In my 18 years of life, the views of Alaska are the most beautiful that I have ever experienced. With that being said it is also the most dark and depressed place that I have faced.
Every year my home church takes the newly graduated high school seniors on a “senior mission trip”. At the beginning of the school year we were able to vote on where we wanted serve this year. Alaska was mentioned and within 10 minutes everyone had agreed that was where we wanted to go.
Many statistics show that Alaska has the highest rates of depression in the United States, due to the 9 months of total darkness that they encounter.
On May 30th, two days after my graduation, me and my classmates were on a plane heading for Anchorage, Alaska.
My team and I had the privilege of working with a small church called Sonrise, and we got to meet some amazing people. We also met some very broken people though no less amazing. This little church and the people of this community completely transformed me. They broke my heart allowing the Lord to repair it. I went in with the mentality that I was going to be the one to change others, when in reality they were the ones to change me.
While I was on the trip I couldn’t help but be extremely excited to think that this was only a taste of what my life will be like in a few short months. Being able to go and show Gods love to those who don’t know it, and having the privilege of being used by God to plant seeds among those people was absolutely incredible, and I cannot wait to spend 9 months doing just that over and over again.
