This task was a little bit more difficult than one would think since I did not have much of a reason to carry around a wallet with on $1 and few quarters, but that stuck with me. That prayer still rests in my top drawer in Milwaukee with that awful wallet, but I still remember what Doug taught me, prayer is powerful.

So often we overlook prayer in our daily lives because we don't trust it. Which can only mean one thing, that we do not trust God.  In addition when we actually do slow down and have some prayer time it is just us telling God what we think (key word) we need.  God wants to have a conversation with us, not  just have us throw requests at His feet like he is a magic Jeanie who will give us three wishes, if that was the case I hope you all would wish for a million more wishes, I’m not sure how that got overlooked in all these movies. God rather wants to have a relationship with us, that is why we were created!

This month in Sunday Night Life we are going to talk about prayer. Different types of prayer, how to go deeper in our prayer lives as a family, as individuals, and how to make that relationship with God deeper.  Two very simple adjustments can be made to your prayer life to make this phase of your walk with Christ a conversation. The first is for every prayer request you have, thank God for something that He has done for you, is doing for you, or something of that nature. The second is to just stop, be silent, it’s a conversation for a reason. Quiet your heart and soul and see what God has to say back at you.  You may be surprised by what you have been missing.

Through Him Alone,

Ryan Strehlow– DCE Intern

Christmas Madness

Well I once again have failed at informing you all of my life more than once every couple of months. I apologize.  I have no excuses apart from the fact that I was busy, and lazy, also watching Illinois lose to Mizzou seems like a better past time than writing a blog, but here we go!

So Christmas time in the Church is crazy busy! Who would have thought? It seriously was crazy though, we had our Children's Christmas service the weekend before Christmas on December the 16th which was nice to spread out the mass chaos that seemed to run about everywhere. All of the Advent services, and also where the date of Christmas fell this year we had Sunday service on the 23rd, two services on the 24th and also a service Christmas morning.  It was an awesome experience though and many families took me in for the days before and after Christmas, which made me feel as though I was not as far away from home as I thought I was.  Christmas eve I was over at two different church families houses for dinner, and Christmas day I spent with one family for almost the whole day. The day after Christmas  I went to "boxing day party" at one of the church families houses as well. Needless to say I had enough food to eat, and enough company to share.  Alaskan's do these crazy things called hikes before your allowed to eat dinner as well, something about staying healthy was their reasoning. I wasnt really listening but for some reason this Christmas I didnt gain my classic 10 pounds.

Honestly though I cant begin to describe how amazing people are in the church, and how well they take care of church workers around Christmas, and of course through the rest of the year as well.  I received so many gift cards that will help me out with grocery's and also getting some fun stuff for myself as well.  It was way above and beyond what I ever expected to receive from anyone, and I was not expecting to get anything from anyone. It seriously was unreal.

Sunday is a pretty big day. The church votes on whether they are going to issue a call or whether they are going to continue forward with two part time workers for the congregation.  Depending on what their choice is, and possibly what my choice is after that It could have huge implications on my life for awhile.  More than anything I am praying that God's will is done on Sunday and I hope that is what all of your prayers are as well please.

On Sunday night I also head to California for the NADCE conference! which is a huge gathering of DCE's that happens once every three years which is a pretty big deal! Im very excited to see some friends from the DCE program and Adam and Kyla will be in attendance as well which is pretty exciting, I miss the the two of them very much.

After Christmas and between New Years I took a bit of break from work and hung out with my good buddy Trent up here and his Fiance Shawna.  It was nice to take a breather from work and just hang out for a bit.  I have been working well into February due to the fact that I am going to be gone so much in January around here.

I look forward to coming home to see you all in less than a month! I also am going to start posting the devotions that I write for our monthly newsletter on here, now that I actually write them myself so I hope that you all enjoy them as well!

I hope that all is well in the lower 48 and I cant wait to see you all very very soon! Thank you for continued prayers that you send all the way up here, I can tell you they are reaching God continues to bless in ways that shock me every day that I am up here.

~Ryan

Wait what I have a blog?

Alright the secret is out, this clearly is not the most important thing on my to do list though the week, or month for that matter. However I still should probably start to do a better job for you all on this whole blog thing.

Things are going extremely well here in Alaska, and extremely busy as well!  The weeks literally seem to fly by and are full of new adventures every week.  I am finally to a point where I can say that I am quite a bit ahead of schedule for things that I need to do on office work, so I am able to work on other things through the day here, and get things done.  Ill try my best to run through a few things below and catch you all up on different things that have been keeping me away from this blog.

The most fun thing is my group that we recently started here called Sunday Night Life.  Its a group of birth through fifth graders, and their family all coming together for a night.  We eat dinner together, worship and then the parents lead their kids in a devotion.  The night is only about an hour and a half long but it is great to see parents leading their kids in a devotion and being the solid faith rock that they need to be for their kids.  I also send home devotions with them for the next month ahead so that they can continue faith growth outside of the church as well.

