Western
Jurisdiction
United Methodist Volunteers
In Mission
It is quite incredible to pull together a group of people to make up a Volunteers in Mission team, but when you do it by email and from across the whole United States, what happens is AWESOME! Each one was a dedicated hard worker of like mind, committed to being in service while seeking adventure and meeting new people.
Our team (listed below) had the three of us from BUMC, a man from Tacoma, lady from Pomeroy, WA, two men from Bonners Ferry ID, a couple from Iowa, man from Tennessee, lady from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and young man from Alexandria, Virginia!
This diverse group became like family as soon as we gathered in Douglas Alaska to help the Douglas UMC put on a beef barbecue for about 700 people on the 4th of July! We had a great time helping and learning how to do things the Alaskan way and to do some sightseeing as well! Several discovered how to use the Juneau transit system and get to town, find the local glacier and visit the Univ of Alaska local campus!! We found that the church floor was not too hard for sleeping, but it was softer where cardboard had been put down to protect the carpet during the BBQ! And the firepit gets really hot after a day and night of burning wood to heat the bricks and surrounding ground---it sure makes for very tender beef!
After those three days of intense work and play—we headed out to the SE Alaska UM Camp on Eagle River, about 26 miles north of Juneau on the only road heading that way! Lots of wonderful vistas of the water and mountains and beaches and glaciers!! Camp was a surprise for some who had been there 48 years ago as college work campers! Many changes and lots more trees have happened. And the trees that fell during the winter needed cutting and splitting---about 4 chords worth kept one man busy and his helper stacked until she pleaded for a different job! Most of the team tackled finishing the work to winterize the wash house that was started in 2003---we needed to shingle the roof, finish insulating and adding vapor barrier and interior panels, doing some light installations and heat duct wrappings. Several old windows were removed and thermal pane ones installed. A team of two tackled sorting and cleaning the tool house so you could get in and even find things! And in between there were always those cleaning and sorting tasks that need to be done and the meal preparation and laundry and shopping.
We took time to walk the “two blocks” to the beach to see the birds and eagles and the BEAR and the porcupine and to have a beach picnic with hot dogs and walk the trail around the camp and to visit Eagle River and drive north to the end of the road and make smores over the lodge fireplace when it rained and go fishing for salmon and then barbecue one and talk and pray and sing and take a day off for town sights and shopping with the tour boat visitors and walk the trail to the waterfall by the glacier and to put our feet into the lake with icebergs!! And the final event of a rousing sermon by Dave! All those things that you do with friends you enjoy and love as much as we did with this “Gang of 12 Volunteers”!!
Leaders Tom and Mary Louise Hager, Cheryl Dineen, Dave Corner, Alverna Godinez, Larry Dirks, Ken Irons, Corinne and Bill Hinkle, Richard Guthrie, Amy Hayslette, and Josh Brynhildsen.