Saint Lawrence Island

Here we are- finally on Saint Lawrence Island! It's been two years that we've been hearing about and praying for the people of this island. There's roughly 1500 villagers living here, split between two towns.
In Gambell we were greeted at the airport by 5 or so ATV's with riders donning full snowgear. There's no terminal to speak of. We just jumped out of the plane and loaded our stuff onto the ATV's (locally called Hondas) and were whisked away to the church. It was a stormy time landing.
Cloudy most of the time, and blowing wind almost always, this is an interesting place. No trees, lots of ocean. We saw whales two days in a row. First time it was a bowhead whale, which doesn't show it's tail when it dives. THe next was beluga whale, which showed it's tail.
Everyone enjoys Squeakums. There's sickness going around our group, but it's doing a slow rotation, so we're not all out at the same time. That's good. We've met some amazing elders in the community with steadfast faith for generations and in the face of many sorrows. Often when we meet people, within our first conversation we hear their number of siblings and children and grandchildren, and also the number of them that have died. Usually the sea is part of the cause, storms, ice breaking through, boating accidents. Death is a big part of their lives, as odd as that sounds.

Aaaaaah, Maui.

Squeakums loved the aquarium, he was so excited running from exhibit to exhibit. It was pretty cool for us adults, too.

Beach was ok, but he was scared of the water! Too much, too loud, too dangerous. If Grammy was there to play in the sand with him, he was fine. But he didn't even like seeing mom and dad play in the water. We couldn't do that much anyway due to BearHunter's torn elbow ligament. So we had to work on Squeakums fear of the water after that. He didn't even want to take a bath. Today he overcame, as we eased him into the pool. He even tried to get in the pool himself...a new danger.

Luau was interesting, great pork and squash. Neat production about the legends and cultural history of Hawaii.

Grandpa and Grammy treated us to a night away. We drove the windy road to Hana while they watched Squeakums. We loved best the Oheo Gulch hike. We trekked through bamboo forest, up to 30 feet tall I'd guess. That was amazing.
Heading home too soon (tomorrow).

October changes

A picture is worth a thousand words. So I'll spare you the thousand words and keep it to a few.

Pictures are: new hairdo, picking potatoes, sad face, dad and baby, mom and baby.

In other news- We had our first snow already. And we started the homestudy process to qualify for adoption. We are hoping to pursue domestic and international adoption simultaneously. Hopefully one of them will work out. I wasn't nervous about the homestudy meeting. Perhaps because I'd met the guy before and I'm confident that we'll be great parents. There's nothing I'm afraid of being discovered that'll disqualify us.

Other exciting news - We were called by the church and asked if we wanted to rent the parsonage.d We've been praying about and looking into getting our own place, even buying something. It would have to be a God thing to even qualify for sufficient loans to buy. But in the meantime this gift drops down from heaven, all perfect gifts are from above. It's a two bedroom home that I've been in often. It's on the same church property as our YWAM base, where we live now. Pastor Dave is getting the monthly utility figures for us. We may have to rent out the loft to help cover the costs of it. I would so look forward to having a house, so I can invite people over for meals or to hangout, a way to meet visitors at church or people in the community.We are both excited about the prospects of living there. It'll be potentially a $500 a month increase in expenditures to live there. So we'll keep praying about it. Our support is not full yet, but we learn to live by what we have. Some months that means no spending money on anything extra. And we're okay with that. But Yahweh, Jehovah Jirah is a God of abundance! It is within his character to provide abundantly. Amen.

Diaper Story

So this is a funny incident. Squeakums, now 16 months old can sign to us when he has gone pooh in his diaper. We're hoping that develops to BEFORE he goes. Body language and facial expressions are also dead give aways that he's up to something in the diaper. On a recent occasion he was clearly pushing out a number two. I rushed to get him on the potty to train him that's where he's to go. I unfastened his cloth diaper cover and let it drop as I picked him up for the transer to the toilet. Unfortunately he stepped on his diaper in the meantime and how had a large clump of pooh stuck to his shoe. This clump proceeded to drop to the floor, thanks to gravity, while I was holding him on the potty. Next I needed to get his poohy shoes off which he was making footprints on the bathroom floor with. Keep him off the rug, toss the pooh into the toilet, keep him away from the dirty diaper, and clean him up. In needful situations like these, it's wonderful to know that BearHunter is a willing helper. So I called on BearHunter to take baby and clean him up while I finished rinsing pooh out of the soles of baby's shoes and cleaned up the bathroom. Everything cleaned up just fine. Life with a toddler. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

Fall Days

It's exciting that we're going to Maui in just a few weeks now. SO looking forward to a fun, HOT vacation. We'll do the drive to Hana and a few other tourist things. HOpefully rest a bunch.

Housesitting has been great. I love having the extra space and this afternoon I can sit here in a chair while baby plays around the living room, occupying himself and staying out of trouble mostly.

I read about toddler tantrums today. Our little guy hardly has them, and none in public yet. If he's frustrated he may lay down and do a couple of pounds with his fists, but then he's done. He loves being read to and likes the flip the pages in his cardboard books while we read them. His favorites are the Touch and Feel Farm and Miss Spider's New Car.

His vocab is increasing as is his sign language. But some signs that used to be clear he's changed! LIke cheese; instead of rubbing his hands together, he rubs his arm.

Finally we have some beautiful weather. The rain has been a daily damper this month. But it's been sunny and lovely fall colors a couple days this week. What a treat before the snow. It did frost this morning.

Our base is building a cabin out East End to help out a friend in town.

I started to lead a women's inductive bible study on Tuesday nights, just for 5 weeks. It's been fun so far, 5 ladies come.

Hockey camp went well, though we didn't have as many players as we had expected. We got the Alaska Aces to make an appearance which I'm sure the kids thought was pretty cool.