God is so Good

Yes! God is so good. This past month has been busy with camp and family. God has blessed our family with a wood stove. The house we live in, up until the past month, was not approved for a wood stove. Thanks be to God, now we were able to put in a wood stove. God lined everything up, and to Him be the Glory. Not only is it a great way to heat the house, but also dry out all those wet winter clothes and wet window ledges. Jared got all the stove pipe on a Saturday and we had a fire lit in the stove by Monday. We still have to figure out what kind of tile we want under it. That will be a good summer project. We currently have cement bored under and behind it right now, not the prettiest but love the heat. It is still getting cold outside at night. Below zero the past few nights. Here are some pictures of the new wonderful addition to the house. It is located in the basement with the intention to heat both levels.

Cutting the holes. Evelynn was watching very carefully.

Finished up stairs

first fire!

We look forward to a lot of wood cutting and working hard to enjoy this gift from God and thank Him for everything He has provided our family with. It will save us a lot of money throughout the year and we are very thankful for this blessing.

Mountain Man

In our last blog we told you about Mountain man. The once a year outing on snowmobiles and winter camping. Here are some pictures of Jared and the boys enjoying there time together. They had to go earlier in the week because there was a big retreat group in camp that weekend. So there was not many people there when they were out camping.

Peaking out of the tent that they stayed in.

Warming up by the stove.

All packed and ready to go back home until next year. Now Nicholas knows what it is like to go to Mountain man and has a lot to talk about until next time. What memories they are making together. Nicholas is already talking about next year.

The sun is coming back, and it is so beautiful. We have been able to spend a lot of time outside enjoying the snow. Kacie has been getting into cross country skiing and really enjoys it. Going for walks with the kids is also a pleasure. Jared has had some snowmobile outings with some of the guys. The big "Mountain Man" outing is soon to come. Next week actually. It's a week long over nighter where a bunch of men go out with their sons and stay in tents with their snowmobiles and cook over the fire. This camp out also involves bad manners, going to the bathroom outside and lots of tall tales. No women allowed of course. Jared, Kenten and Nicholas will be heading out on Monday. Nicholas has been talking about it for the past 3 months. He is so excited to be a part of what his big brother was able to do last year with Dad. 

Here are the adventures.  Also the moose are starting to come back around.

Walking to the lodge to play at the playground and check the mail.

Nicholas being Nicholas... Always wearing a smile.

Skiing with Evelynn. I think Evelynn liked it.

Here's a picture of Ryan in the creek. The snow machine went over a part of the creek that collapsed. No one got hurt, but they had a blast.

 A yearly digging up my last year flowers to munch on.

Not to late

This past month you may have noticed the Facebook posts of broken and frozen pipes. Here are some pictures and details of all the frozen mess.

Still working long into the night.

You may already know, camp gets all its water from a spring up on the mountain. It supplies not only all of camp, but also to some of the community and staff houses down the road.

When the water comes down from the hillside it forks. One side goes towards camp and the other side goes down the hill towards the community. The pipe ruptured at a low weak spot near the main entrance. The road actually started to wash out. This is where everything started. We were forced to turn the water off. We dug down to get at all the pluming. That sounds easy enough, but you have to understand for much of the month of December it was in below zero, and January was not much warmer. The frost was above and below the pipe. The excavator struggled to puncture the ground. We eventually gained access and repaired the break as soon as possible. When the water was turned back on, there were very few frozen pipes in camp. With a little work and steaming some water lines, eventually all of camp had water. That was a blessing because there was a retreat group coming in that next day. The very unfortunate thing though, there was no water to the community and staff houses. So the crew of maintenance started their long all nighter of steaming lines. We were able to get one of the 9 houses with water that day. The community jumped right in to lend a helping hand. That was a wonderful blessing. It took 3 more days of steaming and running lines over the ground to reach 3 more house. We were forced to run new lines because in that time we found broken pipes. We kept the lines open by allowing a continuous flow of water so there was no chance of it freezing up again. We worked day and night and gained very little. Though we eventually won the battle. In total it took 9 days from start to finish. There were many hours spent in crawl spaces and snow. It was wonderful to see God using all of this to have community and staff working side by side bringing glory to Him. You kind of forget the pleasures of precious water. We are so thankful for everyone who was patient during this time without water.  The funny thing is, none of the maintenance guys who were helping with this dilemma were without water. That was very interesting to ponder. The above ground pipe is working good for now. We covered all the line up with snow for insulation.The maintenance will change it over in the summer with the help of work teams and fix everything so it is up and ready for next winter.

We are so thankful for all the help and the watchful eye God had over all of us during that time. No one was hurt. Everyone got water back. We were blessed with much warmer weather this month. There is so much to be thankful for.

Family Time

We have gotten a lot more snow. There's probably 3 feet or more and counting. This past week, the temps were in the teens. We have had a few days well below zero. One morning was about -20. It is still so pretty outside. The snow will stick to the trees. The sun is coming back more and more each day. It is wonderful to feel the sun rays on your skin. The Lord makes known the small details. God's majesty exists everywhere. His creation is still so breathtaking.

