Monday 16 June 2008 - Dillingham Trip, Part 3: No Rest for the Weary

So my initial grand plan, seeing as I had been up till three in the morning prepping the radio station for my departure and didn't have to be at the church till 19:00, was to get to Dillingham and sleeeeeep!  Blessed sleep... not to happen.  That five hour wait for the flight, then needing to pick up Steve when he returned from his Medevac pushed us to dinner time.  My gracious hosts took me out to eat at the Muddy Rudder.  The tough thing about people taking you out to eat anywhere in Bush Alaska is figuring out what to eat when the cheapest thing, usually a cheeseburger, usually still rings in at $15.00 -- and that is this far south.  Heaven help me if anyone in ministry ever tries to take me out for a meal further north.

After we eat there is a chance to stop by the house and freshen up and try to track down Grace -- because the great irony of all this effort is that I still don't know for certain that she is actually here.  We'd been announcing it on the radio - but we've had mistyped faxes before.  Nobody had ascertained for me that she had arrived and been there the night before.  As Bonnie and I had wandered around town we had asked people from that church if they knew if Grace was going to be there that night and we always got a sheepish look and a "You know, I think something is going on -- but I'm not sure what."  Apparently I needed someone Native to ask.

So after deciding not to do anything about the two braids sticking out from under the baseball cap making look more like a kid than a mother of grown children and the missionary manager of a bush radio station, I tried calling the church hoping for an answering machine.  In the bush I'm not usually that lucky and this was no exception.

Bonnie and I brain-stormed a bit and thought we knew where perhaps Grace might be staying.  Bonnie made the call and then as Janice, the woman whose house we had called, passed the phone on her end, Bonnie passed it to me.

"[Insert my name here], you called!  I can't believe it!  I've been listening to your radio station and I heard my nephew on there this morning but I don't hear you except maybe for an announcement.  I keep listening and listening for you!"

Ignoring the fact that on weekends I'm not usually on the air except for weather, emergency announcements and song request dedications, I said, "Well, it's hard for me to be on the radio right now because I'm not in [my village].  I'm in Dillingham."

A moment's silence was followed by "You're in DILLINGHAM? " and I could hear her turn to Janice and say "She's in Dillingham!  She's here!"  Back on the phone to me, "You came?  I can't believe you came!"

"I came, and I'll be there tonight."

"I can't believe it.  You have to introduce yourself tonight so that I know it is you -- oh never mind, you'll probably be the only white person there.  White people never come to these things."

"Well, I certainly look white so you should have no problem if that is the case."  But my heart gave a pang over the lack of racial unity within the body of Christ.

It was almost time for both them and us to head to the church so we didn't linger on the phone.  When I got there, Janice, whom I had never met before, took one look at me and said, "Oh you must be [my name], you have to come meet Grace!"  She called out as we entered the sanctuary but Grace and I only needed to look at each other to know each other.  I, of course, had lots of photos from her CDs, but she had never seen me.  Our friendship had been built solely by phone and prayer.

One thing was clear to me that evening, there was something very heavy about my friend's spirit that evening... she seemed more concerned about me though, as I insisted I was fine but only tired.  She was also hurried to get going.

Most of the people who had already arrived were tightly packed in the back pews.  I sat in the front row in support of Grace, who told me God had me there for a purpose -- Janice would open, Grace would sing and give some opening words and then she was going to call on me to get up there and share something?

ME??  Whoa, wait a minute... I don't DO public speaking.  I have nothing prepared, I... I... dang it.

Steve was called for the opening prayer.  He got up, hobbled to the edge of his pew with his brace, and gave the evening to the Lord.  I tried to concentrate on all the words to follow... wondering in the other half of my mind just what the Lord would have me say.