Continuing With Our Time at KBM

Today is the Summer Solstice, and what better place to be than in Kodiak, Alaska where we will have about 20 hours of daylight. We have all put in a long but satisfying day, which I'd like to share with you.

Most of us were up for breakfast around 7am. We're all greatful to have a professional chef here preparing meals for the staff and counselors as well as our team. This morning we had pancakes and perfectly prepared bacon. The Chapel service, lead by Trevor Jones, the Director here at KBM, takes place in the "upper room" of the food bank building. The service starts with candle lighting and passing along a blessing to the person next to you. We sing a song before Trevor reads from the Bible, offers his own thoughts on the passage, and then encourages discussion. Of course, prayer is a big part of the service as well, and I've been so impressed with the counselor's concern for the requests that we have shared with them for members of Windsor Baptist. Your needs are being sent to the Father here in Kodiak!

So let me tell you a little bit about some of the projects we're working on. Bev, Dan, Matt Lines, Steven have been spackling and sanding screw holes and seams on 8' plywood panels inside the Heritage Center. Charlie, Jimmy, and George have been putting plywood capping on the tops of the panels, which requires rather intricate measuring to get a good fit around windows, beams, and other obstacles. King and I, along with the help of another volunteer from California, have been doing the cutting in the wood shop. I've also been able to do quite a bit of grass cutting today as we had a dry day with the sun breaking out after lunch. (For those of you who went on the trip 2 years ago--there is still no working riding mower and the push mowers are not self-propelled.)

Randy, Matt Reeser, Pastor Ben, and Andrew have been working on resolving a draining problem behind the administrative building. You guessed it--there's a backhoe involved so Randy's skill is again being used up here just as it was 2 years ago with taking down trees. Speaking of the area that we helped clear of trees on our last trip, there is a very large pile of stumps and branches that King is just chomping at the bit to put a match to!

After dinner (pasta with tomato sauce and big chunks of ground beef, salad, rolls), we had our devotional time led by Matt Reeser and joined by a couple from California who are here to learn about KBM. We've been focusing on remembering our first love, that time when we first came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and what that meant to us and how it made us feel. Do you remember that time in your life?

Follow devotions, we all packed into 2 vans and took to the back roads (are there any other kinds here in Kodiak?) in search of bear. Al Menger, we said "hi"to Stumpy for you (inside joke). Unfortunately, the areas where there have been sitings recently were too active this evening with fishermen, hikers, etc. We put on a lot of miles (at $4.55 a gallon!) but the bears didn't show themselves.

Trevor has offered to take our group out fishing tomorrow...sure do wish you could be here for that Ed. Seems like just about everyone is going to do that. I'm not fond of boats, so I've got some special projects lined up for myself--like house cleaning and some landscaping projects. The week is going by so quickly. We've all been well, stayed strong and healthy, and thank you so very much for your prayers during our time here.

It's almost midnight, and the sky looks like either dusk or dawn...and time to say "goodnight."

Linda Perry
Team Kodiak 2011