Seat backs and tray tables in their full, upright and locked positions...

We have an exciting change of plans that we would like to share! I (Luke) am going to begin flight-school upon our return to Denver in January.  I will not return to Denver Seminary as was our original plan when we first moved up here. We are feeling led in this new direction after much prayer and discussion. The intensive training will take 5 months and upon completion will begin my career in flight as a flight instructor as I accumulate my hours to become an airline pilot.  Carrie and I are both excited about this opportunity and we appreciate your prayers has we begin this journey.

Long time-no blog

Well we realize that it has been a while since we we’ve posted so here’s an update. 

In the middle of October, Carrie ran her marathon which she had been training so hard for.  It was a beautiful Kodiak day (meaning cold and raining, sometimes sideways) and the race start at 8:00 was in total darkness.  There were a total of 13 full-marathon runners.  Carrie’s goal was to finish under 4 hours which she has done before but that was on more level ground.  It was an out and back course from one side of the island to the other and through a mountain pass.  She ran so hard and so well and came in 3^rd over-all and 1^st among the women recording the second fastest women’s marathon time in the 7 year race history with a time of 3:57.  Plus, she managed to avoid becoming hypothermic unlike some of the other runners.   For now, Carrie has cut down drastically from running so much to let her knees rest. 

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr

At the beginning of November I got to celebrate my 28^th birthday in the best way.  Carrie, after planning months in advance, gave me the gift of flight with an introductory flight lesson. She told me when we were out for dinner to celebrate my birthday. It blew my mind so much I was speechless pretty much the rest of the night.  The next day, Carrie, Ted, Kathy and I went to the airport and after a crash course in pre-flight checklists we took off.  Once we got in the air and found some clear sky, I took over control of the plane and kept it for about 30 minutes.  It was so cool flying a plane!  Something I’ve always dreamed of doing.  That evening we had a barbeque with everyone at the mission, sharing some famous Hillsboro sausage with them. The food was so good.  

 

I felt like I could go anywhere

It’s been a fairly warm fall-so what we’ve been told.  We’ve had temperatures in the low 40s mostly and didn’t get our first snow until this last week.  Since then the temperatures have dropped slightly.  

Carrie got the chance to help out some with a running club that was held at a local elementary school. I couple times a week about 45 4^th and 5^th graders showed up to participate. She greatly enjoyed this opportunity and had fun getting to know the kids. Their final event is the Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving.

This past weekend, I did an all-nighter with the youth group.  52 kids showed up-all boys.  On our weekly meetings we usually have 20-25 kids, so 52 kids was somewhat of a shock.  But it was a lot of fun and there were a lot of faces that I don’t think would normally set foot in a church. 

Lately all we’ve been doing is figuring our plans for when we’re back in Denver.  Carrie has been applying to as many jobs as she can.  A huge blessing is that we’ve found a great deal for a basement apartment.  It will be exactly what we need at this point in our lives and it’s in a great location. We trust that God will give Carrie a job that is just perfect for us.  Prayers for this need are greatly appreciated!!

Things to pray about:

·         Continued guidance through our transition back to the lower 48. 

·         Peace that God will provide

·         That God will bless the rest of our time here

The Stories we will tell...

It seems like it has been an eventful and sometimes exciting few weeks since we last gave a little update-and boy do we have stories to tell.  But we'll get to those later.

We are well into our preschool/after-school work schedules and it's been pretty smooth.  We are especially happy that we get to spend the afternoon working with the after-school program.  It's just so much different than the preschool and it's way more laid back.

I am enjoying my work with the youth group at our church.  We've been meeting for about a month now and it seems like more and more kids show up.  I've been able to share what the Bible says about some questions that these kids asked at the beginning of the year.

We've had our last visitors for our time here on the island and they were Carrie's parents.  It was a lot of fun to have them here.  Carrie's mom enjoyed helping her in the preschool in the mornings and Carrie's dad and I went fishing quite a bit.  We took an after-dark kayak adventure in one of the bays on the island where phenomenons of the phosphorescent kind are known to be seen.  It was so magical to see the sparkle of the phosphorescence in the water and then to look up at the sky and see so many stars.  We were surrounded by beauty.  We enjoyed a beautiful sunny hike one morning and were in awe of His creating once again. That afternoon we decided to go on Uncle Ted's boat.  Which leads us to story #1:

