Load after load after load after....

Again, I forgot about this little post! Loading up wood, fixing fourwheelers, getting things done CYAK style! What a great group of people to work with and a beautiful place, this blog was written sometime near the end of July.

     Ok so it really hasn't been that many loads, but seven is a lot if you consider the fact that it takes about two hours to haul stuff up to camp and come back down to town. What were we hauling? Wood! and lots of it!
     Mae is an elder in Unalakleet who decided to donate the massive stack of firewood next to her home to Bible Camp. Using the big red camp truck we slowly have been knocking away at the pile, and finally yesterday we found ground underneath the mound. Needless to say we were slightly excited!

     Not that Mae will ever read this but many thanks go out to her for the donation. It should keep Bible Camp stocked with firewood for about 2 years. That's a huge help to the kind of work that goes into getting the camp read in the spring. Its a load off our backs for next year and a load off her back to have it out of her yard! It is donations like these as well as financial ones that keep Bible Camp running and in full working order to continue to serve the youth here in Alaska. Here's a few pictures of the process- and a few things we ran into on the way up!

1 day off + 1 great family + 1 brown dog (+one month late)

Here's what happens when you get busy- you forget things! Yikes, I wrote this little blog about a great day-trip I took with a family while in Unalakleet this summer. Check it out! (and remember its from the end of July.)


     Saturday after sleeping in most of the morning I heard a knock on my door. The phone was for me. One of my intern buddies was on the line telling me that they were headed up to fish camp and would I like to come?? Um ya!

Off we go!

     Off I went to cram some breakfast down, and run down to the boat dock. I hopped in and off we went, upriver for about 1/2 hour to the family's granddad's cabin. It was a cool piece of property with a great little beach. We Spent a few minutes there and loaded up a seining net. We went back down river a bit to a longer beach shoal to do our seining. Katiya (my intern friend) and I hopped out of the boat with the end of the net and her dad drug it across the river in the boat. We walked downriver as the boat floated downstream and then toward the end of the beach the boat came in toward our shore and we pulled the net in.. Pretty meager first round, I'm sure it will be better in a few weeks when the silvers come in but that time we only got 9 humpys and a decent sized chum. The seine net has a weighted rope at the bottom and floats at the top, thus as it floats downstream and the fish swim up, we come away with the catch!

Humpys and one decent sized Chum

Cabin could use some work, but a nice spot!

     After piling everyone back into the boat we headed back up river to camp to cut fish and eat some lunch. I tried my hand at cutting fish with an ulu (that's that big knife I'm using in these pictures- remember to click on them to launch into fullscreen nifty viewer mode!).

             

     

Victory! I think..

Then helped keep the fire going for the fish soup (I'll post the native word for it if I remember to ask for it again...)

Recipe?

-river water

-fresh cut humpy

-onions

-salt

-pepper

-potatoes (though these were forgotten)

-seal oil

Look at that pot of deliciousness

     Tasty? Definitely. SO simple. Soo delicious. After a bit of rod and reeling we roasted a mallow and headed for town. On the way back we decided to spend some time on the beach on the far side of town, beachcombing, hanging the fish, running the pup through the water, and just enjoying the fresh breath the sea.

     It was a beautiful and entertaining trip! There were six of us total- Katiya, her dad Karl, 7 year old brother Kael, and their younger cousin Colton (who talks a mile a minute) and one lovable pooch, Mocha. Here's a few more pictures to finish out this post-

Guns, Carrots, Interviews, Bears, etc.

What a view, looking across the river mouth

     Whamo! This summer seems to be winding down faster and faster the more carefully we plan out the calendar. But a few things first.
     This week was a weekend of firsts for me. I went shooting at an area near town with our director. Fun to hit some targets and fine-tune some scopes (.270, .22 pistol and rifle, 30.6 from WWII era, for those of you who know more about that stuff than me!). We went out about 4 in the afternoon and on our way back I checked the clock and was surprised to see it was nearly 10pm!

