If I promise to go to church on Sunday

(You can tell it's Joe writing when the title references Green Day songs)

Our once-a-month church service was today and we dragged ourselves out of bed by 8:45 to make it. The constant sunlight has actually caused us to sleep later, I think, because we stay up late and can't really tell what time it is by looking at the window. So our bodies aren't cued to wake up with the sun. We generally sleep to 9 or 10, which is 12 or 1 pm Central time.

Here's the church!



The service was mostly songs, sung without instruments, and we sang way more than 10 of them. Most I'd never heard before, so it was pretty tough. Some of them nobody new how to sing, which was really awkward. The "teaching" service itself was very short and mainly a "salvation" message, so not much there for us who are already Christians. There were 25 people in the church, 11 who traveled from Independent Baptist churches from Anchorage and California, the 6 of us, and 8 natives out of a village of 50-60. While not quite the ideal church service or what we're used to, it was comforting for the reminder that Christ is present even in the more remote places in the world.

Meeting and talking with the traveling group and some of the natives after the service was uplifting as well. They knew how to make balloon animals...





...and one of the Natives brought lemon cake, so the kids got rewarded for sitting through an "adult" service.



While the service may not have been exactly what we were used to, the people who came up to run the church were incredible. There were a couple of families from Anchorage and some high school age kids from southern California. They were excellent with the kids and really tried to start conversations with people. They came in on a boat; apparently, the way to get out of Stevens is to go to the "bridge." That's the big bridge on the Dalton (pipeline) Highway 27 miles away. Only takes about 45 minutes on a boat (with an engine) and then it's a 3 hour drive to Fairbanks. During the winter, this can still be done on snow machines, just takes about 3 hours. A lot of people even park their cars by the bridge all year round; I'm tempted, but the road is 75% gravel with 10-12% grades, and has about 200 trucks on it every day...Right now, I'm not quite that tough. But the main church guy offered to bring us in some food when he comes once a month, and our neighbor (who's here until October for construction) also goes up to the bridge a lot to go out to eat. I might be hitching a ride to the bridge soon!