Dear Prayer Partners,

I pray that this letter will find you all in good health and having an excellent day.  I want to thank those of you who have contributed one or both of my mission’s trips for this summer.  I have just returned from Alaska, and being there was a huge blessing, both to our team, and to the people who we ministered to.

A group of 18 of us ranging in age from 15 to ?? (I’ll just leave it at that, because I do not want to get myself in trouble guessing how old the oldest one was, but it was a very large age span) traveled from Colorado Springs up to Denver, Colorado, and then flew to Anchorage, Alaska.  After arriving in Anchorage after an approximately five and a half hour flight, we drove about an hour and a half more to Moose Pass.  We got there about 11:30 at night…and it was still light enough to walk around without flashlights.

That was Saturday, and we went to sleep very quickly after we got there so we could get up for church in the morning.  When we went to church in the morning, we easily doubled the size of the church.  The church was a trailer (mobile home converted into a church), and it was packed out when we were there, because of not being very big.  It was great to get to worship with them and see how their church did things (because every church is just a little bit different, which is good). Even though the service did not run exactly A-B-C like we were used to, we still had a great time of worship, and then a great time of fellowship afterwards.  After standing around and talking for a while we had a meal, which was great, because it gave us more time to talk to them, and see that yes, indeed, they are Americans, and VERY similar to us.  And while they have days that run 24 hours part of the year, and then nights that run 24 hours part of the year, they are still people like us, and have many of the same hobbies and likes and dislikes as we do. Amazing! Ok, not really, but sometimes we think of Alaska as a far of distant land that nobody knows anything about, and all the people there are Eskimos and live in Igloos.  Well, news flash…they aren’t.

Monday started our work projects and VBS.  Mike and I were excited to get started on the handicap accessibility ramp…and then we opened the skirting on the trailer.  We were going to make it attached to the church for extra strength, but when we took the skirting off, we found that wasn’t going to work.  The foundation of the church, because it was a trailer, was wooden beam just set on the ground.  Unfortunately, wood rots, and that was just the case here.  We literally shoveled that corner of the old foundation out, and rebuilt it because we could not justify just closing it back up and leaving it how it was.  We rebuilt it on cement blocks, so it will last for a lot longer.  That took all of Monday to do, so we didn’t get started on the ramp until Tuesday.

On Tuesday, we started on the ramp, and it was new stuff to both of us, because neither of us had built a handicap ramp before, and neither of us had worked with the cement blocks they were using, but it all worked out fine, and we were able to figure it out between the two of us how to do things, and how we should best have it to make it last.  We did have one error which was spotted by another member of the team (thankfully before we got too far along), because we had not figured on how hard it would be to navigate the ramp with a wheelchair with posts on the inside of the railing.  So after that small mishap, we moved on, and had our frame most of the way built by the end of the day Tuesday.

Wednesday we continued and finished the frame and then put the decking on, and were quite satisfied with how it came out.  No more major mistakes along the way, so we got that all done, and the people of the church were extremely happy to have that done.

While Mike and I worked on the ramp, with some assistance from Kris, the rest of our team was doing a VBS in the church there, and then in Seward, which is roughly a half hour away.  The Seward one was very small, but the one in the church in Moose Pass had around 20 kids at it each day, which is pretty good, considering there are only 200 people in the town of Moose Pass.  I would say having a tenth of the population there is a fairly sizeable accomplishment.  The best news came on Thursday, because we had 4 little girls get saved.  That made the whole trip more than worth it.  I did not work with the VBS at all, but was able to bet there for the last one on Thursday, when the little girls got saved.  We had a meeting as well that night, and all the parents were invited to come.  The kids sang some of their songs, and we had food, and were able to talk to the parents, and just spend some time with them. It was awesome, because there were a lot more people than at the church service on Sunday, and many of them said they would start coming to the church.  Hopefully the church members will follow up on them, and they will continue to reach out.

After Thursday night, we went Friday and saw some of the sights of Alaska.  It is truly a beautiful state, with its many mountains, waterfalls and numerous kinds of wildlife that you do not see, except at the zoo, in the lower 48. Friday night, we left and flew back to Denver, arriving in Denver at 6:00 A.M.  If you talk to anyone who went on the trip, they will tell you that it was truly an amazing trip, and at least the ones that I talked to, and myself, would go back in a second if we had the chance. Thank you again to those who supported me through prayer and financially to make this trip possible.

Changing gears and moving about 4,000 miles South to Mexico, I’d like to share a few things about the next trip I’ll be going on, which is coming up pretty soon.  August 3^rd, Lord willing I’ll be leaving for Mexico with a group of about twenty-one others to do some building projects and outreach in the city of Tijuana, Mexico.  I would like to first of all thank those of you who have already given to financially support this trip, and thank those of you who have been praying as well.  Some prayer requests for this upcoming trip are that our whole team will be able to raise the funds needed for each of us to go.  Also please pray for the turmoil that is going on down in Mexico right now, because of drug trafficking.  Many people have lost their lives due to this, and it has gotten worse recently, as there is a warning to anyone going there to be on extra alert.  As far as my personal funds go for this trip, I have already raised 32% of the cost for the trip, and need only $715.00 more.  Please pray with me that God will supply these funds, and if God leads you to give, I am sure He will bless you because of it.  Thank you again for your support, both prayers and financially.

                Yours truly,

                                Joseph Struska