     In other news, I've been doing some delicious cooking in the evenings. A little beans and rice ala Costa Rica, delicious homemade spaghetti, and as there are mounds of carrots left over from camp, I tried my hand at baked carrot chips! Mostly tasty with a chance of 'more practice needed.' Fried rice was next on the list, and again not too bad! Thanks to a shipment of some delicious fruits I've been enjoying some Yakima Fujis, a mango, and avocado to boot!
     On to the interviews. This was one of the more interesting things on the long list (see the last post) of things us interns get to attack in my opinion. The basic concept is this- CYAK is looking to provide a resource for students to build their faith. A faith 'toolkit' of sorts. A pack full of suggestions on how to approach prayer, how to read your Bible, how to engage in Christian community even if your village doesn't have a pastor or youth leader, and many other parts. This project on a whole has been a privilege to work on, but one part has especially intrigued me. Video testimonies- the goal with these was to gather a group of testimonies from people of all ages who are living for Christ as an encouragement to youth. 
     The project has encompassed people from their twenties to their seventies and I have personally been uplifted by some of the stories that surface. Stories of extreme hardship and very evident answers to prayer, stories of God's mercy and His incredible love, and certainly stories of his creation evident throughout the land. I'm humbled to capture some of these stories on video. I hope the interviews will fulfill their purpose well. 

     This weekend we have changed up our plans for sports camp a little bit. We will only be doing one six day week of camp for grades 6-12 starting a week from tomorrow. Because of this change we were able to include some little kids as well! I'm excited for this coming Thursday and Friday's 3-5th grade basketball camp! More to come on sports camps I'm sure. They're going to be fun that's certain!

One of my neighbors- Iisragii

     We did a second round of shooting range stuff on Friday night and it was another unique experience! We were working on finding an operating scope to replace one we think is broken, then got to sight in a 300, shoot a 454magnum and some other things. Just as soon as we had gotten back, word came that a two year old brown cub who had been meandering near town was making his way down the beach near the airport. Byron came running down the stairs and off we went to find the bear! Find it we did after a bit of back and forth up and down a road that goes from the beach up the hill. It was down on the beach munching on a walrus carcass that had washed up two or so weeks ago. When we saw it (from the road at the top of the beach) the bear was probably only 75 yards away, as soon as it spotted us it was up and moving toward the road. We waited patiently as the bear made his way in front of our 4wheelers and out into the marsh/tundra area and up the hill. When he passed us he was no more than 50 yards away and running! What a cool sight! It was certainly a late night though. By the time I turned off my lamp in my room it was 3:45am. Unfortunately in the rush, I forgot my camera! So no bear pictures.

My little abode is on the backside of this building

     This post has been a doozie already so I will try not to add to much more to it. The 'to-do' list is shortening for our internship as is the time remaining in Unalakleet. We welcome Gig Harbor friends starting on Tuesday this week and I look forward anxiously to welcoming my dad just two weeks from yesterday!

Ok. What's with the new name?

     Ask and you shall receive. I decided to change the name of my blog to something a little more... well... bloggy. 

     Not quite sure what exactly that means but basically now it encompasses everything I do and everywhere I can possibly go. I'm always North and West of somewhere and I grew up with those two words around me.

     Me? I'm from the Northwest. Where am I now? It just so happens that I'm further North and further West.

     So there you have it. Simple. Directional.

Well as for now the list looks long

     Here's a bit of a look into what the internship material will look like for the next few weeks! Once camp was completed a week ago and all the campers had flown home, the two other interns and I dug into more normal 'interny' work. We're already working hard on a long list of items.
     Here's a brief list of what we did last week- hauled donated firewood into camp, finished wrapping things up around camp (well... almost finished), greased the tractor, weeded and watered the garden, brainstormed and started planing for two weeks of sports camps coming up in a few weeks for local youth, debriefed camp, prayed together, read scripture together, brainstormed future developments for Covenant Youth of Alaska (CYAK), and cleaned the youth facility here in town.

Evening Light on July 4

     I have been working on a few specific projects within each of those areas and I'm trying to learn as much about this culture as I can. It is a challenge to shift from working in a lower 48 mindset to that of of the rhythm of a rural Alaskan village. I will be working on doing some media work as well as working directly with youth in the village through formal and informal ministry opportunities.
     I have been working with the CYAK director, Byron Bruckner as well as Nick Bruckner who is here starting into full-time ministry with CYAK. The two other interns are native youth named Trisha and Katiya. We have two other CYAK workers here from the road system Lauren and Jenni, who work with CYAK communications and Arigaa (young adult ministry) at a vocational school respectively. We also have two volunteers living in the CYAK apartment, Robyn and Michelle.
    Oh how about a little note on that living situation. We live in a four story apartment building. Byron and his wife Sue live on the top floor, the CYAK female staff is living in the next story down then the bottom is part mechanical shop owned by someone else and two small half apartments. I'm in one of those small apartments. It consists of a bed, lamp, shelf and a stairway into the boiler room basement where there is a full bathroom a full story down. So moral of the story is I live in the only 90 sq ft two story apartment in town. Pretty great!

Fourth of July in Unalakleet

    Now for a quick forth of July update. Its an event and an adventure up here to experience the fourth of July. First things first I need to remind you that sunset these days is about 12:45am and it never really gets dark after that, just dim before the sun comes back up a few hours later, soooo- fireworks are a no go! Pop-its are everywhere though so I felt pretty good about that.

Float made by a friend's family, yup real bear suit!

     The day starts around 11:30am with a parade around town, a few people put together floats and candy is tossed out. As soon as the parade makes its loop around all of town everyone shifts over to the 'softball field' (see the picture below) and starts various activities for the kids. There is a row of people selling things, an artist or two, some festive fourth of july things and a free barbeque put on by the Baptist church. The kids do various races and competitions while adults do some horseshoe tossing and a 5k run followed by a 5k bike. After this the venue shifts over toward the city offices where there is target competitions with a .22. (We missed this though because of a restroom break in the apartment which turned into a two hour nap!)
     When we went back out to join the fun at about 7:30pm it was off to the beach in front of the apartment where they were doing the Grease Pole competition which is a log mostly submerged in the water covered in crisco with the goal being to walk to the end and back... or as far as you can. We sat in the sun and enjoyed watching. The next event was the coffee pot race which Robyn participated in with her boyfriend, Hunter. The coffee pot race includes driving your boat across the mouth of the river, collecting firewood, driving upriver to collect a coffee pot full of water then returning to the mouth of the river to the beach we were all at to build a fire and boil the water. Three teams raced and Robyn and Hunter came in second to Hunter's mom and Nick Bruckner! Was fun to watch that's for sure.

Just tossin' some anchors

     Lauren and I then hopped in a boat with Nick's wife Nikki and headed to her gram's house with Robyn and Nick and a few others for a delicious dessert consisting of mixed berries and everything else good, along with a cup of tea. When we were done there we headed back over toward the fish plant where they had just finished up with the fish cutting competition (sad to miss seeing that one... apparently all I've seen so far is nothing compared to watching some of the elder women cut fast). Anyway, what we did see when we got back over there was a viciously fought anchor toss battle. Yup, you heard it! Matter of fact, Katiya almost won the women's anchor (a nice new 20 pounder). I lined up second for the guys toss and got that anchor out far enough to hold the record till pretty close to the end! I never envisioned tossing a 30 pound anchor as part of my time up here, but there's even a picture to prove it!
    The last event of the night was a paddling race around a stump in the back slough. It was a battle of wills as several boats steered way off the mark then came back to ram into other boats. It was funny to watch from the shore that's for sure!
    By this time it was about 11:30 and a bunch of us decided to head out to the sandbar which shows up at low tide around the mouth of the river. We started up a fun game of ultimate and a bonfire and watched the sun set (12:50am) and the moon rise behind the hills. It was a fun and beautiful evening. By the time we made it back to the apartment for bed it was around 2:30am.
     So there you have it! Fourth of July Unalakleet style. Maybe if there is a next time I'll try my hand at a few more of the events, but this year I was content just experiencing and watching everyone else.

And now time for a few more pictures!

Softball field near the airport

Gathering around where food and goodies will be sold

The grease pole

Waiting for the beginning of the coffee pot race
(notice the sandbar in the background)

AK Update

     Well time for a short update! I'm alive and well enjoying time up at Covenant Bible Camp just outside of Unalakleet, AK. We've made our way through five weeks of camp and just have one left to go. I have been working as a counselor for the students each week and have had some really great opportunities to share God's word with them. I'm excited to continue to do work with Covenant Youth of Alaska (CYAK) for the remainder of the summer as the formal portion of my internship.

Students about ready for capture the flag

Native Youth Olympics- One Foot High Kick

Worship

     Each group of guys has presented many opportunities for laughter, joy, challenges, sharing, working through pain, and asking big questions about life. It is exciting to see and hear what is going on in young people's minds. We spent the first few weeks (leadership and high school) with some really great speakers and lots of incredible student testimonies. To see some of these students hold tightly to God is incredible in the midst of what they are going through.
     One such testimony related a story of a prayer the student prayed to get an abusive uncle out of their home. He could not take having the uncle around any more and asked God to do anything to get the uncle out. The student said he went so far as to ask God to allow the Uncle to attack his mom so that the police would forcibly take him away. The student made one request to God though, that his mother would survive and that she would receive a paper cut which would be the most painful part of the confrontation. The student went on to relate the story of his mother being attacked with a knife and receiving something like 13 major cuts and several major bruises so much so that she was taken to the hospital for an extended period of time. When she came out the student asked about it and she said that the most incredible thing was that she had received a paper cut in the midst of the fight and that the simple paper cut had caused her more pain than any of the other injuries.
     This is one story among many which relate the joy and hope that is found in the Lord. God is good and he is active in protecting us. All he asks is that we search after him. I'm continually blessed by these students, no matter what they have been through good and bad. I would like to ask for continued prayer for CYAK, Bible Camp and the students as we approach the closing of camp. I'm excited for work God is doing. Continue to pray and feel free to ask questions if you're interested in hearing more about what God is doing here in rural Alaska. God's blessings,

Praise the Lord o my soul,
All that is within me,
Praise his Holy name.
Praise the Lord oh my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
Psalm 103.

