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Big News...

I am thrilled to share the news that I have accepted a teaching position for the 2008-09 school year in Mountain Village, Alaska! I am the future 2nd grade teacher at the Ignatius Beans Memorial School. The school is K-12th grade and has about 270 students, with a student to teacher ratio of 18:1, every educator's dream!

I am beyond excited right now and I don't think everything has entirely sunk in yet. For those of you who don't know, I've dreamt of teaching in Alaska for the past six years and God has consistently brought Alaska into my life in various forms. I've been nannying for a toddler who's parents lived and met in Alaska; my landlord is from Alaska; a fully funded trip to Alaska fell into my lap this past autumn; and a friend from high school actually ended up moving to Alaska to teach, as well. I frequently end up sitting next to people on planes who are from Alaska or standing in long lines with people who are from Alaska. So it's been clear for quite awhile: Alaska!

Why Alaska?

Many of you know that my mother's side of the family (the LaPointe side) is Native American. I've grown up with a deep appreciation and respect for Native peoples, as well as the knowledge that Natives still have yet to receive the same access to quality resources as the rest of our nation, especially when it comes to education. Besides longing to go where there is a great need for teachers, I am also eager to head to "the Last Frontier" and a little adventure! I never thought that I would fall in love with a city like I have fallen in love with Seattle, but I know that it's now time to move on. I am excited to be surrounded by vastness of space, rather than vastness of concrete! Frederick Buechner writes, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." For me, this is Alaska.

Mountain Village, Alaska is located on the Yukon River near the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and is 458 miles west of Anchorage. It was originally a summer fish-camp site until the opening of a general store in 1908. The approximate population is 1000 people with about 90% of its population being Yup'ik Eskimo. It is also the district headquarters for the Lower Yukon School District. As far as I can tell, temps can get as high as 60 or 75 in the summer and drop to 40 below in winter. Think Jack London's "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild."

My life has been a whirl-wind for the past two weeks, ever since the job fair I went to in Tacoma on April 3rd. The job fair itself was quite the experience. I felt like all the AK booths were very unconventional compared to the booths of school districts in the lower 48. For instance, all the AK booths had their salary scales posted out for all to see, whereas everyone else's was either in a packet or you had to go online somewhere to find it (based on previous job fairs I've attended). My favorite example is from the Lower Yukon's booth, where they had posted to the back wall 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of printer paper with the jobs that were available in each village, and whenever they filled one of the jobs they'd take a fat Sharpie and cross it out (repeatedly, many times). I stood there with the superintendent and he looked at me and flat out asked me, "So which one do you want?" I felt more like I was looking at a menu and choosing a sandwich, when actually I said, "Uh, that second grade position looks pretty good." (and that's the position I now have!)

Many people have asked me what my discernment process has been throughout all of this. I'll try to sum it up, although it wasn't anything too profound or deep. Knowing that God would be with me wherever I decided to go (and in fact, that God is there now, before I even arrive there), I trusted that God would close doors where needed. I was actually offered two different teaching positions in two different school districts. My most "profound" discernment exercise was sitting down and making a pros and cons list. It allowed me to sort out everything that was floating around in my head and see on paper what each district and position had to offer. But even after that, I still was kind of stuck. Both jobs paid pretty much the same. The geographic locations were pretty similar. The Native populations were the same. In the end, I went with my gut. Guffaw if you want, but I've learned to trust my gut instinct, and so I turned to it again in choosing my career. Here are my reasons:

-Mountain Village is larger than most bush communities and is the headquarters for the Lower Yukon School District
-LYSD's staff development and new hire orientation is stronger than the other district's
-Mountain Village is a direct flight from Anchorage, making travel slightly less expensive than more remote villages
-2nd grade. It's the grade I student taught and a grade I know I love. I'm already familiar with 2nd grade Grade Level Expectations and curriculum, and I am hoping that this will help me with my first year of teaching and this whole time of transition I have ahead of me. Familiarity can't be bad, right?
-LYSD's teacher housing is superior to the other district's (and the rent is cheaper!)
-The director of Human Resources emailed me to let me know that I was their first choice candidate for this position and that I needed to let him know ASAP if I wanted the job so they could offer it to someone else if I declined. That right there cinched the deal for me - they really really want me!!

So call it my gut instinct - or the Holy Spirit, or both - but that's what I went with. And I'm happy and at peace.

I'm probably going to start a new blog. The time seems right, too. I'll let you know about it when I have the time to start it up!

Palm Sunday Makes Me Squirm

Our Palm Sunday service yesterday was good, but also kind of sad.
It was great in that I LOVE watching the children walk down the center aisle and wave their palm branches while everyone sings and shouts "Hosanna!!" It was good in we're getting closer to Easter and entering Holy Week.

But I find that there is also this dissonance with Palm Sunday that makes me squirm. True, we shouted "Hosanna!" when Christ was led through the city. We waved palm branches and rejoiced.