We wanted to do some gill-netting/Halibut fishing for an afternoon.  But in order to do both of those simultaneously we needed another boat to stick around the gill net to pick the fish out.  So we ended up with Ted's boat and a kayak we borrowed from the mission.  Carrie's dad (Steve), Ted, and I headed out on the boat to set the gill net.  Carrie and her mom (Penni) kayaked out there so the kayak would stick with the net.  Once the guys had the net set and Carrie and Penni had reached the net, Carrie and I switched places so Carrie could do some Halibut fishing and I would just hang out with Penni by the net.  Well the boat was now gone and it was Penni and myself in the kayak.  It was relatively quiet, the ocean was calm and we were enjoying being out on the ocean.  It was so calm that Penni said, "I feel like I'm not on the ocean.  I feel like I'm on a lake."  A few minutes later, right in front of our kayak, a silver salmon hit the net.  As it struggled and splashed, we paddled over to the net to pick it out.  The moment Penni grabs the net to keep us anchored the fish stops wiggling and I was able to see that he was not stuck very well but that he was fortunately on our side of the net.  I knew we didn't have a lot of time since the fish wasn't caught well, so without thinking I just reached down and grabbed the fish's tail.  A lot of people will tell you that grabbing the fish by the tail is not a secure way to hold a fish, especially of that size.  However, the tail was in my hand and as soon as I clutched my hand I was surprised at how firm it was.  So I just yanked the fish out of the water onto my lap where it then began to fight to get free.  It was still stuck in the net a little bit so I quickly ran a line through the gills so it didn't get away.  The fish eventually wiggled itself out of the net, but I had not yet secured the line to the kayak.  During this time I felt like I was wrestling the fish.  I literally had it in a head-lock the entire time I was trying to secure the line to the kayak.  It eventually got tied to the kayak and it would not get away.  But then there was the dilemma of what to do with the fish.  It would have been routine for me to bleed the fish so it's not all bloody during the filet process.  But we had been  noticing a seal in the area and I didn't want to attract them over to us and I certainly didn't want to get the attention of a Salmon Shark.  So I just kept it alive in the water- on a very short leash.  Just moments after that the weather started to turn and the ocean was not so calm anymore.  It was impossible to stay close to the net. You could even see white caps a little waves out. We didn't want to sit out there any longer so we started paddling to a nearby beach where Kathy (aunt) was waiting with a fire and some smores.  About 100 yards from the beach I looked over to my right and I saw a shadow under the water between our kayak and the shore.  I think it's a rock at first but then I noticed that it moved and it was moving faster than we were.  Ok, so at that point I felt like this seal was stalking us with this fish, so I took the fish out of the water and put it on my lap which left Penni to do all the paddling.  Penni was strong and she got us to shore and we were victorious with our fish in hand the seals left hungry. (And that was the only fish we caught that day).

Proud fishermen with their catch

 

Carrie and Penni kayaking out of the harbor

Apart from our deep-sea fishing, we also did a fair amount of river fishing while Carrie's parents were in town.  We got a few silvers during these trips and on one of them we met a very mischievous bear. Insert story #2:

Steve and I went fishing one morning when I had a few hours off of work.  This was really the only time we could do a good chunk of fishing at one time all week.  We had heard about this bear that had been hanging around the same spot that we had been fishing at and we thought with this amount of time on this trip we would for sure see this bear.  So we've been fishing for about an hour and a half, there are 4 of us at this spot (Steve and I, and a sweet old Swedish couple).  At this point, Steve and I had caught 3 and the Swedes had caught 1 (the largest of all 4).  Our fish were on our stringers and were keeping cool in a shallow part of the river right next to us.  From behind us a hungry bear, that was probably just waking up for his breakfast, walked up right behind the Swedish lady.  She heard the bear grunt and so she turned around; they ended up startling each other which sent the bear back a couple of steps, which is also when I noticed it.  "Oh my. Steve, there's a bear."  Now we had all noticed the bear. But the bear wasn't interested in us. It took the Swedes fish that they caught (stringer and all) and walked off back from where it came.  We were left with our minds blown, the Swedish lady trying to collect herself and probably slow her heart-rate down, and eventually thinking when it would come back.  So I went and grabbed the three fish that we caught and brought them over so Steve could filet them.  In literally 3 minutes, Steve filleted one and took the carcass over to where the bear had seen the fish before.  As soon as he released the carcass the bear was coming back up behind him.  Steve backed off and the bear took the carcass and walked across the river and sat down to eat at the bank across from us.  While it ate it's second fish, Steve fileted the other two fish we had.  I then had my camera ready, so I took the last two carcasses over to where the bear was getting his fish.  I made sure he saw me as I tossed the carcasses into the river.  The bear then came over and got another carcass which it took back across the river to eat.  Then it came back for the last carcass which it ate just behind some tall grass on our side of the river.  It walked back across the river to the other bank and walked up stream in the river getting closer and closer to us (but still across the river).  It walked right past us and up the river a little further before it crossed back over to our side again before it disappeared into the woods.  Once I realized we were downwind from the bear, I walked very briskly the quarter mile to our truck and put our fish filets inside.  WHAT A RUSH!!

