03/24/07 3:55 pm by tsandstrom189 lb Wrestling Champ

I was very happy to spend the last two days of my trip in Lakeland Florida watching my nephew, Odie Delaney, compete for the Florida State Wrestling Championship in the 189 pound weight class. It was great, I yelled my self hoarse cheering him on through the qualifying matches. Odie won all the preliminary matches and was wrestling for the championship against the young man who had beat him earlier in the season in a controversial decision. It was an intense match with Odie executing his coaches game plan perfectly and avenging his earlier loss with the State Championship.

Just before his Championship match his step dad and I had a customized sweatshirt made commemorating his victory so we could give it to him immediately after the match. This of course was on our assumption that he would win... which he did.

Check out his win ... 

It was with this most satisfying ending that I completed the last leg of my journey and returned home to Alaska.


Posted In : Family - Comments 12

03/08/07 3:36 pm by tsandstromPeru 07 AK to the Amazon

February 25th 2007 marked the start of my second journey to Peru. The first was to honor a promise made to a Mayoruna chief. Two years earlier pastor David Pepper of Church on the Rock, in Wasilla Alaska, had met the chief at a conference in Iquitos, Peru. At the Iquitos conference the chief had told of their desire to have people come to the village of Beunas Lomas Nueva to teach and encourage pastors from the surrounding villages. I was privileged to be invited, but that is another story...

I hope you enjoy following my second Peruvian journey. It is not just the typical tourist trip or adventure trek. For me it was both of those and much more. It begins in Wasilla, Alaska from my home overlooking majestic Pioneer Peak in the Chugach Mountains at the southern end of the Matanuska Susitna Borough.




Posted In : Alaska to the Amazon - Comments 13