Our Little Neighborhood.

Grace and greetings.

In continuation of our "neighborhood", you can see where the manse is in relationship to the church. The building behind the manse in the North Slope Borough office, which is in charge of the North Slope Borough, about the geographical size of Minnesota.

In the picture above, you can see a small shed like building, and you can see it better in the picture below.

The larger of the two building below is the "new manse", build around 1960. It is a duplex that we rent out.

It is the smaller building that I want to write about. Back in 1984, they built the small 400 square foot building to house two VIM's (Volunteer in Mission) for the coming year. One of those two VIM's would become my wife. We met at a Presbytery meeting neither of us were suppose to attend. While my wife was in her first year of seminary, she decided to apply for a year position, but her Candidates Committee told her not to take the position in Barrow, because she had moved around too much after graduating from High School. So she contacted the Barrow Church and said thank you, but no thank you. About four months later, she received the plane tickets in the mail, and contacted her Candidates Committee. They agreed that she was suppose to go, so off she went.

In the meantime, as I was heading into my senior year of seminary, I applied to two internships, one in Northern Wisconsin, which would be a two year position; and one in Sitka, Alaska. I was offered both positions, but since I wanted to come home to Alaska, I chose the Sitka position. But soon after I was ready to leave for Sitka, the position fell apart, and I ended up doing my internship at my home church in Anchorage. The church in Sitka is in the Presbytery of Alaska, and Barrow and Anchorage are both in the Presbytery of the Yukon. So come the fall presbytery meeting of 1984 in Fairbanks, my wife and I met. The rest, as they say, is history.

Peace and blessings.

Our Historic House

Grace and greetings.

This is a picture of our house, which has an historic flavor to it. It was brought up by barge in pieces in the 1920, purchased through the Sears Roebuck and Company. The house is now one of the historic buildings in Barrow, so by definition, the outside cannot be changed; though they have worked on the inside, completely redoing parts of the house. Though there is some insulation in the walls, (I hope), I know the insulation in the attic is a layer of gravel. This summer I hope to put some other insulation up there.

As you look at the house, the upstairs window on the left hand side is the master bedroom; but according to stories, it is called the Lindbergh room, or Charlie's room. I guess that Charles Lindbergh was a friend of the pastor's at one time in his flying career, and when ever he flew to Barrow and spent the night, he stayed in that room.

The car you can see in back of the house is the church Ford Expedition, which is for me to use during my time up here. As you can see by the mileage post, the manse is very close to the church, and when it is -50 with wind chill, it is nice to run quickly between buildings, rather than having to travel far.

Well, I have to get back to work. Until next time.

Peace and blessings.

Caught my son

Grace and greetings.

I have asked my son not to play with the cell phone and camera, but he has other ideas. I told him that since he took the picture, I would put it on my web site. He did not believe me, for here it is.

Speaking of my son, today he is home, for the school district is already in the final week, and he does not have any finals in the classes scheduled for today. Then tomorrow, he will go back for half a day, and that will be it for the school year.

He is hoping to get into a summer school class out at the college, if all goes well, it should give him enough credits to get back on track to graduate next year. But there are many things that can happen in a year.

Hope all is well and warm where you are, it is snowing again here, but we have past the point for 24 sun light until mid-August.

Peace and blessings.

Church sign

Grace and greetings.

My second photo is of the church sign. It is right next to the mileage sign I posted yesterday. The sign is made up of two Bowhead whale rib bones, and a shoulder blade. You can see the church in the background, my office window is on the far right.

This picture was taken last night around 10 PM. The sun is about the time where it does not set again until August. At this particular moment, it is over cast and drifting snow.

As you can see on the photo, I still have to figure out whether it is my finger or the cell phone cover making the shadow in the lower left hand corner. As I am still experimenting with everything, I cannot see the photo itself until I get back inside the house or church. More experimentation coming.

Peace and blessings.

My first picture

Grace and Greetings.

It has taken me a while to upload my first picture for my blog space, that was taken this morning. This is the sign post that is in our front yard. As you can see, it has the different miles to the places of the world: Hawaii, Moscow, Fairbanks, Paris, Los Angeles, New Bedford and New York. I can see it very visably from by office window.

As I continue to play and learn about the camara in my cell phone, I will try to up load different pictures of Barrow, Alaska. We will see how it goes.

Peace and blessings to all.

Day of Red

Grace and greetings.

This mornings church service went very well. Being the Day of Pentecost, I had asked people to remember to wear Red, for it is the color of fire and the spirit. It is also, the only day in the church calendar year that is liturgically red. We had the first confirmation class to enter to church membership in years; and we handed out red roses to the mothers, (thorns and all), and anybody else who needed a rose. Since we had ordered two hundred roses, we had enough for every body to have.

