I hope everyone reading this is doing great! My world in Alaska has been crazy busy, way fun, extremely cold, completely draining at times, and amazingly blessed.
Every weekend (and sometimes weekdays) for the past month I’ve traveled either for NYO or speech, and these long days are getting to me. The trips are fun, just lots of makeup work to do. I’ve learned to keep my backpack packed and the sleeping bag ready because sometimes I don’t know I’m leaving until the day before. When we go to another village it’s not so bad because even though we sleep on the floor in a classroom we can keep our stuff there. When we’re in Bethel we get up early in the morning, pack and walk with all our stuff to the district office in freezing weather (this morning it was -10 ! ), to a place where there is barely enough room to sit on the floor, and wait for speeches to be given. It may sound rough but I really do enjoy the trips. It’s really nice being able to bond more with the students.
On a more exciting note, I’ve unleashed the kid within me and have had some serious fun outside in the snow. (pictures on facebook!) The kids took me up to the airport and we went sledding, SO much fun! There are some pretty steep slopes that are fun to ride down, but of course I had to go too fast, fall out of the sled, and flip down the rest of the slope. It was fun, I just won’t recommend that piece of land to younger ones in the future. :-)
Me and my roommate like to go out and take pictures… well, she likes to take pictures and I like to play. She’s lived up here for 10 years and is use to the snow, so she takes pictures of me messing around. I think I told yall about the VHF, which is like a CB radio in the house. All the houses have one, so people are always saying something on it, most of the time in Yupik. They tell their kids to come home, pilots announcing their arrival, wish someone a happy birthday, give weather updates, announcing open gym times, make “scary” noises on Halloween, etc. It took some getting use to but they are pretty cool to have. But the point I was going to make was that one morning a special weather update announced the bad weather we would have. It was nearly a blizzard! The wind was so strong I couldn’t even walk in a straight line. It was snowing and you couldn’t look up because the strength with which it hit you in the face. So it wasn’t quite a blizzard, but definitely the closest thing I’ve ever seen to one.
I’m the student council sponsor and we made a haunted house for Halloween in the elementary wing. It was lots of fun but tons of work, and then we had a dance afterwards. That seems like ages ago… sorry I haven’t posted something sooner!
We had a special treat at the last NYO meet… some of the village Eskimos made Yupik food for us… Eskimo ice cream, goose stew, salmon jerky, salmon fillets, moose casserole…. It was quite a treat! All tasty.
You know, God is always here for us. I mean, no matter what happens, good or bad, whatever we do, no matter what obstacles are in the way, He NEVER leaves. And not only that, He raises me up, makes anything possible, proves the doubting wrong. He opens doors, pushes me, guides me, and walks beside me. What I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced, what I’ve witnessed here, I know my calling is confirmed. And I am awed, simply awed by God’s plan and what He has used me for. I keep thinking, who the heck am I that I would be able to do this? To say that? To be that kind of person? And God says, “you will do it, because MY hand is on you, and I can do anything!” So I won’t go into details here, but will one day. Thanks again for your prayers. I love yall and hope your Thanksgiving is blessed!
