March 2014 Prayer Household of the Month Each month well pray for a specific unit.

This month we will focus on the Anchorage unit. Please pray for: Marlene Allebach Mark Kreider Leah Swartley Renee Neufeld Prayer Requests Pray for persons who are considering Service Adventure next year.

Meet the Anchorage Unit!

Each month we will use this newsletter as a way to learn more about whats going on throughout Service Adventure and get to know people in a specific location. This month we are focusing on the Anchorage Service Adventure unit. Enjoy getting to know a bit about who they are and what they are doing this year.

March birthdays 11 Jeron Baker; Raleigh 13 Diana Cook; MMN Staff 14 Leah Baker; Raleigh 17 Ken Regier; MMN Staff

Anchorage unit from left to right: Marlene Allebach, Mark Kreider, Renee Neufeld and Leah Swartley.

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Service Adventure News

Hello everyone! My name is Marlene Allebach and Im in the Anchorage, AK Service Adventure unit. Im from Harleysville, PA and my home congregation is Towamencin Mennonite Church. My placement in Anchorage is with the Downtown Soup Kitchen where I do everything from helping with their shower house ministry to doing security during the lunch hour. I love my placement and Alaska has been an amazing location to do service! There are so many strange, unique, and fun opportunities to take part in like working as dog handlers for the Iditarod, going cross country skiing, hiking in the Chugach Mountain range, learning about the native culture, flying over the beautiful landscapes Alaska has to offer, etc. Also at the soup kitchen there are so many chances to share about Jesus and you can really see God working! Its so much fun to be working with so many different volunteers all with the common goal to show Gods love! Also, the clients have taken a special place in my heart and they have certainly become family. I love all the roles I play at the soup kitchen and Im so blessed to be able to volunteer in an incredible Christian faith-based organization! Thank you Service Adventure for this amazing time in Alaska to serve! It has been beautiful so far and I cant wait to see what the next coming months have to offer! I love it here!!! Praying for all my fellow Service Adventurers and for everyone at Mennonite Mission Network! Love you guys! And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. ~Isaiah 58:11

Salutations! I'm Mark Kreider, heralding from North Newton, Kansas. I serve at the Bureau of Land Management where I work with the maintenance department. Projects have included: painting, lawn care, trail grooming, snow removal, and set-up for the Iditarod Sled Dog race. The work is quite varied and practical - things I hope will come in handy down the road. In my free time, I enjoy cross-country skiing, hiking, nature photography, soccer, reading, and playing the piano. Miscellaneous highlights include: being located in a place of great natural beauty, seeing moose literally everywhere, and having a great host family.

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Service Adventure News

Hello, my name is Leah Swartley. I am one of the SA participants in Anchorage, AK and I work at The Childrens Lunch Box and AWAIC. I love both of my placements! I learned about this program through my sister who spent a year in West Virginia as a Service Adventurer. She said it was the most important year of her life. She learned more and grew more in her faith and discipline than she probably ever would in one year again. I heard about that and wanted the same. Sure enough, I have been here for 6 months and have never experienced such joy and love before. I have felt my faith grow stronger and it makes me excited about the different ways God will call me to serve him in the future. The things that I have learned up here and have yet to learn are going to help me a lot when I leave. I love it here and hope to return and visit someday.

Hi, I am Renee Neufeld and I am the unit leader here in Anchorage, AK. I hail from the Freeman, South Dakota area which has been colder than this Alaska winter I have been experiencing! It is amazing to see how everything I have done in my life up til now has prepared me for being the Unit Leader here in Anchorage AK. I attended Hesston College and took classes in youth ministry, was involved in music and ran my first marathon (my goal is to run one in every state - I have done 28 so far). My Camping, Recreation and Outdoor Ministry degree from Eastern Mennonite University piqued my interest in being outdoors. For the next 9.5 years of my life I worked as Program Director for Swan Lake Christian Camp near my hometown. I learned a lot there and loved working with young adults and seeing them grow into the people that God wanted them to be. I wore many hats there and more than once something I learned about plumbing or construction has come in handy being a leader. During my time at EMU I was introduced to the Appalachian Trail, and a dream began to form. Two weeks after I was done at camp I headed for a thru-hike of the AT. This started a five and a half month journey that I will never forget. I still talk about the trail a lot and it has definitely shaped who I am. After arriving home I had a bit of culture shock and I wondered how I could make a difference. About that time I was contacted about Service Adventure and the rest is history! I have enjoyed my time here in Anchorage - being in the mountains, working with young adults and being in a great church family. I am looking forward to seeing where God will take me and the unit in the coming months.