I have been hanging out quite a bit with my friends Trent and Shawna up here.  Trent was one of the first guys that I met up here, he works at the golf course that I play at alot.  He recently just moved his fiance Shawna up here about a month or so ago, and I usually see them a couple times a week, and some of their other friends as well.  Its nice to have some people around my age to hang out with, and friends outside of the church as well.

Our Children's church is just starting to work on our Christmas service that we will be putting on the week before Christmas which is really exciting. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the different things that I am in charge of here, I really have been insanely busy planning for these holidays.  So busy to the point that I think that it will be pretty slow for me in the next couple of weeks as far as things that I will have to work on during the day.  I normally have a couple meetings a week at night which allows me to leave the office early and go do what I need to get done for the day and be back at church at night.  I also got recruited to be on the hand bell crew here as well which is odd not having to blow a trumpet to make music.

I have been working out quite a bit, and now that I am actually back in shape I have targeted a half marathon in June which Im going to start training for soon up here.  It should be a pleasant fifty or sixty degrees about that time of the year so I wont have to worry about an 80 or 90 degree day which should be nice.  

In a couple of days mom and Kari are coming up here, which will be awesome to see them and show them everything that I have been talking about for the last five months or so.  The highs for the week are supposed to be about 15-20 so they should get a good taste of what the temp is starting to get like, its only getting colder.  The nice thing about the cold is that I think im starting to get used to it.  Last week I grilled out some chedderwurst and polish in jeans and a sweatshirt in about twenty degrees with no issue.  Dont worry I had a beer in hand as well, s it was super Wisconsin.

Hearing the news of Great grandmothers passing was difficult this past week, but I know that God's will was certainly done in her life, and that she was a beacon of light for those in darkness around her. I will never forget all the kit kats that she gave to me, and helped me become the pudgy gradeschooler that I was.  Seriously though a great woman, and a huge part of my life for years, and now she is off to a far better place than we  can even imagine right now.

Overall I'm still having a blast up here, and I know that right now, more than ever this is where God wants me to be.  Ill be back home in January for those who have not heard yet for a multitude of school things, and also to see family and friends.  I will be back from January 26th to February 4th.  Were planning a family get together in Chicago from February 2nd-3rd. My mom is working on details for that so if you have any questions I suppose call her or me and we can let you know what we know.  I think we are just going to rent some rooms at a hotel all together so that its easier for me to try to see everyone rather than trying to travel all over the country in like a four day time span.

Thank you for all your continued support and prayers it is greatly appreciated! The pictures below are from a plane ride that one of our church members took me on, one of the most ridiculous things I have ever done, these are just a few of the pictures, Ill have more when I come back for sure.

Gods blessings 

Alaskan snow princess update: None

Snow: About 5 inches 

This is an old missle site from the cold war, thought Kyle/Uncle Kev would get a kick out of this

McKinley in the distance

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

My upstairs neighbors (Chuck and Terri) Dog Jorge

"Sleeping Lady" Can you see her?

Pretty cool view of the inlet from up in a tree I climbed on a hike

"The three kings" Foraker, Hunter, McKinley 

Moose Choppin and Backpack Blessing

Hello all,

I think that this is probably a quicker response to the blog maybe even just did my last one in two weeks?  Anyways things are flying by here in alaska, it amazes me to realize that I am almost a quarter of the way through my internship already, which seems unreal.  The last couple weeks, just like every other week here seems to fly right by.

Biggest news here in Alaska is that it is Moose hunting season here, so most people are out doing that.  I however am not an Alaskan resident so attempting to go hunting would cost me quite a bit of money, apart from the fact that I have never shot a gun in my life, I think that probably has a bigger influence on the fact that I am not moose hunting right now.  I have however chopped up some moose here already.

Our church has a food pantry, and we are considered a not for profit organization so we get thrown into a pot of not for profit food pantry's and other organizations in the Anchorage area for highway moose  kills.  A couple of weeks ago we received a call early in the morning that someone had hit a moose on the highway so there was one that was dropped off at our Church back door and we had a moose chopping party (there are picture below, or on my facebook page).  The moose that we got appeared to be massive to myself, but apparently it was a "small kill".  Regardless by the time we cut all the fat, or most of the fat, and ground up all the moose we filled almost 3/4 of a deep freezer full of moose which should keep our food pantry stocked for a bit at least.

We have been gearing up for the year ahead in the last couple of weeks as well.  Its amazing how far ahead I have to plan to make sure that everything stays on task, and that we know what is going on in the future.  I am already looking forward to planning through February if you dont include the national youth gathering, if you count that then I am already planning up to the last week of my internship.  We have rally day coming up on September 9th which is just our big fall kick off sunday informing everyone at church all the different things that they could be involved in at church.

School has started here in Anchorage and we did a "blessing of the backpacks" event at our church.  We had a short prayer in the service and then we had a little cross keychain that the kids could put on their backpacks for school.  The majority of kids brought their backpacks into church that day to kind of add to the Sunday as well.  We ended up handing out around twenty crosses to kids anywhere from preschool to Freshman in college.

