Hello again friends. I just realized that it's been a month(again) since I wrote my last post. What can I say? I'm having the time of my life and the weather has been so nice that I'm usually outside. It's actually started to get dark and cooler in the month of August. Last week, Steph, Kyle, Scott and I went up to the dome for a campfire, and I saw stars for the first time this summer! It was exciting! We were hoping to see the Northern Lights, but I wimped out at 1:00am(I had to work at 5:30am the next morning). I still have yet to see the Northern Lights, but I've heard from many trusted sources that they've been out and they've been beautiful. I'll keep trying. Today is exceptionally cool -- I let out the dogs so they could do their duties and I could see my breath. Cindy put on the wood stove and now it is very cozy in our home. The house has quieted down dramatically since my last post. Ray, Lucille, and Josh stayed for about three weeks, while Logan stayed for a month and a half. I sort of adopted Logan as my little brother halfway through his time here, and when he caught wind of that, began to act the part accordingly. We had a lot of fun together. He left on Monday for Whitehorse, where he caught the bus and is riding the 4 day trip home as I type! Brave soul.
Church is still an adventure. We just never know what's going to happen. Two weeks ago we had our biggest crowd yet - 32 people(7 of which were the locals)! The following week, we had 10. It's always fun though, and God blesses us every week. A few weeks ago, the Bible Study group that Kyle, Steph and I are a part of organized a dinner for the community that we called "Pass da Pasta"(which I shamelessly stole from Nathan/Casey). We had no idea how many people would come, but we just trusted God to make it happen! We set up some tables and chairs, cooked up the pasta and two different sauces, and it couldn't have worked out more perfectly. Every seat was full, and we had just the right amount of pasta to give everyone a helping when they walked in the door. We offered an optional discussion afterwards on tough questions regarding Jesus and the Bible, and about half of the people stayed, and we had a really great talk. All in all it was an awesome night, and God's provision shone through.
I want to tell you about one of my favourite places I've been to. It takes about an hour and a half to drive to Tombstone Territorial Park, and though I've fallen asleep every time we've gone, the parts that I did see were beautiful. I feel like I'm entering another country when we go here. The mountains and rivers are simply spectacular - someone commented on one of my photos that it looked like a scene from a typical fairytale. There is a particular trail up a mountain called the "Grizzly Lake Hike" that Steph, Kyle and I wanted to do. A couple of weeks ago, we all had a day off together, so we packed our lunches, borrowed a co-worker's car and drove to Tombstone. The Grizzly Lake hike was awesome - though we sort of motored all the way up the mountain and nearly died. We had no idea how big the mountain was and how long it would take us to get to the top. We actually stopped 5 minutes before reaching the top to have our lunch(various veggies and tuna sandwiches). We decided to keep going, even though we were absolutely wiped, and when we got there, met up with a Holland America group hike led by my good friend Mark. I was so out of breath that I could only wave and smile, and even that was challenging. We arrived as they were getting ready to leave, and Mark made a comment about giving heck to someone on his tour for trying to open a can of tuna -- "don't you know that bears LOVE tuna??" Steph then openly admitted that we'd just finished eating tuna sandwiches for lunch. He looked at us in disbelief and then told us to stick together. Oh dear! We didn't get eaten by bears, don't worry - the closest thing we saw to a bear was a little red squirrel.
On the topic of bears, though, Mark and I went for a walk yesterday and started chatting with a girl, Pavlova who works at TastyByte, the internet cafe in town. Pavlova is from the Czech Republic and had an interesting encounter with a bear about 15 minutes outside of town. She was by herself on a walk when she spotted a mother bear and cub. The mother bear charged towards her and stopped within 10 feet of her. Pavlova just froze - the bear circled her a few times, and then walked away. Friends, I don't believe in luck, but that girl is LUCKY. I've heard some pretty scary bear stories this summer. I've only seen one, and that was on the rafting trip I went on a while ago. Let's hope I don't see any more -- unless they happen to be far, far away.
Oooh, exciting news! Tomorrow night, I'm teaching a swing class! I've been teaching my friend/co-worker Jesse how to dance during the last few weeks, and it has been REALLY fun. I've missed dancing soooo much! I was pretty out of shape when we had our first "lesson" -- I did some moves that require a lot of ab strength, and I couldn't laugh without being in pain for the next two days. Jesse and I decided to put together a routine to show our "students," so we've been working on that for the last few days. Jesse is the type of guy who puts his heart and soul into everything he does, so this routine is going to be SOLID.
I think I need to stretch my legs... hope you're doing well, and I miss you all.
*Thanks God for bringing me here.. I'll be so sad to leave but I know there's a time for everything. Thank you for the wonderful people I've met... for Mark, Scott, Kevin and Cindy, for the puppies, for all the Westmark people. Thank You for Your provision and for Your love... You never cease to amaze me. Please bless Dawson and help them to see who You are. I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.*
(Photo info: Tombstone in the fall... that photo was taken on September 1st. Beautiful, ain't it?)
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