Springtime!

One of the best things about moving to a new place is getting to experience all of the seasons

again for the first time. We are just starting to see signs of springtime in Bethel, the first birds have flown into the area and the hunting talk has shifted from moose and musk ox to ducks and geese, the snow is almost gone, and the willow's are budding (which I really like for some reason). Although the weather is still all over the place, from sunny and near 50, to 32 and snowy (current weather conditions) one thing that definitely came with spring is more daylight! It truly is amazing how much a few longer, sunny days can lift spirits. It is also amazing how much broad daylight until after 10 p.m. affects a person's ability to sleep! We have learned that blackout curtains are a very important part of life in Alaska.

Willow Buds :)

The warming weather and thawing ground also brought with it, possibly Colby's favorite part of living in Bethel (absolutely kidding) Potholes! Now...these aren't just any potholes mind you. These put any Pennsylvania potholes to shame. We go to sleep at night and wake in the morning to find the ground has opened forming massive canyons that sometimes span the entire road. Or hundreds of smaller holes in a stretch of road causing you to feel as though you are driving on railroad tracks. I tried to capture this, but pictures just truly did not do justice. Thankfully the city does try hard to take care of this, but sometimes they will be covered over in the morning and reopen (in slightly different locations) again by evening...it's like whack-a-mole. Supposedly this becomes less crazy as the weather warms and stays warm.

Breakup!

The current big topic around town is breakup! This is when all of the ice that currently sits on the river "breaks up" opening up the river again for travel by boat and eventually barge. Right now, we are in the period of time that occurs in the spring where the river is no longer safe to travel by car/snowmachine, but still covered in ice and not accessible by boat. Because so much depends on the river, this is a big deal! Every year Bethel holds the Kuskokwim Ice Classic event where people buy tickets to guess the date and time that official breakup will occur. To determine when this is a Tripod is set up on the river in front of town. I'm not exactly sure how it all works just yet...but when the ice breaks enough to carry the Tripod 100 yards down the river a clock is tripped marking the exact minute of breakup. The person who guesses this minute, or closest to it, wins a jackpot of $12,500! If you happen to be interested in all of this you can check out iceclassic.org for pictures of past breakups, a live cam of the current conditions, and all of the rules and details of the competition. P.s...we did not buy tickets, so we will not be winning $12,500.

Dates of Past Breakups

Snowmachines to St. Mary's

Early in March, before the snow melted, Colby and Job set out on an adventure to the village of St. Mary's. We know a missionary couple who live there, Israel and Rebecca Warren, who were in need of a snow machine.  Job happened to have an extra one, so he and Colby set out, each on their own machines with Job pulling the extra one behind on a sled. St. Mary's is about a 150 mile drive over tundra which typically takes about 6-8 hours by snow machine. There is almost no cell service between here and there, except for at a few small villages along the way...but thankfully I was able to follow their progress on a GPS tracking device. Basically, this ended up being quite an eventful trip.  About half way there, below the village of Marshall, the track on Colby's snowmachine tore, which meant for the next few miles the two of them had to ride on Job's snow machine, pulling the spare and towing Colby's behind. They ended up leaving the broken machine in Marshal with a family they met there, and told them they would retrieve it on the way back down. They continued on from there and stopped in Pilot station (another village along the way) where, by God’s grace, they met a family who happened to have a broken down machine, with the exact track that Colby needed. They agreed to buy the track and pick it up on their way back home. Finally, they made it to St. Mary's, had a great time with our friends there, and were both able to share testimonies at the services.

Marshal, Pilot Station and St. Mary's are Orange

Then they had to come home...Amazingly they were able to pick up the track in Pilot Station and were able to get it onto Colby's machine in Marshal (this is apparently a pretty big task and took 4 hours). When both machines were running again, they set out to accomplish the other purpose for their trip...Job wanted to shoot a moose. Finding a moose was not a problem, but getting it down took a bit longer than expected. In summary, they left St. Mary's at 7 a.m. and arrived in Bethel at 11 p.m. All in all, the trip was a success, the snow machine made it to St. Mary's, the moose made it to Bethel (and into a few freezers...including ours :), and the boys made it home safe! There is one picture from this at the end of the blog...Colby made me put it on.

