MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 10-30-2008

Greetings from Juneau, AK! The tire saga continues, as UPS FAILED to get me my tire in time on Friday. It arrived on Monday. In Whitehorse, YT. We're in Juneau. Big help, UPS. The good news, though, is that KalTire has a 30-day no-hassle money-back guarantee, so I got a full refund for the Canadian tires I bought. Yet, the tire failed to show up, so I had to get the three good snow tires put back on, and our all-weather radial spare put in the back. We were delayed getting out of Whitehorse due to the whole fiasco with the tire, but we decided to make the drive to Skagway anyway. It was 107 miles over a mountain pass, with one bum tire, and only two hours to make the drive. There was quite a bit of snow as we headed up to the pass, although they had plowed and put down gravel. Nonetheless, it resulted in two hours of white-hot terror as I attempted to get us to Skagway in time and not get us all killed in the process. We made it, with 15 minutes to spare and they let us on the ship. We had just enough time.

I'm very glad I decided to risk the trip through the pass, because we had two great meetings here, with Bethany Baptist Church (Pastor John Bigelow) and Lighthouse Baptist Church (Pastor Joe Michler) respectively. We had great meetings and the LORD blessed. I'm glad people came to Juneau to plant churches, and stay here, even though it's remote.

Juneau is, in fact, a rainforest (yes, a rainforest in Alaska), and lived up to that status most of the time we were here. We got to see the governor's mansion, where Sarah Palin lives when not out campaigning. We visited the Alaska State Museum, where we saw a variety of items of interest from Alaska's long and varied history.

The last day, today, the miraculous happened – the weather cleared up, the clouds departed, and we had one of those rare clear, beautiful days in Juneau. We went out and spent the day at the Mendenhall Glacier, hiking around the trails, taking pictures, and getting ourselves very cold and tired by the time we got done. We got some gorgeous pictures of the breathtaking scenery here, which I'll post in the Gallery when I get a chance.

Tomorrow, we ship out to Haines. We stay the weekend in Haines, while we wait for our tire to catch up with us. They are shipping it on Monday by way of a Canadian shipping company called Purolator, which has a truck that runs out to Haines on Mondays. Pray it actually makes it this time. I'm quite tired of dealing with this whole mess, and would like to have four good snow tires on the car before attempting to drive up to Fairbanks on Tuesday. Pray for that drive, that all would go well and that we would all be safe.