Liz's log

We finally finished the playground yesterday and I have to say it's an amazing feeling! The people in the area involved with the project were amazing! It's unbelievable how much the people were willing to chip in. Terry, from Mt Drum Lutheran, got a day permit to cut down trees for mulch and he lent us his tools. Another man from the church, Dana, came by every day when he could and lent us his wood chipper and other tools as well. I can not believe how kind they were to us and how welcoming. I was told that they usually prefer high school groups to come up here because college kids are lazy and high schoolers work harder in their past experience. Well, we proved them wrong. They expected us to maybe finish half of what they asked and we managed to finish everything they wanted: the fence, the swing set, the boat area made of tires, signs for decoration, and many random tasks inside the day care where we helped. We were welcomed into their homes and went on the most beautiful hikes. All in all, I could not have asked for a better experience or a better group of people to help.
It wasn't only helping the people but it was the people that I came with that helped make this experience amazing. While we like to give him a hard time (especially me) Pastor Jim has been amazing to all of us here. He was great at leading on the site and helped us prepare some ridiculously amazing dinners. He had us each tell our story, one a night every night, and then pray over that person for their path so far and their path to come. It was an amazing experience. Just learning about each person here and then getting the chance to pray for them and also having people pray for me and my future. It's something that people just don't do very often and it was a different and yet great experience. There have been some amazing conversations and just an overall amazing time with an amazing group of people. I would honestly love to go on another trip with this group again sometime.
Now that we are finally done and we have some down time we drove to Fairbanks and Denali and are staying at the Princess Lodge there. Having a lot of down time the past two days has been fantastic, just hanging out together and hiking up another mountain. Even though this hike might have caused a few knee issues it was completely worth going through the pain to see the awesome view at the top of the mountain. Each time we hiked a mountain it was always so great to see the view. With a view like that its easy to believe that there is a Creater and someone made all that happen. It was breathtaking and I honestly wish that I could just stay here for the summer. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to come on this trip and have this experience here helping people and enjoying the beauty.

Editors note: Just like Jewelle, Liz wrote her blog post many hours ago... and I'm just now getting around to picking out pictures and posting it.