And those are the exciting stories we have for you from when Carrie's parents were here. We didn't even mention the display of northern lights on their last night in town. If you just look around, God is everywhere. This is very apparent to us up here in Alaska.

It's amazing when we think about all of the memories we will have when we leave this place.  We realized recently that we only have a couple of months left here in Kodiak.  It's been such incredible experience. 

Campfire while waiting for it to get dark so we can go kayaking

Staying warm!

Things to pray for:

• Clarity and wisdom on jobs/school/transition in our near future. 
• Strength for us - it looks to be busy as we get closer to the holiday season.
• Peace and trust as finish strong here as well as prepare for more unknowns and transitions to come soon.
• Health! We work so closely with so many children - enough said.

Here's to an Indian Summer

Since our busyness has ended along with our summer, we now have time to give a little update.  The summer staff have all gone home and we have ended our day camps.  We have met and served with so many amazing people who desire to follow God.

We are now both back into our preschool routine.  Carrie is lead teacher again for the 3s and 4s and I am opening preschool for the first two hours as kids get dropped off. Carrie has some great support from the other preschool staff and it makes her job a little easier.  In the afternoon, we both work in the after school program.  Every day we pick up kids from the elementary schools and bring them to the mission where we do some fun activities with them as well do a short chapel until their parents come.

For the rest of our time here in Kodiak, I will be co-directing the youth group for the church that we've been a part of.  I'm excited about the opportunity and already know many of the kids from the school year before when I served as a volunteer.

We've had two sets of visitors since we last wrote and we loved having them here.  My parents visited at the beginning of August and we got to have some fun adventures like deep-sea fishing and an evening trip to Long Island to have dinner and celebrate Carrie's birthday. We enjoyed giving them a glimpse of Kodiak and the Mission.

Hobo dinners over the fire on Long Island for Carrie's bday

Carrie's first salmon!

Caleb came only 10 days after and we did as much as stuff as we possibly could including hiking a mountain, fishing, looking for bears (we did end up seeing bears on two nights that he was here!), and a great camping trip with the Nussbaums. We drove across the island the short way to Anton Larson Bay, kayaked through some beautiful islands until we came to a small cove where we camped for the night. About midnight we got back in our kayaks and kayaked around the cove to see the phosphorescence in the water. We had never heard of it before moving here, but apparently it is bacteria in the water that shines when the water is disturbed. So as we paddled through the water everything we touched sparkled, making the water glow. It was the most amazing experience! It felt almost magical. It's hard to describe and we weren't able to capture it with a picture or video, so you should look it up online if you want to know more. :)

On the top of Pyramid Mountain

Camping out

Just a picture of the incredible beauty God has made

Luke and Caleb with their fish

This last weekend over Labor Day, Carrie and I got to go on a fishing trip with some of the other mission people to a neighboring island called Afognak.  We went on a large charter boat owned by the executive director of the mission and spent two straight days setting nets called gill-nets and pulling Silver Salmon out as they get tangled in the net.  By the time we headed home we had pulled a total of 113 silver salmon out of the water!  We filleted them right on the boat and both got pretty good at that job! After we got back we divided the fillets that we had vacuum-sealed among the people who went on the trip.  Our take would feed us every day for a few months!!  (Even though we have grown to like salmon, we will not be eating it that often!) To add to this already very unique experience that usually would have cost thousands of dollars, we saw something that I think is even more unique.  Carrie and I were part of a small handful of people who witnessed a salmon shark on the hunt.  It only lasted a few seconds but was amazing and exciting (not to mention it helped us out by scaring the salmon into our nets).  We were checking the nets out of the skiff and saw it flinging and thrashing it's food, and even breaching bringing its whole body out of the water.  If I had to guess how big it was, I would have to say at least 6 ft., probably 8 ft.  We are told that the salmon shark is cousin to the Great White.  