Then we were asked out to lunch by one of the members, and while waiting for our son to get ready, I quickly checked my email; there was a couple of emails from one particular member whose comments were enough to upset the rest of my day. I do not know what it is with me, I receive twenty to thirty wonder comments, but I remember to one that was critical. I do not know why I continue to hold on to the negative comments instead of hearing the thirty other positive comments. It almost seems like never being able to please a parent figure, regardless of how well or how much energy was put forth into a particular project. It just seems like you can not please the particular person, no matter how hard you try. Abraham Lincoln put it best, (paraphrased) "you can please some of the people some of the time, a few of the people all of the time, but never all of the people all of the time".

On the way home from the Mother's Day Brunch, we drove out towards Point Barrow, the furthest north one can be in the United States and still be on land. Driving out there, (about a seven mile drive), the frozen Arctic Ocean on one side of the road, and frozen lakes on the other. The land is flat, except where the ocean ice has push itself up on to itself and the berms where the plows have piled up the snow and ice from the road. All is white, except in the distance were the dark clouds mark the open water, where the whalers are out hunting. On the way back we were listening to the radio, as there is only one station on the North Slope, and that is KBRW. They actually have three stations, sometimes they all play the same thing. The two "main" stations switch back and forth playing NPR programing. So it was "Mountain Stage" or "Reggae Hour". My wife has always liked reggae, so we listened to that on the way home. As I drove, I still held the negative comments with me as well as other issues that held on to my mind. As we were pulling up to the house, a song that was recorded at a live concert was playing, and as I was ready to turn off the car, the singer was saying, "Everything will be all right. Everything will be all right. Everything will be all right". When I did turn the car off, my wife cried out, "but that was Bob." Bob Marley being one of her favorite singers, so I turned the song back on and we listened in silence until the end. The word phrase never was repeated again as I was expecting. So maybe God was speaking to me this afternoon through the dead singer, saying: "Everything will be all right. Everything will be all right." Maybe, everything will be all right. Now I am going to spend some time on my Nordic Trac and get ready for this evening's service.

Peace and blessings.

Back from the Black Hole

Grace and greetings

It has been a while, I know, but we are still around, alive and breathing.

Quick update. The doctor changed my antidepressant, and it seems to be working, as I have more energy to do things, rather than just what needed to be done. Last Saturday marked our first full year here, we survived it for the most part. On Saturday, I officiated my 40 funeral since arriving here, and Wednesday I did my 41st. That does take a lot out of me. The sun is almost to the point where it will not set again until August, so sleeping will be a challenge for most people here.

I have found that writing every day is a gift and challenge. There are days that I am ready to write in the blog, but by the time I get ready to write, I have lost the inspiration that came to me earlier.

My son almost made it through the year without ending up in the hospital. At the end of March, he ended up in Alaska Psychiatric Hospital (API) for almost three weeks. The reality for mental health is very different here; They do not have any place for suicidal watches up here, so basically the police take over and escort them down to Anchorage and to API. For the safety of all people involved, the person is usually handcuffed. Unfortunately for my son, the girls basketball team was on the same flight out (we only have two flights a day to Anchorage, morning and evening), for the state championships, (they took second), so a lot of students saw Sam in cuffs as they flew to Anchorage. We were not able to fly to Anchorage until the third week, when a church member gave us their air miles so we could go down. Though he is 1/10th of a credit from being a Junior, if he is able to get into a summer school class at the college here, (there are only 15 spaces available in the class he is signed up for, and still being in High School, he will probably be one of the last to be allowed in), he will have enough credits to become a senior and graduate next year on time. That of course if he passes all his classes this semester and things fall into place this summer and next school year. Due to Whaling Season here, (a lot of the high school students help with the whaling here), school gets out next week, in fact graduation for the seniors was last night.

Speaking of Whaling season, as you may or may not know, the success of the hunt will depend on if people on the North Slope have food for the coming year. Right now the whalers have "22 strikes", that means they have 22 opportunities to strike the whale. If somebody shoots the harpoon and misses, that is counted as a strike. The whales that are landed, are cut up and given throughout the village and shared with the other villages of the North Slope, (about the geographical size of the state of Minnesota). So far this season they have landed three whales as of yesterday.

Since I have been here for a year now, I get my vacation, but with air fare prices as they are right now, I am not sure where we can go, (as well as the price of a barrel of oil). Tickets to Anchorage are $600, if we can find a good special, down to about $450 a ticket. For the three of us to fly to Seattle, it is about a $1,000 a piece, Madison, WI is about $1,400 a piece. Next year, the church will pay for the air fare to Seattle, so hopefully we will be able to afford to go somewhere then.

Though the air temp. is above zero, the wind chill is still between -10 and -20. Spring is on its way, and then our several weeks of summer. According to some of the scientist studying the North Pole ice, they are predicting a complete melt down this year or next. We will see how that impacts us in Barrow. Last year the Arctic Ocean did not freeze over until December, (usually September/October).

I will try and write again in the next few days. Tomorrow is Sunday, which is of course very busy. But I got a new cell phone, with a camera. If I can figure out how to down load a picture on to this web site, I can start filling my blog space with pictures as well.

Peace and blessings to all.