And then there was more...

Eight crates, one pallet, and a trailer. That's what Inland Barge dropped off in Galena a week ago Friday. 11,300 pounds of crated goods to be exact.  A couple of the men from church helped me unload the crates into our Explorer and we began the process of making trips back and forth. While we hauled boxes and totes, Shell began putting away groceries.

Inland Barge Co. Offloading supplies in Galena. This is our version of an 18-wheeler showing up at Wal-Mart.

The forklift is unloading my three wheeler. Also notice over the excavator, There is a small boat, on a snow machine (mobile), on a trailer, on another trailer on a dump truck. The top three of those items are mine.

I have learned a new appreciations for my wife's organizational skills. It is no easy thing to put away a years groceries. We did manage to borrow a forklift (Thanks Roger) to drive one of our big crates back from the barge landing to our house. This is our Sam's crate that you saw in the previous post. It was such a large crate that Jason Harris (church member) had to drive it backwards 3 miles to our house. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it, but it was rather funny.Since then we have unpacked all the crates, unpacked boxes (most of them), brought the crate material to the house from the barge landing and disassembled it, put away the stuff that goes in the garage, hauled boxes to the dump multiple times, assembled a table and chairs and 2 cabinets for the bathrooms, and assembled the boys bunk beds.

Church the past 2 weeks has been a  sweet experience as it usually is here in Galena. We've had a decent summer crowd (about 23) and a great time of worship and fellowship. I began a teaching series that we will continue with through the beginning of school starting. It's on the names of God. The first week,we looked at Hebrew "Elohim" translated God. We saw how this shows God to be the God of Reality (El - Power, might and strength seen in creation), The God of Mystery (Elohim being singular plural, IE trinity), and the God of Humanity (YHWY Elohim - The LORD). This past Sunday we looked at Yahwey (YHWY- The LORD). It is through this name that we know God as relational. We've had our usual potluck after church and ate like kings. One of our sweet native elders cooked smoked she-fish that is dried and then boiled. As we would say in Cajun country "Po dats some good stuff yeah!" (translation: It was really good.)

We are making preparations for Summer work projects, and are also working to coordinate service projects for a missions team from California that will be here the end of the week through Wednesday of next week.They'll be doing a VBS through the Bible Church and will be assisting in community outreach through ministry projects. We're excited to meet our extended church family as they come and serve with us.

Things you can pray for this week:
-Pray for the VBS team as they boat 3 hours from Kokrine Hills Bible Camp to Ruby and then to Galena. Pray for safety, and endurance as they have just done a week long camp with kids at the Bible camp.
- Pray for the Send missionaries who serve in Galena as they prepare to do their shopping. Pray that God would provide the resources for them to be able to accomplish this very large task.
- Clint (our middle son) lost his glasses some time during the unpacking process. We will have to fly into Fairbanks to get new ones. Pray that we will be able to get that together soon.

Thanks for praying. -- The Kopps