North Street Alaska 2024

 I apologize for not updating the blog the last two nights.  We have been incredibly busy and it's been hard to find a time to blog before it's lights out for the day.  So to play catch-up I am going to do a quick picture dump from the last few days.

  Dear diary, we had devotions about missions and your mission to serve others. Today we had the egg bake for breakfast, it included an egg, cheese, meat mix, and bacon.   We all packed our lunches and hopped in the vans to go to our worksites. When I got there Linda, my new buddy, invited us into her house to sit and talk for a while. She showed us her antler backscratchers and her really awesome feather fans. She told us all about her son who is in San Diego. Then we went outside and she had Camille rake the lawn and Maci spray the lawn with alcohol mouthwash. She had Lyndsey and Bri feed the fire with sticks and leaves. She had me, (Jackson Henry Busscher) and Alden (Lucas) shovel rocks into a sifter to get all the leaves out. She let us take a break about every 10 minutes to talk and learn about her life (oh boy oh boy oh boy!!!!) Then we had to wash the tarps and then put them back and spread the rocks back on top. Then we sat around the fire and talked for 45 minutes. Furthermo

  This morning we went to a church service at Sutton Bible Church. We were able to walk over to the church building. After the church service we headed back to camp to have lunch. After lunch we had about an hour before we left to go on a hike as a group. We drove to get to the trail. We hiked to Thunderbird Falls. It was about a mile hike to the lookout of the falls. We went down a different trail to go down to the river. Many of us wore our suits so we could go in the river. Most of us walked in the freezing river and then went in. The water was really cold and was kind of shocking when we went in. After we all were able to go in the water, we went on the hike back to the bus and van. We drove back and ate a little after we got back. After dinner we all hung around for a bit before reflecting on our morning devotions. We talked and sang a couple songs. After the fire we were able to hang around for a while and wrap up our night after that with everybody for a couple hours after tha

 Today was our traveling day, we took off from Grand Rapids at 12:55. It went smoothly and there were no mishaps. We got to Chicago and went off looking for some food because we were getting hangry. Looking forward to the trip I am excited to see the mountains and a change of scenery that God has blessed us with. I am also looking forward to make deeper connections with the people in youth gro up and getting to spend time and get to know the people from youth group and church that I do not know so well. I am also looking forward to meeting new people in Alaska and hopefully getting the chance to show God's love. Something I'm nervous for is any animal attacks like a bear eating somebody or a moose running someone over. I am so thankful that I have been blessed with this opportunity to go to Alaska and spread God's love, because not many people get the chance to go to Alaska. I am also so thankful for the group of people I get to spend this week with and have fun hanging out

  Airline tickets are purchased, bags are packed (or getting packed) , and we are ready to go!  Are we there yet?   As the week unfolds, stay tuned...  We plan to update this blog everyday with posts from different kids sharing about what we have been up to during the week. Please pray for the team of 38 kids and adults going .   Sadie, Thijs, Haley, Ronan, Jackson, Greyson, Cora, Rebecca, Andie, Auggie, Macie, Sam, Hunter, Andrew, Adrie, Tyler, Derek, Sarabiah, Alden, Lauren; Joel, Dana, Kathy, Kristi, Tim, Amy, Camille, Dirk, Dan, Nick, Bri, Martin, Curt, Ryan, Sara, Mitch, Miles, Calvin, and Al