Tue. Aug 17 Marshall Alaska

Good news.  Pastor George has fully recovered from his allergic reaction.  He was up and about.  In fact right now he is chatting with some of our team members in the kitchen.  He told us about his conversion to Christ. He has been to a lot of the villages around here, and made connections.  One tradition of "sings" he takes advantage of.. Lots of people enjoy singing, especially gospel songs they are familiar with.  Pastor George has been invited to host gospel sings in at least one other village.  He has passions both for his people, and for sharing the freedom from bondage to sin Jesus Christ brings.

Pastor George's son Isaiah had a viral infection and is being treated for it.  He is leaving the hospital today.  His mother Eunice and he will be staying near the clinic for a few days.

Today it only rained part of the time.  For a little while this afternoon it was sunny and bright out.  It felt almost warm, almost.  It was encouraging to see the sun, but it went away by supper time, and has begun to rain again.  Deb I am beginning to develop webbing between my fingers, please call a dermatologist.

The water and sewer guys worked all day again and got about another 6' of lines assembled and buried.  The electric utility said they would be here in the morning, then just before or just after lunch.  They arrived about three pm and said they would be back tomorrow morning.  Everything here happens on village time.  Jim has been trying for two weeks to get some gravel dumped on the lot for a small outdoor boiler building.  Tonight at 9pm the dump trucks full of gravel and the bulldozer to spread and compact the gravel showed up.  They dumped and scraped for about 1.5 hours.  This is an example of village time.  Very different from our usual routine/schedule.  But on a mission trip flexibility and adaptability are the keys. 
It is 11pm local time the bulldozer just fired up again to scrape a little more then leave.  Paul one of the staff workers here just came into the kitchen from working with the gravel guys.  He said you would not believe all the people out on the street.  More people out than he has seen in the whole time he has been here, and there are kids all over the place. As I said, a very different daily schedule than we keep.


Tyler, Kyle, and Hannah finished putting the plywood under the large house.  Dave and Don continue to plug away at finishing up the siding, soffit and facia on all three buildings.  Tony's crew finished putting in all the subflooring in the church building.  One of the biggest challenges we face is running out of materials critical for the stage of building we are at.  Due to bad weather here or in Soldatna we have not gotten in the cargo flights Jim the project manager has expected.  We are 4-5 plane loads behind.  With 8-14,000 pounds of cargo per flight.  We are out of drywall compound for spraying texture on the walls.  There are a number of other materials we need.  The drywall finisher is anxious to get the drywall compound he needs to continue. Maybe it will come on tomorrow's plane.

The team is working very well together.  Everyone is flexible enough to help out another group, or move material when needed.  We are accomplishing a significant amount, in spite of the material limitations.  Most of us are healthy, sore, but mostly healthy, and in good spirits.

We spoke with Pastor George about getting some families to show up for pictures.  He thought we might have better luck going to their house to get the family pictures, and was going to look into this with at least one family.  We are hoping to do that tomorrow.

Our prayer requests are:  Continued health and safety for crew members. Pray for good weather so the planes can bring the materials the project needs.  Please pray that we have more outreach opportunities (this is also weather dependant).