The Fall Has Come and Gone

Blueberry season is over and cranberry and blackberry season is quickly ending.  Most of the fall colors have faded away to brown.  The birds continue to fly in formation above us heading south.  The ice in the puddles get thicker each morning.  The vehicles need to be running a while before they can be driven (and defrosted).  Snow has already begun to fall and the mountain tops are white.  The sun rises later and sets earlier.  I think Nome is confused about what season it is because it feels a little too much like winter already.  I may be in trouble when the real winter hits!

Greg and I continue to explore, learn, and familiarize ourselves with the area and the culture.  We love being here and know that this is where we are meant to be right now. 

For those who are still unsure what we are doing here in Nome, I wanted to share a brief outline of what we do.  We work for Nome Community Center, which is an organization overseeing many other organizations that work to enhance the quality of living here.  Greg works at the XYZ Senior Center, which is a program to help support and promote independent living for seniors.  They offer lunch every day, lead various programs, and go on trips around the area.  He also runs the Nome Food Bank, which provides food items for individuals and families who cannot afford it. We are in the process of starting the coat drive for this winter, as well.  I work for the Boys and Girls club providing a safe and healthy environment for children after school.  We do a variety of activities, provide snacks, help with homework, and build relationships.  We will share more about our roles and activities that we are a part of as we go.

I realize that we have been sharing the many bright and cheerful aspects of Nome, but we haven't been sharing much about the hard reality here.  There are some spoken and unspoken challenges in this community.  Alcoholism, abuse, and poverty are very real here.  We have seen first hand the hardships of this beautiful and broken community.  As we build relationships, we begin to hear stories and witness the pain surrounding us.  We see the abundance of how people live off the land, yet we also see the struggle families have to provide meals at home for themselves and their children.  We see inebriated individuals wandering throughout town at all hours of the day.  As the winter gets harsher, there will be volunteers that patrol the streets to make sure that no ones passes out in the snow and freezes.   Children share their stories of what home life looks like for them, many would rather be other places.  One young child I met had a swollen black eye from his father (it's been reported).  An older women told me about her grown children and how one of them died younger in life from alcohol poisoning.  There were five suicides during the summer in Nome alone.  The pain is real and prevalent.  As a missionary, I only hope that I can share my love and hope for life.  I hope that I can share a glimpse of God's light and joy and plant a seed for a healthier and stronger future.

As Greg and I continue to learn about the culture, the lifestyle, the weather, and ourselves, we understand more and more about why God has called us here.  We are both blessed to be in such an amazing community and called to help in ways we don't even know yet.

        Labor Day weekend. 

                                                                                Working for Nome Community Center, we were invited to join in the fun at the work retreat. Kimberly offered to help by leading the group in some team building activities. It was a great way to get to know everybody that we will be working with over the next two years. We are feeling so blessed to get to work with such great people.

 

The community center had rented out the boy scout camp, which is 30 miles north east of Nome, by Salmon Lake. There are salmon all over the place just spawning and splashing a few feet from the shore. It's a whole different type of terrain than I am used to, but really beautiful.

 For our evening campfire, we hacked the salvaged drift wood down to manageable sizes. 

Here's Kimberly, trying out one of the paddle boards on the lake. The water is cold, but it's so worth getting a little wet to stand above the water like this. The lake is crisp and clear, and standing up, you can see the bright red of the salmon streak by as you paddle around.

                                                                                  The real festivities didn't begin until Monday. We were excited to experience our first bathtub race and duck race! The first of which is an event that combines fundraising  and ridiculous sports that everybody loves making traditions out of. I haven't figured out how many years this race has been going on, but everybody in town knows about it and tries to be there. The bathtub race is a lot like it sounds. There's a few bathtubs (on wheels) and people race them down the busiest street in town right at noon. This year, there we three entries. 

 

The winner was the blue one with the bike tires.

 The Duck race followed at 2pm and just about the whole town drove to the stream next to Bering Airport. Both races are organized as a fundraiser for the Rotary Club. They have been selling duck numbers for weeks. Then, they dump a couple hundred ducks in the snake river, each with someone's number, and let the current do it's job. 

There they go!

While, this is a little slower pace than the bathtub race, or most other races, it was really cool seeing so many people gathering for such a unique event.

 

We have completed one and a half weeks in Nome!  We have done, seen, tried, and learned so many things in such a short duration of time.  Each passing day seems to bring us closer to feeling at home.  We have eaten caribou, reindeer, salmonberry jam, and fireweed jam. We've seen musk ox, a moose, a reindeer, a fox,
beautiful mountains and tundra, and much of the town and surrounding area.  We have picked wild blueberries, caught, gutted, and filleted salmon, collected sea glass, panned for gold, and boated along the snake river. We visited a rusty steam engine train that was left stranded in the marshes.  There are layers and layers of history embedded in the area both visible and hidden.  Nome was established as a town when the gold rush sprung to life.  Although there is another rush for gold since the discovery channel highlighted it, the city thrives because it is a center point for many local villages and surrounding areas.  With a port, access to groceries and other goods, many come to town for resources.  There is so much to learn still and many more things to experience.  As the first frost has come, we can now begin picking blackberries and cranberries!  Hunting season has begun (not that I'll be rushing out there to do that, but many are eager to do so!).  School is in session, Boys and Girls club has resumed, and the Food Drive is in full swing.  Halloween and Thanksgiving events are already being discussed and coat drives are about to launch.  We are hoping we are prepared for the winter as it seems to be rushing its way to the shore.