This is a picture we found online - of pretty much exactly what we witnessed!

Luke filleting one of the 113 salmon we caught that weekend.

We continue to have adventure after adventure, and we also continue to see God at work here and it's amazing.

This is a "baby eagle" that has been growing up in its nest in a tree at the mission for months now. It fell out of the tree a few weekends ago and we were able to get real close to it because it couldn't fly yet. It's so incredible to experience wildlife so up-close and personal!

Prayer requests:

• That we can hear God's voice as we begin to think about where God is leading us at the end of the year.  
• That we can continue to build relationships with these kids, especially with the new kids that have started.  
• For Carrie as she takes on the lead teacher job again with much fewer hours to devote to the preschool.
• That our relationships with God would continue to be strengthened day after day.

The Glory of God

We have finally had a chance to settle back in after a few crazy weeks. Here is an update of this last month:

Staff Retreat – KBM closes down the first week of every July to give the staff a break. We spent most of the week pretty much as far away as you can drive from Kodiak (about 40 miles) before the road ends. We stayed in cabins across the road from surfer’s beach. (Yes, people do surf up here in Alaska!) The weather was mostly rainy, but it didn’t keep us from enjoying the area with hikes, walks on the beach and even 4-wheeling. We enjoyed the time spent with the staff and were grateful for the opportunity to get to know them all a little better. (There were about 25 of us there). Luke did a great job leading devotional time that week. We were VERY ready to get home and take a shower, though, as there was no running water where we were staying.

Camp – we have done 3 more weeks of camp since the retreat. The camps that I led were 2 weeks of kayaking and this last week was Splash camp (we went to the city pool every day). I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the older girls that come to camp. There are only a couple that are in the 5^th-8^th grade camp. There is one in particular that my heart just goes out to. She is a fun-loving girl who has a great personality, but I know that her home/family situation is rough and she doesn’t like to open up and talk about anything deep at all. Please pray that I can continue to build a relationship with her and that I can surround her with God’s love.

Luke led kayaking camp for 2 weeks as well and this last week he had fishing camp with 1^st graders.   There were about 14 1^st graders each day that they took to a couple of different rivers to “fish” (they were not allowed to use hooks) throughout the week.  A lot of time was spent untangling their own lines and fixing poles, but it was fun to get the kids out and teach them about fishing.

Ouzinkie – a couple weeks ago we did our kayaking camp in the nearby village of Ouzinkie. We were there for a week along with 4 other counselors and the camp director. KBM has a very good reputation in this village. There was a missionary couple who lived in a KBM house there for many years – even raising their kids in the village. The husband passed away about 10 years ago and the wife just recently passed away a few years ago. They had a great ministry there – even holding church services in the basement of the big house.

The goal of the mission is to continue providing camps for the kids there a few weeks every summer until another couple is found to take the place of the previous one. There are different visiting groups that also make their way over there to work on remodeling the old house.

This native village is such an interesting place. The lifestyle is so different. They are a village of about 170 people on a neighboring island to Kodiak. So there is really almost nothing to do there. There are not many actual jobs for the adults and it’s hard for the teens to “get out”. It was very sad one evening about 11:30pm we were inside the house and a bunch of young kids came by on the road, wanting to play with us – meaning their parents were out late drinking and didn’t care where the kids were. 

We really enjoyed our week there. It was great to be part of a smaller group and get to know each other well. We spent time in the Word together with our group every morning and spent the afternoons leading kayaking camp for the kids. We would take a couple groups out every day, kayak to a beach or island, spend a little time exploring on shore, tell or act out a bible story with the kids, then kayak back. We did bonfires some evenings for the kids and spent a couple evenings just exploring the island ourselves.

On a beach in Ouzinkie

The Ouzinkie harbor

We got the opportunity to visit an island nearby where a group of 5 orthodox Christian nuns live. They welcomed us, gave us tea and cookies and we spent time talking with them, learning about their lives and enjoying their company. I think what surprised Luke and I the most was how real they were. They were telling jokes, laughing and having a great time. Just across from their island on the bigger (Spruce) island is where Father Herman’s Monastery is. In the Russian Orthodox Christian faith, Spruce Island is considered the most holy island in the world – because this is where Father Herman spent his life. There is a pilgrimage to this island every year.

Other things we have been doing in our spare time:

• Hiking mountains

Luke on our way up 3 Sisters

• Enjoying the warmest summer Kodiak has seen in over 50 years! (We had about 2 weeks in a row with sunshine and no rain!) Today was our first day of rain..