Hooper Bay in March

The day after Colby got home from his St. Mary's adventure, I took off for my village trip to Hooper Bay. I was the only passenger on my flight out this time, and it was a pretty cloudy day. Thankfully I had a good pilot, and he made a great landing on the snowy runway in Hooper, even though it felt like we just dropped out of a cloud as our wheels were hitting the ground. 

Because there was a lot of snow in Hooper, there was no longer a road open for driving trucks out to the airport. So of course, I was picked up from the airport on a 4 wheeler (I sat on the back, holding my tote full of things and my lap top and we spun our way through snow drifts back to the clinic) and taken back on a snow machine (this was much less difficult). The trip itself was great, I had a really good turn out of patients, some great conversations, and it was good to see the staff again. I would very much appreciate your prayers for my next trip out there, which is now just a few days away, the 1st-3rd of May.

My ride to the airport

My ride back to Bethel

Easter

For as long as I can remember Easter has been my favorite holiday for a whole bunch of reasons. I really like that it's in spring time and usually comes with flowers blooming and grass starting to turn green. I like that it's a stress-free holiday, with no pressure to buy presents, but still a time to see family. I like that there are Sunrise Services...because I like to be awake before sunrise anyway, and it's so great to be up at that time and praising God with other people! And mostly I like that it's a time set aside to reflect and be thankful for all that Easter represents, the forgiveness and grace that God pours on us because of Christ's sacrifice. 

Easter was a little different this year. There was no green, no family and no sunrise service haha. But! God reminded me again this year that the day is not about any of those things. It's about Him. True joy on Easter, and every day in all circumstances comes by taking our eyes off of whats going on around us and placing them on Him. All of that said, our Easter was very nice here. We did have a brunch at church and a packed service and got together with a few friends from church to play games in the evening. So maybe not the normal, but still a really great day!

Other Spring Events

One of the biggest events of the year in Bethel is the Cama-i Dance Festival. This is a 3 day event each spring where Native dance groups from around Alaska, and really around the country, gather to celebrate their heritage. The high school in town fills with craft vendors and groups ranging from elementary school classes to local and international Native dance groups dress in traditional attire and perform. It is a massive community event and nearly everyone takes part in some way. We were able to stop by and take it in for a few hours

.

In March I was able to make a quick jump across the country to take a 3 day continuing education course in Philadelphia, and then spend a few days at home visiting family. Even though it was fast, and Colby had to stay here, it was so nice to be able to catch up with a few people face to face and catch a quick glimpse of Pennsylvania spring time! 

And before you feel sorry for Colby...While I was away he was able to go to a men's retreat with our church in Palmar, and then spend several days with Job's family. He even got to experience skiing in Alaska at Alyeska, a ski resort south of Anchorage in Girdwood. 

St. Mary's

St. Mary's from the Air

The weekend after Easter, our friends Israel and Rebecca Warren, asked Job to come preach at his Sunday Evening service in St. Mary's while Israel was away. Job agreed and asked Colby and I to come along. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, after church, the three of us piled into Job's little plane and he few us out to St. Mary's. By air it only takes about 1 hour to get there, as compared to the many hour trip by snow machine that Colby and Job had made earlier. It was an absolutely beautiful flight and when we got close to St. Mary's Job flew low so I could see the 1 million moose (slight exaggeration) that were standing on the brushy islands. There's still a  lot of snow out that way, so their dark brown bodies were easy to pick out (still too far away for pictures though). St. Mary's itself is gorgeous. Unlike in Bethel there are rolling hills and trees which was a nice change. Job lead the evening service at their little church, then I helped Rebecca with a children's program. Afterwards we all had dinner together, then we climbed back in the plane and flew home! Very fast, but very fun and worthwhile trip.

Pilot and Copilot

Backseat Pilot?

Back Home :)

Other Updates

Other areas of life here continue to go very well. We're both definitely enjoying work here, and I think both still learning a lot. Colby is still taking classes, but has a much more manageable work load this semester. This has made a huge difference as he has more time to focus on and absorb the information from the classes he has, and also has more time to get out of our apartment and work which makes him much happier. He has continued to travel with Job to Napiak on Thursday nights for Bible study there, and meets with a group of guys in Bethel for a Bible study on Tuesday. 