I am slowly but surely starting to make friends here, it is a slow and daunting task.   One of my fellow classmates who is also on internship has a friend who teaches in Anchorage who I have met up with a couple of times.  She has been here for a year so she knows the area pretty well.  Due to the fact that she is a female everyone in the church who heard about her thinks I'm dating her, which is fine Im just happy to have someone to hang out with who is actually my age.  I have met a couple other guys who work at a golf course and are right at my age as well their pretty cool, havnt done a whole lot with them yet, but were trying to figure out a time to meet up, should be cool to get in with them now that football season is starting up.  I could use some guys to sit down and watch a few games with.  I also have really connected with one family here who has three kids as well.  Obviously as I said in the last post its hard to meet up with them since they are often busy!

One of the coolest things I have done so far was go kayaking with one of our members.  It was somewhat hard to get used to but overall super cool.  I am thinking that it may be anew hobby for me, and it kinda made me want to go out and get a kayak right after

Apart from all that things in Alaska continue to move on, right now the Alaska state fair is going on, which pales in comparison to the size of the Wisconsin state fair.  The animal barn at the Alaska State Fair had about two hundred animals, the size of maybe half of the Wisconsin cow barn.  Still the food was good, and there are actually a fair amount of bigger bands that actually will come out to Alaska.

That pretty much wraps it all up for as much as I can think of!

Hope all is well back in Illinois and Wisconsin

Alaska Snow Princess Update: None

Combination of rain and a sunset 

Hiking a trail in back of my house with the dogs

Kayaking Eklutna Lake

July

Hello all, sorry this took so long to write this, but the first part of this past month I was very lazy and just didnt post, and then the last two weeks here actually have been pretty busy so that is why I have not been able to post.  This new blog is just going to be a quick overview over the last month or so and what you all have missed out on due to my laziness.

After VBS things really slowed down immensely for me here at Our Redeemer. After VBS was over and the past DCE intern left I had minimal things to work on and I was just really excited to head back home for my week with family and friends at the wedding I attended.  Summers here are extremely slow, and apart from Sunday services there are not too many things that have immediate attention needed.  The majority of the time that I spent in the office was spent planning ahead to events in August and really just getting into the daily grind of what a church worker is all about.

Going home was so much fun, I was able to see many people from both the Speckman and Strehlow side of the family which was really cool because I dont know when I will be able to see them all next.  Also it was Kari's 21st birthday so I was able to take her out a couple of nights and help her to celebrate that event the right way!  One of the best part of the trip home though was going to the wedding Kevin Thomson and Jordan Scifers!  It was so great to be a part of their wedding and to see all of my friends there too. This was the first wedding that I have ever stood in so that was a new experience for me as well.  Im sure many of you saw the pictures on Facebook of my date, Michelle, no she is not my girlfriend we have been really good friends ever since early in grade school so she came along as a friend.  I wasnt able to see her at all when I was in Milwaukee so she drove down for the wedding and we had a blast together, and all my friends liked her alot too! Overall the wedding was a blast and seeing people my own age was refreshing to say the least.

Since I have come back from Milwaukee things have actually picked up quite a bit.  I have had my first youth event, and we are in full fledged planning for the next year ahead with Sunday school, youth events, and everything else.  My official title here is director of family ministry so I am doing everything under the sun at Our Redeemer, not just youth ministry, which is actually what I would prefer so it is a good fit.  It still amazes me how much I feel as though I fit into this church and community so quickly.  The work that I am doing I love, and I feel as though God has placed me here for great reasons, many of which I have not seen yet.

I have been looking forward to the National Youth Gathering since I left New Orleans last year and now we are getting to the point where I can actually start to look forward to it for real.  Planning for the National Youth Gathering (NYG) has really started to take off for me this week, and information for our group already starts to be due early September so I need to be getting everything ready for that.  Im really looking forward to the group that we have going and being in the role that I will be in for that event.  All of the Alaska churches some what plan to stick together at NYG which simplifies planning, and is really helpful to myself in my first year on internship, and this being the first group that I have ever taken to a NYG by myself as well.

Apart from that life is good here in Alaska, I continue to build relationships with people here, and meet new people.  I actually met one of my classmates good friends from grade school who teaches at the local Lutheran grade school which was alot of fun.  I have been golfing a ton, and I am meeting quite a few people through that, as well as opening ministry opportunities with many of the people that I meet out on the course as well.  My goal is to get down to a single digit handicap by the end of the summer, currently I am resting at a 12.5 handicap thanks to my trusty app that I have on my Ipad.  I am golfing well, and continue to run alot and actually feel like I am getting back in shape from the end of senior year/my lost battle with 14 steps.

I hope all is well with everyone at home in Illinois and Wisconsin!

Alaskan Snow Princess update: None

Adam and Kyla on the right, are two of my best friends in the DCE program (engaged to be married), and two of my best friends in general, and my date Michelle in the yellow

The groom, and his groomspeople at the reception