-18 degrees Sunday morning

-27 on the way to church

As a family we decided to take a trip to Seward, Alaska. It is about 4 ½ hour drive southward from our house. We stayed overnight. The weather was warm and rainy. The town has direct access to the ocean and is a big fishing town. We went to the Sea Life center and walked the Docks. The kids had such a great time. They wouldn't stop talking about the sea critters. We stayed in a hotel with a pool. That was one of the highlights for the kids. I bet they would have slept in the pool if we would have let them. We had a great time as a family.

Ice and water fall

My beautiful bride

Stinker child

Strapping on the ol feed bags

A.K.A. supper in the hotel

This was the kids favorite. They could touch all the sea creatures.

There were quite a few avalanches that we seen on the way there and back.

Christmas Times

We often wonder where time goes. Another year under all our belts. New children born, and many gone to their eternal home. What a day that will be when there will be no more pain and suffering.  No more tears or sin. Made righteous through Jesus. Now we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior and a new year of merciful blessings. We are so grateful for having a Loving God. We have been blessed all throughout the year and so very much this season. We are astonished by all the Christmas cards and loving notes sent our way.  

We were able to Skype with most of the family during this Christmas season. We were able to open presents and spend some great time together as a family. Jared had a nice long weekend to enjoy being with family. Although going around to check heat in buildings is still a daily need. The schedule is broken up between all the maintenance staff during days off. Kenten and Kacie went sledding on Christmas afternoon with some friends while Jared and the younger kids stayed and played with the new board games. Evelynn took her nap. Here is a picture of our Black Spruce Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Here is a picture of all the Christmas cards we have received this season. We loved to read about how things are going with each and everyone of our friends and families. 

They don't celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks because it's light all night long. So New Year's eve is a perfect excuse for fire power and explosives. Almost every little community exercises the brilliant displays of beauty in the sky. The best part is watching the excitement of the kids. Our family took part in a little fireworks display and we had a blast. Evelynn wasn't so sure about the booms. She will probably have more fun next year.

There are new groups in every week ranging from family get-a-ways to church youth retreats. December was a little bit of a slow month, but now it will be busy until September. So ready or not the fun beginnings. We are looking forward to what counselors are coming back here and how God is going to use them this summer. Also all the work teams with our trips to the river for coffee and goodies.We are happy to serve no matter what time of the year or with what we are doing. We love living out each day for the Lord and for what He has planned for us each day.

We hope your Christmas and New Years was a great time of fellowship and time spent with friends and family. Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts during this time of year.

Winter!

It is pretty chilly here. If we step outside without a coat we will quickly run inside.  It is that time of year when it feels warm if it is above 0 degrees outside. So far there has only been a few houses that have had frozen pipes. We don’t have much snow and that helps to insulate the plumbing. We could really use your prayers for snow to insulate the ground. We have heard several years ago that there wasn't any snow until February. Almost everyone had frozen pipes and some with frozen septic systems. We would love snow to be here. We are ready to celebrate Christmas. We enjoyed getting our Christmas tree together as a family and decorating it. We don’t see the sun much now. We see less than one hour of direct sunlight a day. We are surrounded by mountains so we can’t see much or only between the peaks. It doesn't affect us much, but there are people in this area that really struggle with the lack of sun.

Nicholas waiting for the tree to be cut down.

We arrived in Alaska Dec 15 last year so we didn't have a tree or decorations. Can't believe a year has gone by this fast. This year we are excited to decorate and enjoy this time of year together as a family, and to be our own family.

This is the most sun we see and this is at noon.

Jared has been staying busy in the shop. He is working on plow trucks. Another transmission needs replacement. Having no snow is easier on the plow equipment though. It is nice to have the bobcat to help plow the tight corners. I think that we have had about one month of not a single cloud in the sky. It's beautiful but cold.

We wanted to share some wonderful ways God has provided for the camp in the last month. Someone donated a 10,000 lb commercial snow blower. With all the snow we had last year it took a toll on the vehicles and equipment. This snow blower is 10 feet wide and has its own 3208 Cat engine to run it. We then realized that we had no other piece of equipment to move this monster around. So the donor also provided a bigger loader...a Trojan 4500 with a Cummins engine. Our old W-14 loader sold in 2 days for our asking price. God knows. Nothing more needs to be said.

Jared had the opportunity to go ice fishing with our neighbor Jake and his son Luke. So Nicholas and Jared went fishing. It was 5 below zero and windy out but it was so hot in the ice hunt that they had to open the door. They came home with 20 Arctic Char. The ice was about 26 inches thick where they were drilling.

He was not sure about touching the fish.

We were told they taste a lot like trout.

Thank you to our supporters, friends and family. Thank you for all the prayer. We love serving the Lord here and appreciate everything each and everyone of you do for us.