King's Kid's is still going, and actually really growing. This past week we had 22 kiddo's show up! Each week we have song time, verse memorization, a lesson, a snack and games. There was definitely a learning curve there as far as what works and doesn't work well, and we still have a long way to go! But it's been great to see all of the kids coming out, and really amazing to see how much they remember from the lessons from week to week. We would very much appreciate your prayers for all of the little hearts that come out on Wednesday nights, and for us as we continue to try to work on organizing and improving the program.

A few weeks ago we also got to take part in what was probably the first ever Christ centered marriage conference in Bethel (at least the first in a long time). A few friends that God placed in our lives who happen to live in Soldotna, flew to Bethel to host this. Derek Black (from Soldotna), our pastor, and the pastor from the Moravian church spoke on various aspects of marriage as God intended it to be. Considering that it was a first time event there was a great turn out! Pray that God will use the the teaching from His word that occurred there to begin to transform marriages throughout this part of Alaska and that we can see more events like this begin to take place in Bethel and in the surrounding villages!

Prayer Requests

• Continue to pray that God would be working in the hearts of the people in Bethel and the surrounding villages and that people would truly seek to know and grow in Him. The more time we spend here, the more we are able to see God moving and we are very excited to be a part of what He's doing.
• Pray for wisdom for us as we make daily decisions and eventually bigger future decisions about how to use our time, money and resources. Pray that we would seek to honor God with every part of our lives and that he would clearly lead us as we move forward.
• As Colby nears the end of this semester and faces final tests and lots of papers, pray that God would give him focus and motivation to finish strong, as well as a deep understanding of what He's teaching him through this time and how to apply it.
• And of course, we very much appreciate prayer for our relationship. We made it through year one, and a winter cooped up together in Bethel which is a good sign!! But pray that we would continue to grow in our ability to communicate with each other and just be less selfish in general to be a better model of Christ's relationship with us.

A few more pictures...

There's a Bunny living in front of our apartment :)

Ice Road In front of Bethel

St. Mary's

Trees in St. Mary's!

You can figure this one out on your own...

The Best...and Maybe Hardest Month So Far

I would like to start by encouraging all of you (especially all of you living in PA) to eat a Fasnacht today. Apparently this can also be spelled fastnacht and several other ways. If you did not realize this, today, is Fasnacht Day. This is a Pennsylvania Dutch holiday that falls on the day before Ash Wednesday. Most of the country would call this Fat Tuesday, but traditionally on this day Amish families would make fasnachts to use up their fat and sugar before the start of the Lent. The literal translation is Fast Night, or the night before the fast. Growing up, this was one of my favorite days because our family would order amazing homemade donuts from a local Amish lady. I continued this tradition up until last year, but sadly I don't think those donuts would ship well to Bethel. So if you do happen to be in PA....find a faschnaut and embrace the PA Dutch heritage around you :)

I'm having a pretty hard time believing it's February. In fact, we may still have our Christmas tree on the wall. January and this first half of February flew by, which really is amazing because usually this is the time of year that seems to drag the most for me. The business of the holiday season passes, but the cold and the short days hang on, and spring still seems so far. This year though, January was filled with some exciting things...things that I actually looked forward to as much as (maybe more than) Christmas, so what is usually the longest month somehow turned into the shortest.

Winter Camping (aka Caribou Hunting)

The first adventure of this month was Colby's. To start off the new year, my coworker Jesse invited him to go along with him on a caribou hunt. During the winter months herds of caribou migrate near Bethel, and near the end of December several local people had successful hunts nearby. So Colby and Jesse packed some gear and headed out on their snow machines for an overnight hunting trip. The trip out was a little rough mostly because we are lacking quite a bit in the snow department in Bethel this year. They did a lot of bumping across brown tundra and Colby's machine did a good bit of overheating (it uses the snow to cool). None the less, they made it to their destination and set up camp. I think the temperatures dropped to about 10 degrees at night, Colby slept with gloves on his feet. The next day they hiked around, found quite a few Caribou tracks (herds can range from 50-100 to several thousand caribou) but no animals. Then they traveled home. Good experience, even without success. 