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Service Adventure News

Blog post from Mark Kreider

While the workweek has its merits, it is the two days beginning with S that hold the most excitement for me. Ive found that the weekends allure has not diminished whatsoever during my temporary absence from the world of academia. And of the 25 weekends Ive been privileged to experience in Alaska, this past one ranks pretty high. A week or so ago, our unit was talking and we realized we hadnt really gone anywhere or done anything outside our ordinary routines for some time. We resolved to do some sort of day trip or excursion and experience a new part of Alaska. Thus, on Saturday morning, we all loaded into the unit van and headed off to Hatcher Pass. Just under an hour and a half north of Anchorage, this pass through the Talkeetna Mountains is a favorite spot for outdoor recreation, especially in the winter. Of special interest to us was the area around at Independence Mine. This former gold mine is located in a valley that also boasts great cross-country skiing as well as opportunities for downhill fanatics to get their fix. The day we chose happened to be a true-blue sky and the result was a dazzling landscape of whites and blues, snow-covered peaks and a quaint mining village. It felt like a scene straight out of the Alps (though Ive never been remotely close to Europe). The skiing was exhilarating, even as we stayed on the safer, (relatively) avalanche-free, groomed ski trails on the valley floor. The following day, Sunday, we led worship at church. I helped choose and lead hymns and we all shared a short reflection on how God is working in our lives. For me, Ive seen God in the relationships Ive formed with others at work, in the unit, in church, and in the community. I think God works through these relationships, stretching us, nurturing us, and building community. Ive also felt God working a lot in my life through making me more aware of my shortcomings, failings, and weaknesses. Living in community has challenged me to work on my lessdesirable traits learning to be more vulnerable, saying sorry and admitting defeat, and becoming less selfish in my thoughts and feelings. After the service, we were treated by our respective host families to pizza at the Bear Tooth, one of Anchorages best pizza eateries. Good conversation paired with a chicken pesto pizza made for an enjoyable outing. Later Sunday afternoon, I went cross-country skiing again, this time at a local park in Anchorage. It made me once again appreciate the fitness that world-class Nordic skiers must be in! Speaking of which, the Olympics also served to make this weekend a great one. Since the opening ceremonies Friday, weve enjoyed a number of events marveling at downhill skiers hitting speeds of 85 mph +, the newly added snowboarding event slope style, and many others. It has been especially exciting with athletes from Anchorage and Alaska as a whole competing in Sochi. Coming from Kansas, a place not widely known for its stellar winter athletes, it is fun to have a hometown hero to cheer on. Thanks for reading my blog and I hope that you all can make the most of your weekends! Mark Kreider

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Service Adventure News

Spiritual ruts good or bad?

12/28/2013 Growing up as a Christian I was always under the impression that spiritual ruts were bad. If you were going through one it was always kept on the down-low. You didn't really talk about it. Now, I believe that you should talk about them. As Christians we are called to support each other and be real with each other. Hiding your spiritual struggles do not lead to stronger relationships with one another and it may be hard to talk about your struggling faith at times, but it is necessary to share with someone and to understand that every Christian goes through spiritual ruts in their life. I believe spiritual ruts are very healthy and valuable to strength our faith. If we're never in the darkness how can we clearly find the light. I think our walk with Christ should resemble more of a wave then a gradual increasing slope. Now please don't misunderstand me when I say this, I think we should all be making strides in our spiritual lives to be more like Jesus, but I think it is very important to go through a series of hard times along with the high times in our journeys. I view it like this: So this winter has been my first real experience dealing with "24 hours of darkness" (it's not really 24 hours but it feels like it when you go to work and come home from work in the dark) and pretty soon enough (not really that soon, but I tell myself this so that it doesn't seem too far away) we will be dealing with 24 hours of daylight (the 24 hours of daylight is not an exaggeration). This "wave-like" nature that daylight favors can be related to our "wave-like" nature in our spiritual life. During the days of darkness we are excited for the light and when we do catch a glimpse of even the slightest glimmer, joy enters our hearts and it feels like we're living again and life is not as horrible as it seemed. During the days of light, at first we love it but soon it becomes an annoying presence and we lose all appreciation of it. We become accustomed to the light like we become accustomed to the presence of God walking with us in our spiritual highs. Again, I am not saying that it is a bad thing to be aware of God's presence in our lives (I actually believe it is very important to be able to sense God's presence everywhere you go), I'm saying that we begin abusing and ignoring God's presence when we are on a spiritual high for too long. Another benefit for being in a spiritual rut is that when you do see light it is always God that you are seeing. When you are traveling through a dark tunnel you can almost always see the light at the end of the tunnel that will lead you to where you want to go, that's kind of what it's like in a spiritual rut. You are travelling through a dark time in your life but when you do see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is God leading you out and to a better place. When you are on a spiritual high at first you're focused on God and His light, but soon you get distracted and begin following other lights without even being aware of it. To sum it up, spiritual ruts are normal in every Christian walk. If someone says that they've never been in a spiritual rut, they are not being 100% true and open to you, which is ok because they are obviously not ready to be open and share and they may need more time to warm up. Spiritual ruts are also healthy and are important to draw your complete attention back to God. And God uses those spiritual ruts to reveal Himself personally to you. So don't think that God has completely left you because He hasn't and He never will and don't assume that you are a bad Christian because you are temporarily lost. Just talk about it to someone that you trust and that spiritually inspires you. You will find the light again! Don't worry!!! - Marlene Allebach

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Service Adventure News