• Kayaking

• Whale watching – on our way to Ouzinkie, we had the most amazing opportunity to enjoy the presence of more than a dozen humpback whales. We just sat in the middle of them for almost an hour. They got within 10 feet of our boat! It was so incredible seeing these enormous animals just playing in the water! They were slapping their tails, calling out to each other; we even saw one on his back with his two fins in the air. It was SO SO amazing!!

• Soccer – Luke has finally had the opportunity to play soccer on the island and he loves it.  He recently found out about this group of men from the community who play soccer at the local park twice a week.  It wasn’t until this last week that he was finally able to play.  It’s a group of mostly Hispanic guys and a few “gringos” (what Luke and the other non-hispanic guys are called by them).  They play pickup games for a couple of hours.  Luke has gotten to know Seth, who organizes the games, and he is a great Christian man who sees this as a ministry. 

We are absolutely loving our summer here – the staff we get to work with, the kids we spend time with every day, the beautiful surroundings – the glory of God is visible everywhere. Thank you for your support and prayers as we continue in ministry here. We are so thankful for this opportunity to serve God in Kodiak.

If you want to see more pictures, you can look at Luke's website: lukenfroese.wix.com\main

Prayer for:

• Energy for next week (we are doing two camps a day because about half our staff will be in Ouzinkie)
• Carrie’s relationship with the 6^th grade girl
• More beautiful weather
• Joyful hearts (no matter how tough the day of camp is) 
• There was a young boy who drowned last week and some of the kids that attend our camp witnessed it.  Pray that God can be evident to everyone who was involved.  

Quick update

Hello.  We just wanted to give a quick update at what has been going on and what we will be doing this next week.   Two weeks ago we spent 4 days at a little cabin retreat with the summer staff.  It was a nice break and it was a great time to get to know some of the staff a little better. 
This weekend we are kayaking to a nearby island and camping for the weekend with the summer staff and then on Sunday we are continuing our kayak adventure to Ouzinki (native village) which is on the island we will be camping on.  In Ouzinki Carrie and I will be spending the week with a few others leading day camp for the native youth. 

Sorry it's so short, but here are some things you can pray about:

• Allergy relief for Carrie
• Safe trips while kayaking
• Energy for this coming week.  

Summer update

Carrie had her last day with the preschoolers a couple of weeks ago, which means that both of us are now working the day camps!  Woohoo!  Carrie’s excited to be working with the bigger kids now and finally to have a lighter schedule.  We’ve been enjoying the day camps a lot and love building relationships with these kids (many have been coming every week so far).  We’ve also been able to enjoy some really beautiful weather which means we get to be outside with the kids almost all of the time.  It’s always good when kids can get outside; they don’t seem as crazy.  We’ve done kayaking camp, science camp, challenge course camp, and we just finished our drama camp.  So there’s a lot of variety which makes it impossible to be bored (not that we would be).  

We celebrated our 3 year anniversary with a kayak trip to a neighboring island where we camped over night and enjoyed some amazing scenery.  It's been so cool to see where God has led us in our marriage and we can't wait for the many more years to come. 

We loved having a Heidi and Tim (sister and brother-in-law) visit us for a week.  We got to show them some cool stuff and even got to do some fishing with them.  We (minus Luke with a bum knee) did a crazy hike up a 2,700 ft. up a mountain on the summer solstice.  Started at 9:00 pm, summited at 11:30 pm, back at the bottom at 1:00 am. Toughed it out through a lot of wind and fog. We hear it's a good view...on a clear day. 

Best...picnic...ever

It's really steep! The top is covered in fog..

This next week we will have no camp and we will go on a staff retreat at a small camp on another part of the island.  I will be leading the devotions for the summer staff and I think that will be a lot of fun.  Following that week Carrie and I are part of the staff that will be spending the week in Ouzinki which is a village on a different island to do camp for the kids there.

New wildlife we've seen in the last couple weeks:

• Grey Whales (we watched SO many whales swimming just about 50 yards off the shore in Pasagshak with Heidi and Tim. It was incredible!)
• Puffins
• Seals

Gray Whale spy hop. 

Puffin!

Wildflowers are finally blooming

Things you can pray for:

• Devotions during the staff retreat, that the staff will have open hearts and that God would lead me as I share
• Renewed energy every day
• More sunshine than rainy days
• Relief from allergies for Carrie