Hooper Bay

I made my first solo trip to Hooper Bay from January 9th-11th. I was a little nervous about this, mostly just getting through the travel part on my own, but God worked everything out perfectly. When flying out to the the villages we fly Ravn Air, which is alot smaller and less umm...formal? than what you typically think of in an airport. You arrive at the terminal, check your bags at the desk and then sit down and wait in the large waiting area. When your plane and pilot are ready to fly, they call your name over a loud speaker and say something like "list of names meet your pilot at the door." So you walk to the door, your pilot checks your name off of a list, and you follow him out to one of the little planes sitting on the tarmac, climb up the stairs and hop in. On this particular  morning we climbed into a very cold and icy plane and had to sit and wait while the pilot started it, got the heat going, and defrosted the plane and all of us passengers. The flight itself was absolutely beautiful and we landed without any problems right on the frozen coast of cold, snowy Hooper. 

Waiting for the Plane

Unloading the Bags

The trip itself went really well. I treated patients Tuesday afternoon, all day Wednesday and Thursday morning. It was so good to get to meet more people from the community and to get to know the clinic staff a little better. Very much looking forward to continuing to build relationships there. Please continue to pray for the people of Hooper Bay and what God is doing there. Hooper is a tough place to live, there is a lot of sadness and hopelessness, but there is a small community of Christians there as well. Pray that they will be able to share the truth of the Gospel and bring light to an area that needs it so badly. 

Laura Came!!!

The week I have been most excited for, honestly since we left home, was the week in January when my sister came to visit. I cannot tell you how thankful I am that she was crazy enough to join me in Alaska in the middle of the coldest month of winter! Although Bethel has it's own kind of charm, we decided it might be best to spend the first part of her trip in Anchorage. I flew in and met her there and we filled two days with as much real Alaska winter fun as we could. We attempted to cross country ski (keyword in that sentence is italicized), we drove up an icy mountain road to the Flat Top trail head for some beautiful views (and then with white knuckles and lots of prayer made it back down), we drove to Girdwood, saw a doll sheep and our FIRST MOOSE, and then she got to help me fill and weigh totes full of groceries in the Fred Meyer parking lot before we headed back to Bethel.

K300

One of the most exciting events in Bethel every year, maybe the most exciting event actually, is the Kuskokwim 300 Dogsled Race. This is a 300 mile race that starts in Bethel, usually goes to the village of Aniak and then comes back down again. It's known as one of the toughest dog sled races in the state of Alaska and attracts mushers from all over. This year the trail was a little different as the unusually warm conditions leading up to the race made the normal course unsafe, but the race kicked off right on schedule! 

 This year the race started on one of the lakes in the middle of town. Because it is always incredibly cold, our church sets up a "Warming Tent" at the start/finish line where we hand out hot chocolate and cookies and offer a place out of the wind for people to come warm up. Wind chills were pretty far into the negatives at the start of the race, but we all huddled together, bundled up so only our eyeballs were showing and watched as mushers came to the line and headed off two by two. We managed to get our fingers out of our mittens just long enough to snap a few pictures. The dogs were soo excited to be getting ready to run, most of them were lunging and barking at the end of their leads until they got the "ok" to charge forward.

This year because of the poor conditions the race did a double out and back and did not travel all the way to Aniak. They traveled about 75  miles out to the Bogus Creek check point, then turned around and came back to Bethel for the half way point, then did that again. Eighteen mushers started off and 12 completed the whole course. Those who dropped out mostly did so because of the icy trail conditions. We were able to follow the teams online through their GPS trackers and went down to the finish line to see the first place finisher, Pete Kaiser, who happens to be from Bethel, cross the line on Sunday morning.

Ice Fishing

Real Alaskans go ice fishing, isn't that one of the things you picture Alaskans doing? So when in Alaska...one should go ice fishing. So on Saturday morning of the week Laura was here Job drove his van to lead a small caravan of our Pastor (with us) in his explorer, Job's parents in a truck, and our friends Pedro and Brandon in another truck...down the frozen river, past the village of Napakiak to the place where there is supposed to be really good ice fishing.

When we got there we spread our vehicles out in a nice circle to avoid all the pressure being at one spot. Job pulled out an auger and drilled holes in the ice for all of us. The ice was about 2-3 feet thick...several people have asked this.

