ministry on streets

First off - I have a job! Tomorrow I begin training to be a Kayak Guide AND a Canoe Guide for Alaskan Travel Adventures! All of us girls have been able to find jobs that we are super excited to start!
The day before yesterday (Friday), we went on about a 3 1/2 mile hike out to a cabin right on the shore called Blue Mussel Cabin. There was a bit of rain on the hike out there but it cleared up, giving us time to get a fire going and cook dinner, and then restarted later in the evening while we were all sharing our life stories around the fire. When we got up in the morning we saw a few whales surfacing just off the shore!
After we got back home and showered, we went down town in partners with Solarium (a visual questionnaire to help provoke deeper conversation about life, spirituality and relationship with Christ) to talk to people on the streets of Juneau. I partnered with Melissa (one of the girls in my house). We talked to four different groups of high schoolers and college aged people of Juneau. Also we talked to a couple of women who work on one of the cruise ships that was docked yesterday. All of out conversations went pretty well. There was a great variety in how open people were with us, but using solarium really made a huge difference and helped people open up more. It was so great just taking interest in the lifes of the people we were talking with. Some of them really told us a lot about what their relationship with God is like and what they'd like it to be. I gave my phone number to a few of the girls that we talked to, so hopefully I will be able to hang out with them some throughout the summer!
It was amazing and incredilbly encouraging to see how God opened the hearts of these people to two complete strangers! Some of the most common things we heard people telling us was about how difficult it is living as a Christian in Juneau because it is such a dark place. One girl who goes to the University of Alaska - South East told me that in a class of hers she wrote on some text from the Bible and for that alone, she failed the assignment. Some people told us that from there perspective it seems like a lot of people don't have a full understanding of what it means to be a Christian, nor do they have a full understadng of who God is. It really broke my heart listening to some of the high school kids talk about how broken they feel right now and how badly they want to get out of Juneau!
We invited people we met on the streets to come to a camp fire that we had later on lastnight. Many of them seemed very interested, however I never did see any of the people I talked to show up. It was a little tricky to find the location of the fire though.
All that I experienced yesterday has really grown my desire to be here to spread the love of Christ through Juneau!

a few photos from the past couple days: