A dark and stormy night

It's windy and cold tonight in Brevig, but of course not actually dark. There'll be no darkness here for weeks but the twilight is nice, too.

Today was day three of Vacation Bible School and we seem to be getting the hang of it. More kids today, since some have come back from the reindeer corral up river. I asked a few little ones if they'd helped and several said they had wrestled reindeer...hmmm. One told me they took the horns off some and put ID tags in others. It's an interesting world where you wrestle reindeer one day and go home the next to cable TV and internet. How do they toggle between two worlds?

Today's Bible story was the "lost and found" parables. Well, just the lost sheep and coin from Luke's gospel. The lost son is its own story. We acted out the skit to endless giggles from the audience. They liked watching the "shepherd" chasing the ever-evasive Lawrence (aka lost sheep). It's good to hear them laugh and hopefully get something out of the Bible story. Susan was played Jesus in the skit today and she said how good it was to get to tell the children many times that Jesus loves us and seeks out the lost. It is good. We (Christians) should say these things more often, I think, rather than trying to carefully outline the way others mess up.

Seemed like death became a topic of discussion again today but I don't mind. Helen is doing a paper for an academic program on the 1918 flu epidemic that struck Brevig (then Teller Mission). I had heard only bits of info on this in recent trips so I've appreciated learning more history.

In 1918 a flu epidemic swept through the Seward Peninsula, killing 72 of the 80 residents of Brevig. In 1951, a researcher from Europe came and dug up the mass grave to see if he could learn about the flu virus from the remains. Turns out permafrost preserves bodies and information was extracted from the lungs of the victims. Researchers returned in 1997 to dig again and isolate the virus from the victims. The name of the virus: H1N1. It's been said that perhaps the knowledge gained from the digs here can inform the researchers of the recent H1N1 outbreak. Pastor Brian was here during the 1997 dig and said, "I helped save the world!" One never can tell.

A few of us went to the school library to see some photos of the digs and learn more about the epidemic. Then we went to the cemetary to see the site of the mass grave.

There were other graves too. There were graves of two elders I had met, who died a month apart in early 2007. There was a grave of man who committed suicide this past April. His kids are attending Bible school. Then there was a grave of a 4-month-old, whose mother I had visited at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage last fall. I didn't know the baby had died.

It's all here, life and death. Tonight in devotions, Susan asked us to consider our losses. Then she asked us to consider what we had found. Life and death, lost and found. It is our story, these narratives make up our lives.

Now it's almost midnight and the house is quiet. The clouds drift quickly to the east. The seas are still choppy. I'm hoping for stillness that will allow us safe passage to Teller and back to Nome on Friday. It is, as always, unpredictable to live in the village.