Day 3 - "GROUP BUILDING" in Ketchikan, Alaska
Our first full day in Ketchikan was about group building and having some fun together. After everyone spent time reading, journaling, doing their devotions we circled up in the fellowship hall and began some group building. The first activity was Family, Favs and Faith. Everyone took turns sharing about these three areas of their life. This went on for an hour or so so after we were finished we took a short break.
The next activity was the Tennis Ball Game. In their circle they had to toss a tennis ball around to each person to form a pattern. After the pattern is formed the tennis ball is passed from person to person according to the pattern. It gets tricky as a second, third, fourth...more tennis balls are added to the pattern. It is a great activity for communication, working together and problem solving.
We used passages from "Bulletproof" and I Corinthians to add to our discussion and debriefing.
Our final group building activity for the morning was grocery shopping. We walked to Safeway and discussed what we would need for our meals at the church. We split into groups and headed out to find our assigned items. We all came back together to see what we had and see if we forgot any thing. We noticed a thing or two we forgot so different team members set off to get them. We paid for all our stuff and then each one grabbed a bag and we headed back to church.
After lunch we went downtown to get introduced to Ketchikan. A few groups walked the mile and a half and others rode. As you get downtown you see large cruise ships and lots of tourists and places for tourists to shop and see. After seeing, shopping, taking care of internet stuff we returned to church for dinner. The dinner crew prepared us a great dinner and the clean up crew did a great job washing dishes, pots, pans.... Once everything was cleaned up we went out to meet Steve at the Rainforest Sanctuary.
He led us on a bear walk. We went down the boardwalk and trail, no bears. We retraced our tracks and as we walked I selfishly prayed that God would show his children some bears (they were so anticipating seeing one). Ten seconds later I heard Steve say, "there's one!" After that we got to see several, it was so awesome PTL!
After the walk we returned to the church to worship and work on camp a bit. It was a great day and we closed our time by giving thanks to God for an amazing day. Tomorrow we have a group work project and we get to do the zip line! Mike Rigas got this arranged for us, we are looking forward to this exciting experience.
As always, your prayers are appreciated!
bob g
& the Alaska Team
