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)