SUMMER HIGHLIGHTS AND PRAYER REQUESTS: ALASKA

Summer Highlights and Prayer Requests: Alaska

By Adam Swenson, Director of Alaska Operations, Director of Sales and Marketing

The beginning of our first summer of missions in Alaska has brought a lot of joys and successes and a few challenges. Alaska is a unique cultural environment (Anchorage is an incredibly diverse and very unchurched city), and we have seen many spiritual breakthroughs, people accept Christ, lives changed, and beautiful relationships developing. Please pray that this good work can continue in the power of the risen Lord!

Our summer so far in Alaska has had some amazing ministry take place.  We are blessed with teams coming, ready to serve as well as awesome Alaska church partners and Thirst staff.  Our ministry has included putting on a VBS and doing outreach work with the poor and homeless in the Moutainview neighborhood.  Another week involved VBS in the oldest African-American church in Alaska and another team helping a young church plant do block parties each night at different locations around Wasilla and Palmer.  The Lord blessed the results despite difficult weather at times!  One team had the opportunity to put on a women’s conference for those who had been victims of abuse.  The conference was an incredible and transformative experience for the women who attended.  Many amazing breakthroughs happened and women were baptized at the end of the conference.

Mid-June we had a team come up and partner with a house for people transitioning our of homelessness and drug abuse.  They worked hard on service projects, had good “God conversations” with residents, and threw a baby shower for a mother with a 10-day-old son.  We have another team working with a bilingual Hispanic church in the Fairview neighborhood, doing VBS with live music, great skits and games.  They get to reach out to the homeless in the area and lead the Sunday morning service!  Two recent teams are doing VBS in a remote community and an outreach-oriented Backyard Bible Club.

Here are ways you can lift up our ministry in Alaska in prayer:

• Continuing to find ways to engage with one of the most unchurched cities in America.
• Pray for our partner churches and camps. They are doing the hard work of evangelism and discipleship in a very challenging environment.
• Endurance for our staff and teams.

Adam Swenson is the Director of Alaska Operations and the Director of Sales and Marketing. When not at work, he’s typically disc golfing or watching Madam Secretary with his wife and daughter.  Adam and his family are currently up in Alaska for the summer, living in an RV and involved in everything “Thirst Missions”; we are blessed by their hard work and heart for serving the Lord in Alaska!