Eagle

The night before Ben and I were scheduled to leave Alaska and fly to Washington to spend time with his family we were encouraged to change plans. We had dinner that night (July 14th) at Ethan and Chris Hansen's house and through conversation Ethan got excited about having us go with their church, Faith Bible Fellowship, the following week to Eagle, AK. They do a one week VBS and several service projects. This year in particular was a heavy service project year due to severe flooding in May when the Yukon River rose to a record high and chunks of glacial ice literally crushed a large part of the town. Eagle is a bush community with a population of 150.

We were excited to be a part of this ministry and Ben was put on a crew to replace/rebuild the giant cross at the top of a bluff that overlooks the town. Interesting bit, my last trip to Eagle was my sophomore year of high school when I floated the Yukon River from Dawson City, Canada to Eagle with Wasilla Bible Church. I clearly remember what the town used to look like but it has all been washed away now. I also remember floating down seeing the once HUGE wooden cross at the top of the bluff. That was our big marker that we paddled toward before we set up our last camp. It also had since rotted and fallen over.

Cool story, while we were there a couple traveling "through" (Eagle is on the way to nowhere) from Switzerland noticed and commented on the cross we errected and how awesome it was to have that as a symbol in their town. I hiked up the bluff with the boys on their final trip to get pics and I must say it is likely a hike I will never do again, crazy steep and scary!

I will post pics of the flood and cross when I can get my computer back online, until then I am catching up the narrative b/c SO much has been happening in our lives this past month!