The adventures never seem end up here, the good and the bad.  I’ll say this – I’m becoming stronger and able to persevere through the tough times, so I’m thankful for that. Newtok is known all around western Alaska for being infested with bed bugs. The house I’m living in was bug-ridden last year, and I’ve already killed a few of the nasty blood-sucking parasites in my room. So I’m praying they don’t get out of hand. I’d rather have no heat in the house than have bed bugs, but we’ve already been without heat, so we’re learning to experience all kinds of tribulations that the natives go through yearly.
I got frostbite yesterday – it was just first degree, but still painful! I took the snow machine (mobile…) out on the Ninglick River when it was -35 with wind chill. I had my ski mask and goggles on, but the wind chill with the speed on the snow machine penetrated the protection. My lower face and fingers were so cold and painful I new I needed to head back to the village, so I came home and found a big white patch on my cheek. So perhaps it was frostnip, definitely not the full-fledged blackening frostbite. My fingers were cold enough they could have been broken off…but no signs of frostnip there. It took the rest of the day for most of patch on my face to go away, and today you can still see it if you look closely, but I’m sure it’ll go away eventually. Well, I’m glad it wasn’t more severe, but I’m becoming more like an Alaskan! (Don’t worry Texas, you’re still my number 1 state.)
I’ve been enjoying my snow machine and am pretty impressed with what kind of terrain it can handle. I’ve already been thrown off of it once (the first day I got it!) and was sore for 2 days afterwards. I’m very thankful I didn’t break anything, but it was a fun ride. I plan on not doing that again.
A few of my classes are becoming better, a few seem to be getting worse. I think it might just be the age of the kids. My high school health class is simply a joy to teach – we have open discussions daily about any and everything – from drugs to Jesus, discussing past life experiences, and it’s become a treasured and respected time. I am simply real, I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not, we are honest and forthcoming. Being able to share my faith and listening to theirs, two different cultures coming together talking openly…it’s more than just a class, it gives us a new way to look at life. And we all walk away with something. We all really enjoy just sitting and talking. It took a little while for them to be comfortable opening up, but boy, I look forward to those classes.
The pictures above were taken at different times.. The sunset is unbelievably beautiful, I was so glad I had my camera. I was about 5 miles out on the river with my snowmachine, and watched the sunset. It's moments like these that make it impossible not to praise God! The snow pictures I took on a snowshoeing hike. The bush plane is a Cessna caravan, the biggest plane that comes to villages. It can seat about 10 people. You can see the whole album on my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020301&id=159100597