And then we crucified Him less than a week later. (This is the part where I squirm)

We have beautiful, simple wooden cross that someone made for Lent. It's made out of two logs and has seven holes bored into it to hold candles (one for each Sunday in Lent). This candle holder sits tilted on our communion table. We start out with all 7 purple candles lit on Ash Wednesday and then distinguish one as we get closer and closer to Easter. (the opposite of an Advent wreath)
I like the symbolism of the candles and the light, that the Light of the World is about to go out, to die.
And on Easter morning all seven candles are back, but this time they are all white and all lit. It's one of the most beautiful things, ever.

This week, as the woman who led worship distinguished six of the candles, she read part of the Scripture in Mark where Christ is being crucified, but she added "Hosanna" as she distinguished each candle. It sent chills up my spine. I felt ashamed and embarassed. That dissonance was real. I squirmed.

Then we read the Litany for Palm Sunday where Pilate asks the crowd whether or not to release Jesus or Barabas. We yelled to release Barabas. "But then what should I do with Jesus?"
"Crucify Him!!" we yelled.
I squirmed some more.

Now we're into Holy Week. Thursday is Maundy Thursday. The choral songs we're singing are full of agony, sorrow, and quiet. We will shroud everything in the church - communion table, lecturn, pulpit, banners, crosses, piano - with black cloth and strip them from the sanctuary, leaving the congregation in total dark and silence.

Christ will die.
We'll all squirm.

And then we will rejoice....

Children's Cotton Hats

So here's some of what I've been working on these past couple months! I actually finished these hats awhile ago but just now got around to posting them. I have a friend who is expecting and I've decided to knit her up three or four different little hats. Fun!!

I am almost all finished with my Fair Isle wrist warmers, so those will be posted soon, too. Just in time for my trip back to snowy Michigan...

Picture Post

I finally uploaded a bunch of pics, so here are some of them, in no particular order:


Breakfast

Bottoms up!

Pretty Girl (in one of the sweaters I knit her)

Crackin' Herself Up

I love the look on her face

Leg Warmers!!

Voila! The finished product, modeled by Ella Jo:

Rainbow Brite, anyone?

Baby legs

Cute lil' diaper bum

I made them big so she can wear them for awhile. I also learned that knitting stripes while knitting in the round can be tricky. Since knitting in the round is actually knitting a spiral, when you change colors for stripes, you get a little "notch" or zig-zag from where you picked up that new color. I didn't do it in this project, but next time I'll go back with a crochet hook and pick up a stich from a couple rows below the zig-zag and correct the error. Oh well, Ella will never know the difference :)

Mary Poppins for a Week

Ok, so I WISH I were Mary Poppins! The accent, living in London, looking like Julie Andrews, singing like Julie Andrews, having Dick Van Dyke as a friend, that sweet carpet bag....oh, and the MAGIC would be awesome, too.
I say this because I have been watching Gracie (7 yrs) and Oliver (4.5 yrs) since Wednesday afternoon. Their parents are in NYC until late Sunday night. And I must say, taking care of two around the clock is HARD, even though they're school-age and can do many things on their own. I think what exhausts me the most is the school schedule: get Gracie to school on time, get Oliver to pre-school on time, pick up Oliver at one, pick up Gracie at 3, then off to either ballet or Tae Kwon Do. Mostly, I'm not used to it, but I think it'd be okay if I were used to it. The kids do incredibly well with it, though, and they have one extra-curricular each, which is only one night a week. Tonight will be nice, since we can come home straight from school and either go to the park or take the dog for a walk. Then dinner, baths, and movie and popcorn. And if they're good they can stay up until 8:30! They're really good kids, though, and have been doing very well with their parents being gone. They call them every night and mom and dad left a couple little presents for the kiddos to open throughout the duration. We have fun things planned for this weekend, which gives them things to look forward to. The weather is supposed to turn crabby, so we're going to see the new Veggie Tales movie, have a play date (so I can go to my knitting class), and go to the zoo after church on Sunday. Fun fun!!

Baby Ella and her mom are in L.A. this week, so I get Monday and Tuesday as a weekend, and I'm just going to sleep and read. That's it.

Sick Baby

Ella is sick. She and her mom got sick this past weekend. Both had fevers Sunday, Ella's peaking at 103.9. Eeek! Her fever subsided Monday afternoon and she's been super tired and congested ever since. She's clingy, fussy, sleepy, hardly eats anything, and has a diaper rash to boot! Poor little punkin. It's so hard to see her sick and hear her little cough. Her sweet little voice is all husky and low. It's a joy when she does smile and giggle for a little - yay for small triumphs throughout the day! Next goal: pumping more fluids. That and getting protein in her (actually, ANY food) is challenging. I can't wait until she's better and goes back to being the little champion eater!