And then we fished. Ice fishing is cold. Standing on ice when it's below zero outside is just cold. And fishing is fun, but mostly it's cold. It's worth it though! At least one time...I'm not sure how many times it will be worth it to me. But we caught Pike! And then we ate them on Sunday for lunch : )

The big one is mine...: )

 After packing as much real winter Alaskan adventure into one week as we could...we let Laura get back on the plane and head home. Saying goodbye is tough every time, but I'm so thankful that travel is possible and living far apart doesn't have to mean years without seeing friends/family.

Other Things

Other things in life are continuing on pretty much as normal. Colby started back to school on January 22nd. His course load is a little lighter this semester, and a lot of the other life stresses like moving and figuring out life here have calmed down, which has definitely helped him to focus. Work with Job is still going well and he and Job have continued to travel to Napakiak weekly for the Bible study there. They have now traveled there by plane, boat, snow machine and truck...pretty sure they've exhausted all possible means of transportation. 

Together Colby and I have taken the lead with our churches Wednesday night children's program, King's Kids. We have a short song time, verse memorization, a lesson and games. Each week we've had between 10 and 15 kids. This is definitely out of our comfort zone, but very much something we felt God was leading us to do. It's good to be able to lead something together, and so good to give the kids a place to go, learn and have fun in the middle of the week. 

Finally...

To be completely honest, although the first half of January was fun, full and exciting...the second half just seemed hard. Part of it probably was the usual dark, cold January days...not being able to be outside like we like to be...and knowing that all of the fun of village travel and Laura's visit were behind us. But it was more than that. I think that in the midst of these cold winter months we passed from the rush of being in a new place, surrounded by new people and a whole new culture to a slightly (very slightly...like maybe a scratch in the surface) deeper understanding of the reality of what life is like for a lot of people here. From the studies I've done about missions and adapting to new places I know that some degree of culture shock is inevitable, but no amount of understanding the concept of something can fully prepare you for what it will look and feel like when you experience it in your life. In the past month I felt incredibly overwhelmed by the depth of the brokenness I see everyday. It seems like there is an absolute epidemic of addiction, abuse, loss, and despair and the reasons for these things are so many, so big and so tangled together that it is very difficult to see how there could ever be a real change.

God is so good though, and in the midst of my feeling just...down...He spoke His truth in my life. Through the words of several friends and a really good John Piper sermon, I was pointed back to His word. Three different times in the past 2 weeks I was reminded of Acts 18:9 where God reassures Paul that he should continue speaking in Corinth because He says "I have many in this city who are my people." Corinth was not at all a Godly place, in fact it was very much the opposite of that. At the time, to Paul, the situation in the city probably looked incredibly hopeless. But God reminded Him that he had claimed people for himself from there. I was reminded as I thought about this that I have no idea what God is doing in the lives of the people around me. I can't always see where He's working or who He's calling. But I do know Him and I know that He is more than capable of restoring broken lives and communities. My job is not to figure out all the answers, it's to keep my eyes fixed on Him and keep speaking and living as He's called me to. Very thankful to serve an all powerful, all knowing God who loves me enough to reassure me when I'm doubting, and who loves the people of Alaska more than I do. 

Prayer Requests

• First please pray that God would be working in amazing ways in this part of Alaska. Pray that more people would be burdened to speak the truth of the Gospel here and that more hearts would be opened to that truth. Pray for strength for the people who have trusted in Christ to continue to follow Him and to be able to turn from the temptation to fall back into their old lifestyles. Pray that we would begin to see God's glory replacing the darkness here.
• As Colby and I continue to discern how to best use our time and resources here, we would very much appreciate prayers for wisdom. There are so many needs and opportunities to serve, we want to be sure we are not spreading ourselves too thin, but also that we are being faithful to do what God is calling us to. 
• Pray for the relationships that we are building here. That we would know how to best help others along in their walk with Christ and continue to develop solid friendships. And that God would also place people in our lives to help encourage us. 

A Few More Pictures...

On the way to Girdwood

Fireworks after the K300 Start

Sunrise on the River

The Clinic at Hooper Bay

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! This past week marked 2 very important days for Colby and I this year....First of all, Sunday was the last day of Colby's 1st semester of classes! The week leading up to that day may have been a bit tense...but he made it! I have never seen a person so excited to just get up and go to work on a Monday morning :) This semester was a learning experience for him in more than one way. He learned from his classes but also learned quite a bit about the way he learns best and focuses best and managing time. It was a struggle for sure but still a good experience. He now has a break for about 1 month and is very excited to have a mental rest and time to do some of the outside, physical kind of work which he enjoys much more. 

