Wednesday 18 June 2008 - Dillingham Trip, Part 5: Jimmy

Somewhere in B's talk he referred to someone in the audience "back there by Jimmy."  My mind did a cartwheel.  There was a Jimmy from Dillingham who was and is a regular caller to the radio station.  I didn't think I'd get to meet him because he was singing at "Grandma's House" that night, and my one regret was the overlap -- singing for the elders, which I would have liked to have joined them for, was from 18:30 till 19:30 or "whenever the Grandmas let them leave."  Grace's gathering, the main reason for my visit, was to begin at 19:00 and I had promised to meet her there a little before so we could talk.  Having recently switched sides of the church because the side I was on, though close to where Grace had her keyboard and had been sitting, was really not proving to be very good for pictures, and Bonnie (who had left to bring Steve home to rest, since he had just got in from his Medevac) was sitting alone on the other side as well.  I had moved to the pew in front of her, so it allowed me to turn and sneak a picture of two Native gentlemen sitting together.  If one was Jimmy and I didn't get a chance to be introduced, perhaps I would still find out later and at least have the picture.  (It came out terribly!)

I worried for nothing.  After B packed up his guitar and headed back to Grandma's House, someone said Jimmy wanted to sing.  He started to the front of the church but stopped and said, "But first!  Hello [insert my name.]  I am Jimmy."  We shook hands. 

When he got up by the pulpit he turned to everyone and said "I have to first say thank you to [insert my name] for she always plays my two favorite songs from the Patkotak sisters."  (Inupiat Gospel singers from up in Barrow.)  "The first song is so important to me, It Will Be Worth it After All, because they were here singing that when I rededicated my life to the Lord and it changed my life.  And every time I hear it now it reminds me.  And the other song is Family Ties, because last year my mother dear and my step father and many others went home to be with the Lord, and it gives me such hope." 

I could feel my eyes fill with tears for a moment.  I remember last year, there had been a run on deaths in his extended family.  His stepfather died in a hospital in Anchorage, and just a few weeks later his mother passed away.  Mother dear, as he always calls her still.  He had called to request the song, and he thought he would have to tell me about it, but thanks to some connections to his home village I already had the news and he was praising God that I already knew and that we had already been praying for him.  I know it isn't "good radio" to always play the same two songs together by the same singers, but I always play them anyway, because mission radio is about service and not just entertainment.  I thanked God then, for the trip to Dillingham, just for the chance to shake hands with this one person, even though I had come primarily for Grace.

Then he sang.  I had heard him on the phone a number of times and always had asked him when he was going to send me a CD.  It isn't the same on the phone though... I got video footage of some of it and then wanted to kick myself for quitting because he went on to sing a verse in Yupik and the camera was busy saving the other so I missed most of the Yupik.  I had shared there, and will share here, that when I first made the move to put on an increasing amount of Native Gospel music it was against everything I had been taught about radio -- where we play a lot of music which has had endless amounts of money put into everything being just so -- and very much at the insistence of God, who had basically told me to get over myself and listen with God's ears instead of my worldly ones.  I will be adding some of the video footage later, after I can encode it to a different format.  I encourage anyone who listens here then to try to do the same, listening with God's ears.