Good morning. This has been another morning for coming to sudden realizations about why I am the way I am. (You may or may not feel that the way I am is a positive thing!)
Yesterday I was explaining what I do to someone, and I said that being at least partially accepted by the very tight-knit closed community here has been one of the honors of my life. There are a lot of reasons for that, and a lot of reasons why I am an unusual community member here. First, I continue to be the only white person here, in both the staff and students populations. Then, I am not Muslim--I am not the only non-Muslim, but I am certainly in a minority here as well. Three years ago, when I started here it truly felt like a new world. Currently, nine days out of ten it is a delight and honor.
So, on the way in to school this morning I was thinking about odd things in my life (many) and I started thinking about the three summers that I went to Alaska to help in the Yupik villages that have a strong Moravian church hisgtory and presence. Please know that I am well aware that the Christian church has had a complex and often negative history in the North, as in other places where missionaries have gone. I will try to write about some of this in another post--particularly the weight of spiritual darkness that hangs over the Artic, but that is another whole set of thoughts.
Short term mission so othen takes groups and dumps them into a place and then jerks them out with no contact ever again, which is destructive for both groups. Because the Moravian church has a strong presence and relationships in Alaska, I was able to have the luxury (I learn after the fact) to go back to the same area for three years in a row, and the same village twice. To put some persepctive on this, the coastal villages I went to are twenty or so miles from the Bering Sea, and the only way in is on a plane. Most of these villages are in danger of having to relocate because of global warming.
Janice and I Church Bell, Kipnuk Kids, Kipnuk
Houses up on piles because of freeze and thaw
Nowhere but Alaska!
It is a devestatingly isolated landscape and world, but it is also one of the most beautiful places I have seen--as long as being wet all the time and smelling like mud and fish are ok with you. There is nothing over knee height growing and really no colors but brown, green, and white.
It is one of the joys of my heart that I was able to get off an eight-seater plane in the far North and have people say "Welcome Back" and know my name. These are worn people who speak slowly with lots of pauses. We from the lower 48 ush through all conversations we have. Indigenous Alaskamakes us slow down and think.
See Kipnuk in lower left
Just getting to be in that place was enough for me--to walk and watch and be invited to people's homes to eat and to have the kids yell to us and then not want to go home and follow us back to our little house. Even boiling all water and having no plumbing was ok. I had the time of my life.
Sometimes you don't realize quite how unusual a time you are really having when you go out like this. On another day I will tell the story of the Throwing Party and how I suddenly learned that NO ONE from outside sees and participates in that.
So, what I love is the places in between--the communities on the edge (like my immigrant kids and their families) and the people who exist apart (although with bigger tv sets and satellite dishes than I will ever have or want.) I am fascinated by this often cruel, forever beautiful world we live in.
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