The other important day was Thursday, December 21st...the shortest day of the year! We made it through the darkest day! The official sunrise on that day was at 10:57 a.m. and sunset was at 4:34 p.m. giving us 5 hours and 36 minutes of daylight. Today, just 2 days later we will have 5 hours and 37 minutes of daylight! We are on the upswing! And to be honest we haven't minded the short days. I enjoy the weekends when I actually get a glimpse of the sun, but there has been no extra tiredness or sadness that we've noticed. It's amazing how God has made our bodies to adapt and adjust to all kinds of different circumstances.

Weather

We  may have reached the shortest day, but we are still far from the coldest. Apparently this has been an unusually mild winter here so far. The winter months started out beautifully. We had a white thanksgiving and several smaller snows stacked up on top of that. The beautiful white made it feel like the Christmas season...

Buuut over the past week the weather has deteriorated quite a bit. Temperatures have been well above freezing so a lot of our snow disappeared and the world instead became an ice skating rink. It's looking like we won't be having a white Christmas after all...more of a brown/grey slushy slippery one. Slightly disappointing...In addition to the ice we have also been having a remarkable amount of wind. The combination makes walking anywhere, opening car doors, closing car doors...everything outside just more difficult. Thankfully, early on in our time here we took some good advice and bought ice cleats! Something I never thought I would own but am soo thankful for!

Looking ahead at the upcoming weather...the little graph makes a gradual downhill slant after today. The highs go something like 32...24...16...15...9...3 then next Saturday Colby's weather app just has an igloo. I'm not sure what that means...

Anchorage!

As far as exciting events go over the past month, to celebrate our first Anniversary this year, Colby and I took an extended weekend trip to Anchorage in November. It was definitely a fun break and we took the opportunity to see some of the parts of Alaska that everyone imagines...the parts with mountains and trees. We took a drive from Anchorage down to Girdwood and even got to see some Doll Sheep on the rocks beside the road on the way (no pictures...they stayed up high enough that they only looked like white dots in my camera). 

Our hotel also happened to be right beside the Ulu Factory! For those of you who know me my Ulu knife is possibly my favorite kitchen possession (maybe second to my AeroPress). I was first introduced to this (actually to both of those things!) by Rachel Alderfer when I stayed with her in Juneau, and my dad bought me my knife for Christmas a year later. I was pretty excited to visit the place it originated...

Although my Ulu was created here...these knives have been made and used for a very very long time by the Native Alaskan people. In case anyone is interested you can read a little about the history of the Ulu knife here on The Ulu Factory website http://theulufactory.com/ulu-history.php. 

Our trip was definitely a fun time away, however, when you live in Bethel trips to Anchorage also become necessary errand running and grocery gathering events. Groceries in Anchorage are soo much cheaper than they are in Bethel, and because we now live in Alaska, we can check three of those big plastic totes for free on Alaska Airlines. This means that you fly to Anchorage with empty totes stacked inside of each other as your luggage. Go grocery shopping, and fill each tote with 50#'s of goodies. Then fly back with full totes. We are beginners, so we only filled 2 totes a piece this time. Navigating through the airport with full totes is as challenging as it sounds like it might be...we decided to gradually work our way up. Even so, we are still eating our way through a lot of what we stocked up on during that trip. 

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was very different this year, but it was still great. My coworkers invited Colby and I, our Pastors family, Job, and a few other members of our church for a Thanksgiving meal. We had plenty of delicious food and a wonderful, relaxed time of enjoying the day together. After we ate Keira and I and the pastors kids went sledding on the "hill" (there was kind of a bump in the tundra) behind their house and the boys did a little riding around on snow machines. It was sad to be away from home, but since many people in Bethel are from from their families, we were definitely not alone. We were very Thankful for great friends, and our church family here, to make the day special. 

On a side note...the most homesick we have both felt this entire time was on the Monday after Thanksgiving. There is something about rifle season...the anticipation, the getting up early, dressing in orange, climbing in tree stands and sitting and waiting, hearing shots, sharing stories...the smell of Jerky by the end of the week and mostly just the time we spend with family that definitely had us both a little mopey and missing home. Very glad we were able to share in the experiences from a distance through calls and pictures!

