Globalization is such a weird thing... We're in a village of less than 1,000 people, surrounded by natives whose primary sustenance still comes from hunting whale by hand-thrown harpoon, and yet the store carries pop-tarts, the kids dress in Volcom, and everyone listens to hip-hop and rock.
Anyway, I'm two weeks into my outreach and doing wonderfully! We've been warmly welcomed by the church and the citizens and joyfully received by the kids. We've been running a VBS style program MWF after school until dinnertime, and hanging out with the youth (14 and up) after dinner.
Savoonga is amazing. I think I could live here pretty happily. There's no roads and no cars, so everyone owns an ATV for summer and a snowmobile for winter. Most everyone hunts for a living and all of them carve ivory. We've had at least twenty people knock on our door with carvings to sell. (if you want anything made in ivory, now would be the time to tell me :P statutes and jewelry here are 4-10 times cheaper than anywhere else in the world) In contrast, gas and any food that has to be flown in is ridiculously expensive. ($7.10 for a gallon of gas, and $6.30 for a box of cheez-its)
Most of our days have been committed to ministry, but on our day off (Tuesday) we've had some fun. Last tuesday Garrik and Michael took Josh and me snowboarding behind their snowmobiles, which was amazing! We found a sweet little cliff too and had some fun going off it and doing tricks. Then today, Josh and I got up early and went ice fishing. The fishing here is incredible. The guy sitting next to us pulled up over 100 fish in less than 4 hours. Josh and I weren't quite so talented, but we still pulled in about 20, which we then cleaned and fried up for lunch :)
Anyway, I've gotta go, I'm going to attend a martial arts class here in a few (Yay!)
Hopefully I've given you an idea of what this place is like, I'll try to post later about specifics of what we've been up to!
God bless!
Josiah