David

Living in Alaska: Bible Camp style

     I have started this summer off by flying my way out to the village of Unalakleet about a week and a half ago and am excited to be starting the internship with Covenant Youth of Alaska. Over the past few years I have done quite a bit of work with the organization, however this summer will be the longest stay out here beyond cell service. I'm excited and glad to be involved with this needed and powerful ministry. We're working hard already with a group of young kids who are putting on a VBS over the next two nights for the kids in town. The past week was their training (quite intense) up at Bible camp and now we're beginning to see the fruit of their labors. This group of kids are working under an organization titled Child Evangelism Fellowship. The kids have done an incredible job even if they are somewhat hesitant or reluctant to study. 

     Tomorrow the rest of our staff for Bible Camp flies in as do many of the Leadership campers (high school and young adult future leaders). Excited to see the more normal Bible Camp start. Its a blessing to be here for a fourth time and each time I get here I feel a bit more comfortable with the people and the place. I'm excited for the rest of my responsibilities this summer and to see the ways in which God will use CYAK this summer in new and exciting ways.

     If you are interested in knowing more about this internship experience or the ministry of CYAK or Covenant Bible Camp let me know. (though I will not be able to respond super quick via email... here it is dwrurik@gmail.com). Prayer support is going to be very important for all of us up here on staff as we work with the youth. If you are interested in specific prayer suggestions let me know and I am happy to supply those. I am also raising all of my own support for the three months I'm up here so if you are interested in supporting in that way send me an email and I will get you more information. (again I may not be able to check email for about three weeks now but email me and I will get back to you sooner or later!!)

     I wish I had some pictures to post at this time but I have not had a chance to go through what I have yet so I will do that at some point! This place is as beautiful as always! The ice is making its way out of the Norton sound away from Unalakleet and warmer weather is on the way (with the bugs!)

-20 is cold. Sunny is nice though!

  Time flies when you're having fun I suppose. I has been a full week since I returned from my most recent adventure- Alaska yet again! I had a great time hanging out with great friends and enjoying a beautiful state. Starting off Saturday morning early I flew from Seattle into Juneau where I enjoyed a brief layover in beautiful weather before heading farther north to Anchorage. Upon arrival in Anchorage some great friends picked me up at the airport and we spent the afternoon at the Palmer Hayflats.

Palmer Hayflats- pretty flat, not much hay for now!

  Following our trip out to the hayflats we headed back home to the house that my friend Lauren was house sitting for some delicious salmon chowder. The next morning we were up and off to the ski hill. I had previously been to Alyeska twice during the summer months but was excited to return and see the place covered in the white fluffy stuff! We skied Sunday and Monday (and ate a delicious pizza dinner with more friends between).

Awesome house with big dog named Lily- apologies
for the lack of a picture

View out the back windows... not to bad!

Lets go skiing! Alyeska is in Girdwood up the Turnagain Arm

Another sunny day! great mountain with LOTS of moguls

  Tuesday midday I headed out to Unalakleet on the Norton Sound in Western Alaska. I enjoyed being around the ECCAK (Evangelical Covenant Church of Alaska) annual meeting and conference. Included in this was some media work for the youth ministry CYAK (which I have served with the past two summers). It was truly an incredible experience and a great time to spend with friends who are working in ministry in Alaska. (It was however a bit chilly! -20 was the coldest daytime temp)

Decent sunset to start off our time in UNK (oh ya this close to 10PM)

Pretty great to get to meet the Covenant 
Church President Gary Walt

UNK Covenant Church

UNK elder Daniel giving a short word from the Bible

Snowmachine trip up to Bible Camp!

Yes this is a puppy, no you can't have it,
He's going to be a sled dog!

That's town off in the distance with the frozen Norton Sound beyond

View north out of the apartment I was staying in.
(on the only cloudy day go figure)

   I spent a final day and a half wandering around Anchorage the gorgeous sunshine hanging out with friends and going to First Covenant Church before flying all the way back to Spokane.

Fun in the sun before flying home!
Anchorage in the background

A beautiful day