21 Lessons Learned

1. When learning a language be sure to verify the pronunciation of new words before trying to converse. If you don’t, you might mistakenly call your host another name for a donkey when you thought you were asking for a cup of tea. Oops.

2. People over productivity – Opportunities to spend time building new relationships always trump getting things done on the "To Do List".

3. Which is scarier? Large animals outside the church that go bump in the night, or a stark white pastor investigating said "bump in the night" in his skivvies armed with a flashlight and a loaded 9mm pistol? Pastor won.

4. Count your blessings. Friends, family, haircuts, and burgers are a luxury—don’t take them for granted!

5. God provides. Always.

6. Riding an ATV with your mouth even slightly open guarantees a non-vegetarian meal. Yumm!

7. Silence is golden.

8. God's armor: don't leave home without it! There is an intense war waging for our souls.

9. Remember the plug or your boat will sink....rapidly.

10. Everyone in the village owns multiple pairs of binoculars, and they are often aimed in our direction. We like to think of this as built-in accountability for practicing what we preach!

11. Remove suckers before eating octopus legs.

12. Hurt people, hurt people. BUT Jesus has compassion on them, and we should too.

13. Eskimo Ice Cream will never be Baskin Robins’ flavor of the month. Somehow Crisco, fermented fish eggs, and mayo don’t go down as easily as Pralines and Cream.

14. Don't just read God's Word, know it!

15. Seal oil is an immediate (and very effective) laxative....enough said.

16. Pets are angels in fur.

17. God can use loss to bring blessings.

18. Who needs entertainment when you have crazy white man in village?

19. Observation is the best teacher when learning to live in a new culture.

20. God’s will, not ours.

21. John 3:16. JESUS is the answer for everything and everyone, no matter what culture you embrace, language you speak, or where you live.

Winter Wonderland

He spreads the snow like wool and
scatters the frost like ashes. 

Psalm 147:16

 

  

 Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.

Psalm 16:1

 

 

 The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen.

Job 37:10

  

 

 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, 

their starry host by the breath of his mouth.  

Psalm 33:6

 

Special thanks to Maddie for sharing her wonderful photography.

'Nough Said

This morning when my computer entered the cyber highway, I was greeted with a giant sign that read, "San Bernardino Tragedy Proves God is Incompetent".  Wow.  The irony is stunning.  This country removes God from everything--schools, courts, Pledge of Allegiance, liberties, basically America in general--and then tragedy strikes and we immediately point the finger at God, label Him "incompetent", and conveniently forget that we dethroned Him from our nation a long time ago. 

“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place."  2 Chronicles 7:13-15 

Does that sound like an incompetent God to you?  'Nough said.

Super Glue Blessings

Here in the village oral hygiene is not a priority, and the closest dentist is a $172-roundtrip-airfare away, so you can imagine my distress when part of my permanently cemented retainer popped off my tooth.

My quick-thinking (and very thrifty) husband immediately advised me to call my dental assistant friend for advice. She gave me two options: super glue it or remove it.  Neither option sounded too appealing as they both included Steve’s bull-in-a-china-shop hands tinkering in my mouth.

After weighing the options, I reluctantly decided to let Dr. Steve glue the retainer back in place. 

The scene would have made any dentist cringe.  First, Steve made me swish with rubbing alcohol “to dry out” my mouth (note to self: using rubbing alcohol in the mouth is akin to gargling with fire and will subsequently cause the mouth to salivate uncontrollably in order to cool itself down).  After I recovered from the oral inferno, I laid down on the less-than-sanitary church floor while Steve blasted my mouth with a hairdryer “to dry it out”. 

When my mouth felt as dry as the Sahara Desert on a summer day, Steve worked diligently to keep the super glue from touching anything that wasn’t supposed to be glued while Assistant Maddie held an all-purpose flashlight in my mouth, and Assistant Klaira tried unsuccessfully to keep Riley (our dog) from licking my open mouth and the dental tools (which Steve later informed me were used on his Great-Grandpa’s sheep farm--lovely).  Meanwhile, I was choking on the paper towels Steve was stuffing into my mouth “to keep it dry”, and praying he wouldn’t take this vulnerable opportunity to glue my mouth shut.  Several long minutes later, my retainer was back in place. 

But Dr. Steve wasn’t done yet!  Enjoying his debut in dentistry, he decided I needed my teeth cleaned, too, so he scraped off some plaque and “polished” my pearly whites with a toothbrush.  Remote dentistry at its finest!

The whole ordeal was completely unsanitary but my retainer is once again retaining, my teeth are cleaner, and my mouth isn’t glued shut.  Success! 

Through this Alaskan adventure, God is teaching us to be aware and grateful for even the smallest things (like a tiny $10 bottle of super glue!).  We pray that you too, are experiencing some of God's "Super Glue Blessings".