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Saturday, June 6, 2009
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Sightseeing day
This is a common day for everyone who has made the trek to the boys home so we are sightseeing today before First Baptist leaves. We are going to Kenai Fjords National Park. The drive up is amazing but it's hard to get pictures from the van. We promise good pictures when we get there though.
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June 5th Recap – It’s been a lllllooooooonnnngggg day!
It’s 11:30 p.m. in Anchorage as I sit and write this. That means its 3:30 a.m. in Kingsport. We have been awake and at it since 5 a.m. Eastern Time or 1:00 a.m. Alaskan Time or is it the other way around? Regardless… we have been on the go for 22.5 hours.
We left the Northwestern provided Holiday Inn room this morning and made our way back to Charlotte International again. We parked the van in long term parking again. We checked in and checked our baggage again. We went through security again. We boarded our flight again. We took off again. No, wait a minute. We took off for the first time. Sorry about that, I was on a roll.
Before I forget we used the $5 meal vouchers this morning that Northwest (Actually they became Delta today I believe) provided for the inconvenience of our flight being cancelled yesterday. Just for future reference in case you find yourself in a similar situation with $5 to burn. A Pepsi and Danish will take your $5, water and a biscuit requires you to kick in another $.39.
We left a very rainy Charlotte and flew to Minneapolis around 8:30 this morning. The flight was little late departing to the weather, but was uneventful past that. Most of us were seated in the very last row of the plane, but despite the traffic back and forth to the lavatories behind us, it was a pleasant flight that went by quickly. We landed in Minneapolis walked quite a distance in a beautiful terminal on our way to the next boarding gate. We also managed to grab a sandwich or burger as we were passing through.
Our next flight left at 11:45 Eastern Time for Alaska. We flew a Boeing 757 and the seats were wider and a bit more comfortable than the Airbus A320 we flew from Charlotte on. It was a pleasant flight, but long. Parts of the body went numb from sitting so long that normally don’t go numb. I’m also happy to report that I have figured out the Northwest/Delta formula for refreshment service on domestic flights. You receive 6 oz. of soft drink and 5 peanuts free with every 2 ½ hours of flight time. I know that because we received 1 tiny pack of peanuts and a plastic glass of soft drink between Charlotte and Minneapolis. But between Minneapolis and Anchorage, a flight a little more than twice as long, they gave me two small bags of peanuts and let me have the whole can of drink. Everything was overcast and we couldn’t see anything until we crossed the Alaska range and the view of the mountains were spectacular.
We landed in Anchorage around 2:30 p.m. local time and were met and picked by Steve Snodgrass. Steve heads up the Alaskan mission trips for the Sullivan Baptist Association and coordinates everything. Steve has been here since last Thursday week along with his mother. John White and Waylon Jenkins from First Baptist Kingsport have been here since Sunday and are leaving Sunday. Donna and Dawnena Byington (you should remember them from yesterday) are from Mill Creek Baptist and were originally on our same cancelled flight but managed to reschedule earlier than us and arrived in Anchorage at 1:00 a.m. last night. They will be leaving on Wednesday night when we leave.
We checked into rented dorm rooms at The University of Alaska at Anchorage. The accommodations at UAA are great for the price with two of us in a room with private sleeping quarters but shared bath facilities.
After we checked in we went over to the Alaska Baptist Family Services location. We had dinner at the facility and met some of the staff and residents. The boys who live there are teenagers. Right now there are eight residents and they can handle a maximum of 16. They turned away 85 boys last year for lack of space. That’s why they are trying to add on and enlarge the campus and that is why we are here to help. Due to Federal confidentiality laws we cannot take any pictures of any of the boys that would allow them to be identified. So you will not be seeing any pictures of the boys unless it was from the back or at a distance and that would be inadvertent as I plan to adhere to the law to the letter.
We had a good dinner, met the boys, and some played a little ball with them. John and Waylon had bought a new Basketball goal for the home to replace the current broken one and we assembled it and filled the base with rocks.
That’s it for today. Keep us in your prayers and pray for the Alaska Baptist Family Services and those they care for.
God bless!
We left the Northwestern provided Holiday Inn room this morning and made our way back to Charlotte International again. We parked the van in long term parking again. We checked in and checked our baggage again. We went through security again. We boarded our flight again. We took off again. No, wait a minute. We took off for the first time. Sorry about that, I was on a roll.
Before I forget we used the $5 meal vouchers this morning that Northwest (Actually they became Delta today I believe) provided for the inconvenience of our flight being cancelled yesterday. Just for future reference in case you find yourself in a similar situation with $5 to burn. A Pepsi and Danish will take your $5, water and a biscuit requires you to kick in another $.39.
We left a very rainy Charlotte and flew to Minneapolis around 8:30 this morning. The flight was little late departing to the weather, but was uneventful past that. Most of us were seated in the very last row of the plane, but despite the traffic back and forth to the lavatories behind us, it was a pleasant flight that went by quickly. We landed in Minneapolis walked quite a distance in a beautiful terminal on our way to the next boarding gate. We also managed to grab a sandwich or burger as we were passing through.
Our next flight left at 11:45 Eastern Time for Alaska. We flew a Boeing 757 and the seats were wider and a bit more comfortable than the Airbus A320 we flew from Charlotte on. It was a pleasant flight, but long. Parts of the body went numb from sitting so long that normally don’t go numb. I’m also happy to report that I have figured out the Northwest/Delta formula for refreshment service on domestic flights. You receive 6 oz. of soft drink and 5 peanuts free with every 2 ½ hours of flight time. I know that because we received 1 tiny pack of peanuts and a plastic glass of soft drink between Charlotte and Minneapolis. But between Minneapolis and Anchorage, a flight a little more than twice as long, they gave me two small bags of peanuts and let me have the whole can of drink. Everything was overcast and we couldn’t see anything until we crossed the Alaska range and the view of the mountains were spectacular.
We landed in Anchorage around 2:30 p.m. local time and were met and picked by Steve Snodgrass. Steve heads up the Alaskan mission trips for the Sullivan Baptist Association and coordinates everything. Steve has been here since last Thursday week along with his mother. John White and Waylon Jenkins from First Baptist Kingsport have been here since Sunday and are leaving Sunday. Donna and Dawnena Byington (you should remember them from yesterday) are from Mill Creek Baptist and were originally on our same cancelled flight but managed to reschedule earlier than us and arrived in Anchorage at 1:00 a.m. last night. They will be leaving on Wednesday night when we leave.
We checked into rented dorm rooms at The University of Alaska at Anchorage. The accommodations at UAA are great for the price with two of us in a room with private sleeping quarters but shared bath facilities.
After we checked in we went over to the Alaska Baptist Family Services location. We had dinner at the facility and met some of the staff and residents. The boys who live there are teenagers. Right now there are eight residents and they can handle a maximum of 16. They turned away 85 boys last year for lack of space. That’s why they are trying to add on and enlarge the campus and that is why we are here to help. Due to Federal confidentiality laws we cannot take any pictures of any of the boys that would allow them to be identified. So you will not be seeing any pictures of the boys unless it was from the back or at a distance and that would be inadvertent as I plan to adhere to the law to the letter.
We had a good dinner, met the boys, and some played a little ball with them. John and Waylon had bought a new Basketball goal for the home to replace the current broken one and we assembled it and filled the base with rocks.
That’s it for today. Keep us in your prayers and pray for the Alaska Baptist Family Services and those they care for.
God bless!
Alaska Baptist Family Services
A quick video of where we're working at this week, Alaska Baptist Family Services. You can find them on the web at www.akbaptist.com
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