Savoonga--The First Month

We have been in Savoonga a bit over a month now and this is my first time to access the Internet...what a liberating feel! We've found that options for us to get Internet from home are not good, so a teacher who attends our church has offered to let us use her computer at school. In the future, we hope to purchase a laptop and make posts more regularly, but knowing us that will be at least a month from now...bear with us:) For now, know that we are doing well. All of our belongings have arrived and some of them were in one piece! I thank God that the items we really desired to arrive safely, did arrive safely. We feel pretty well settled in our home. Logan and Owen are enjoying their climbing gym in our family room, our many hours of crafts and cooking in the kitchen, and playing in the snow when the weather allows. We've met many, many children as they visit us daily. Church attendence is still rather low...anywhere from 15-20 on a Sunday, but we've been told that before we arrived there were usually about 5 people! Jacob met with the elders last Sunday and discussed starting some different programs and visiting people. People in the village seem excited about God and church and that we are here, but few people actually show up for events...the question is why and how can things change? It has been 10 years since the last pastor, so I think people are largely out of the habit of going to church and they've replaced that time with other activities (like Bingo). The weather is an added challenge as even some of the most devoted members have told us that as winter gets worse, they won't be leaving their homes. There are definate challenges to ministry in Savoonga, but there are also joys enough to keep us going!:) We certainly get to spend a lot of time together as a family since Jacob's "office" is in our kitchen. I've been enjoying learning to bake everything from scratch...something I've always wanted to do but never found time for...now if we want to eat bread, I have to make it, etc. And the boys are a joy here as much as anywhere! Well, I can see that the boys' patience is wearing thin, entertaining themselves in this 1st Grade classroom, so I better get going before they start destroying!! I hope to write sooner than later and I hope you are all doing well.