Shortly after we arrived in Iliamna, we were introduced to a new family in the village. We had just gotten home from a very fast trip to Homer, AK for a missions conference. Driving to Anchorage was an adventure in itself. We left Homer about 9:00 p.m. hoping to make the next flight out to Iliamna. Our youngest was sick and she got me and herself covered so often that I ran out of clean clothes. We were tired; so we had to stop every once in a while to sleep or get some refreshing, outside air. Once my hubby asked me to let him sleep no longer than ten minutes. While he was sleeping, a semi went by. Soon after that we were back on the road. Some miles up the road the semi hit a little pick up head on. The man in the pick up had fallen asleep while driving. We contacted emergency crews and waited for them. Surprisingly, we made it to Anchorage in time to make the flight. We were very weary and stinky but made it to our new home-sweet-home. We had just climbed into bed for a very short time when we heard a knock on the door. The guy asked me, "Is the parson home?" He was and we entertained our new neighbors who had just arrived in Iliamna. They ended up being very special friends. Joyce and I had many adventures together and she became one of my closest friends on earth. Joyce was always neater than a tack, pretty, a great cook and full of lots of tears, laughter and fun.
After being in Iliamna, Alaska for a while, a person needs to leave for a variety of reasons, one being sanity and another to shop for everything a family may need in the next six months. It was expensive for a family of five to fly, so quite often I would get to fly to town with my friend Joyce. We had sooooo much fun together and aided and abetted to each others doings. We did crazy things together like driving through a car wash in March and not having the back window latched properly. We got the giggles so bad as we helplessly watched Niagra Falls come through the back window. Then the problem was to figure out how to get the water out before it turned to ice. More giggling as we tried scooping it out with our hands, only to have them frozen to the nubs. We tried using paper towels but realized that took way too many. Our next attempt was to vacuum the water out and that worked but . . . who knows what happened to the vacuum cleaner! Our next adventure was shopping. We would buy hundreds of dollars of things from groceries to oil for the car. Sometimes we would forget that our International Scout was only so big, and trying to get everything in it, was an art of knowing where to put each bag so every nook and cranny was full. Then what an adventure to take everything to our hotel room and go find boxes of every size and shape. Finding boxes included hunting in dumpsters ... even where the homeless people lived. When we found a box, we were excited. We would have made it easier on ourselves just to go buy some but that would have taken half the fun away! The whole time we hunted we laughed and talked and had so much fun. Once we found our treasures, we would go back to the hotel to start packing, taping and addressing them to ourselves. Most of the time we would pack just the bare essentials in our suitcases so we could use them to carry perishable things back to the village. That way we didn't have to eat frozen oranges, eggs and pineapple. To mail our boxes could take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month for them to arrive. It cost $40 per hundred pounds to ship the boxes into Iliamna. Joyce's hubby worked for the FAA, (Federal Aviation Agency) so she shipped hers via the FAA and received the shipping for free. For me, to have two suitcases and my carry-on full of perishables for free was exciting!!
Joyce and her family lived just up the hill from us in the FAA compound. We spent many nights watching movies, playing games and eating some of Joyce's wonderful food. She was a great cook and made our time special whenever we went there. They had a son who was Micah's age. He and Micah were best buddies. They both had dogs and loved to wear camouflage. Another interest was 4-wheeling. The kids had the Alaskan tundra wilderness as their back yard. They spent many hours riding their 3-wheelers or 4-wheelers together. Their dogs, Micah's was yellow lab and golden retriever mixed, would follow along behind them. One time the boys thought they would train their dogs to pull a sled with them in it!! Well . . .the dogs had differing opinions about that. The boys got the sleds attached and the dogs took off across the frozen lake like a bullet out of a gun. The boys went screaming and running after them but to no avail. The dogs were having a ball! They came back minus their sleds!! The boys really loved being outside whether it was the dead of winter or the long days of summer. Another thing that the boys seemed to enjoy was helping bring in the set-net full of salmon, white fish & trout and cutting up the fish on shore to get it ready for smoking and canning. Both of the boys learned how to shoot a sling shot much like David's in the Old Testament. They both learned how to use one with much accuracy. So . . . everywhere they went they had their sling shot in their back pocket. Such fun memories flood my heart as I write this.
My friend Joyce died three years ago. We called each other often and would talk or cry or laugh together. I thank God for my friendship with Joyce during a time in my life that could have been lonely. I am also thankful for sweet memories of things that happened in the past. Both Joyce and Micah are with the Lord in Heaven and I miss both of them dearly.