Work and Life

Work for both of us has continued on with no major changes. I still enjoy what I'm doing so much and feel as though I'm learning and growing a little bit every day. Over the last month I got to be a little more hands on with wound care and was able to help with cleaning and dressing changes for a few people, specifically for a person with frostbite. This is definitely an area of physical therapy I never thought I would enjoy, but I'm finding I really do and I'm excited to continue to develop my skills here.

One fun piece of news outside of work is that we now own a snow machine (all of you in PA would call this a snowmobile...but they are snow machines up here). You can add that to the list of things I never thought I would own but am very thankful for. We've learned that during the cold months here, a snow machine is almost a necessity if you want to travel outside of Bethel. Flying conditions are not great during the winter, but the trails and the river freeze opening a whole world of options by snow machine.  Colby has already been able to use this to travel to Napkiak with Job two times to help with the Bible study there, and he's looking forward to being able to do more as the winter goes on.

Christmas!!!

One more sleep until Christmas!!! : ) Colby thinks I'm a bit ridiculous this year, but I have been very much enjoying this Christmas season. Part of my excitement has definitely had to do with the snow and the cold (until this week) that just gave everything a much more Christmasy feel. I had to be a bit creative with decorating this year since there are no trees in Bethel and we did not feel like ordering one due to lack of space and time...but I found that by cutting up pieces of garland, taping them to the wall and putting lights on them, I could make a very nice little tree that did not clutter our apartment at all.

I think the biggest reason for my extra enjoyment of this Christmas season is that I have had extra time to reflect on the true meaning of it this year. Work does not take up as much of my time here as it did at home and there are simply not as many distractions in Bethel as there were in PA. So this year I have had more time to sit, more time to read and more time to listen and God has blessed me so much through that time. One of the things I have been reading through is "Good News of Great Joy" an Advent devotional by John Piper. Two different readings were focused on this verse...

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."~Hebrews 2:14-15

The simple truth of those words has struck me more this year than any year before this. The entire reason Christ came, the reason why he was born in a stable so many years ago, was so that he could die and destroy the power that death has over all of us. He left the awesome glory of heaven to humble himself and enter this world, just like we do, as a tiny baby, to live a human life, just like we do (except perfectly...completely without sin), and then died...the only person who didn't deserve death...died. He took the punishment that we all deserve, the death that we all deserve...BUT He rose again and through that He forever destroyed the power that death had over all of us!

I have been reminded in a new way this year that this is why we celebrate Christmas. Because He came we no longer have to fear death, we no longer have to fear anything. We can now have hope and joy and life to the absolute fullest. As I've been reminded of this awesome truth over the past month, I've also been even more aware of the lack of this hope that is so apparent in many people around me. So many people here (and throughout this whole world) still live in slavery and fear. My prayer is that as we celebrate and give thanks for the incredible gift of freedom we've been given, God will use our lives and give us opportunities to share this gift with people around us.

As I close this out, I want to encourage you to set aside the craziness of this season just to spend time with Christ, and let him open your heart in a new way to the true significance of Christmas. I hadn't realized how much I'd been neglecting that, and how much I had truly been missing.

Final Thoughts

Thank you all...again soooo much for all of the love and support we've felt since we've been here. I feel like I can't say that enough. We have been overwhelmed with the thoughtful cards and packages we've gotten. This is the first time in either of our lives that we have been away from friends and family during this holiday season. Being away has made us realize even more how truly blessed we are to have all of you! So yes...just Thank you! We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Prayer requests:

• Continue to pray for us as we build relationships here and determine the best ways to spend our time, both in life and in ministry to make the greatest impact for God's Glory where he has us right now
• I will be traveling to Hopper Bay (by myself this time) from January 10th-12th. Pray for traveling safety, for the people I will meet there, and for the village as a whole and what God's doing there
• For Colby as he mentally prepares to return to the books in a few weeks, for focus and motivation to study and learn and especially that God would use this time to help him to grow in his own walk with Christ and prepare him to better lead others in the future

And a few more pictures....

Sunrise over the river

Ice fog makes crystals on everything!
  Even chain link fences become beautiful...

Snowy tundra behind the fitness center

Christmas Eve Sunrise