Hello friends and family!
As we recently announced, we are headed back to Alaska to continue Luke's education for a year at St. Herman's Seminary. We have committed to working for the Diocese of Alaska, and as a result, they are going to cover almost all of our expenses to go to school in Kodiak! However, the journey is a long one, and four years in seminary has not left us with much for extra funds. We have crunched the numbers and without some help it would be impossible for us to make the journey without incurring debt. If we go into debt, paying it off would be almost impossible while we are in school.
We currently own a 2001 Toyota Camry that would not be safe to take on the ALCAN (Alaska-Canadian Highway) and not large enough to haul our belongings. We hope to be able to sell this car for enough money to cover Kariann, Jep, and Alathea's plane tickets to Anchorage and our ferry tickets from Homer to Kodiak (around $1,000 total).
The cost of renting the smallest U-haul truck from Dallas to Kodiak is $3,366 (Not including fees or insurance). According to their website if the truck is empty and in ideal driving conditions it can get 12 mpg, so we calculated an average of 8 mpg. At this rate with a journey of 4,395 miles, gas would be $1,373 (averaging $2.50 per gallon). To get to Kodiak a ferry must be taken from Homer and that would cost $237 for the box truck. The rental truck, gas money, and ferry all come to a total of $4,976.00. I have devised a plan that would hopefully be much more economical.
Right now in Dallas we could buy a decent used van for about $3,000 - $4,000. These get better gas mileage that a box truck. We could plan on averaging about 20mpg and at that rate the cost of gas for the 4,395 mile journey would be about $549. The ferry for a van is similar at $231. So, rather than renting a truck, if we could purchase a used van for $4,000 (or less) the total driving cost would be $4,780! This would be cheaper than renting a truck and we would not have to worry about purchasing a vehicle when we arrived in Alaska.
This is the last big journey we plan on making for school prior to our engagement in full time ministry and if you could help us make it we would be forever grateful!
In Him,
-Luke, Kariann, Jep, & Alathea