Well, it’s time to fill you in on my last week. My last blog I was complaining and I have half a mind to continue to do so. My life was really difficult this week and I often felt at the end of my rope, but God has managed to make sure my days ended in laughter. It almost made me mad. Sometimes I would just rather be angry and smoldering.
After I wrote that stupid blog on Saturday I found out about a suicide in Red Lake. I knew the boy, not extremely well, but I knew him none the less. Then a few hours later, right before I left for Pik, I was told that a thirteen year old girl had suicided. Then I really didn’t want to go. I hate dealing with that pain. I hate seeing what suicide does to the community, to the friends, to the family, and I hate thinking of how Satan uses it to take so many lives. Makes me furious.
When I got there a bunch of Tracy’s (the girl who suicided) friends were at the house, so I spent the rest of the day hanging out with them. These girls are too young to have lost one of their best friends to suicide, way too young.
Sunday morning we found out there had been another death. This time it was a 3 month old baby girl. I still don’t know why she died. I saw her yesterday. Coffin’s shouldn’t come in that size, so tiny. Lives shouldn’t end at 3 months or 13 years.
Tracy’s funeral was on Thursday. It didn’t even look like her. I felt like I was going to puke. My heart was exploding with emotion, but not a single tear could be shed. As I held one of her sobbing close cousins my heart was breaking but the walls holding the tears in were like a firm dyke and not a leak made it through. Dry sobs escaped every now and then, followed by a wave of anger. My anger seemed to have no where to go and yet everywhere at the same time.
Anger at the way the funerals are here is one. They feel rehearsed, like it’s just going through the motions. As though they’re a normal thing, something that happens all the time. Maybe because they do.
The laughter was there this week as well. One involved an “Emily panic moment.” Nothing new, eh? But this time I really thought my gruesome death was at hand. I could hear the news being passed on. “Emily was murdered in Pikangikum by angry youth.” It began as a quiet evening... well for 20 minutes it was quiet, that almost counts as a record. Then there was a knock at the door, I went to answer it and recognized my good friend Mario Keeper (for Red Lake people, that’s “Chief Keeper, Chief Mario Keeper”) so I opened the door to let my friend in. The moment that door opened a crack, Mario pushed through with an absolute look of terror on his face, trying desperately to get the door closed as quickly as he could, even before he was completely inside. I immediately thought the worse: a gang of sniffers, angry guys, drunk men all coming to hurt Mario, and because he came to us for help they were going to kill us as well. I ran for my life, with Mario close behind me, and apparently I screamed. I don’t remember screaming but later the pain in my throat told me that I did. Finally, when the panic subsided enough for me to hear reason, I found out what exactly Mario was running from—Polar Bear, a large, white, mean dog. This resulted in side-splitting laughter. When there were more noises at door Colleen proceeded to answer it. Polar Bear apparently still wanted Mario’s blood and tried to come in. I climbed to the nearest elevated safe-haven I could find—the freezer and waited to heroically fight off the beast. Colleen managed to keep him outside and us out of harm’s way. We spent the next 10 minutes roaring laughter, I felt so wonderful after that.
There were also exciting things like a fire. For which I filled numerous buckets of water only to discover that it wasn’t as large as originally reported and that it was mostly put out. There are also the possessed horde of mosquitos that do things like turn the faucet on (honestly I think I left it on) and continue to dive-bomb us during the night. Laughing at the potential reaction of a VBS leader when told that he had to stay another night in Pik. Colleen coming to the window pretending to be a kid.
I just got back from fishing. It was a wonderful break and it was good to refresh my fishing skills. Four of my fish made it on the string, one almost made it on but made one last wiggle attempt out of my hands, and a couple were on, but escaped before I could bring them safely to shore. It was a wonderful fishing spot off of a rocky point and I think I’ll take quite a few more afternoons out on that point for more than one reason.
Anyways this is long, thank you for sharing in my life! If you want specifics to pray about here are a few.
- ministry in general
- energy
- the community of Pikangikum
- my leg hurts all of the time, and it gets really bothersome.|