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The Craig Chronicles July, 2005 Greetings, All, We're finally here! I have a lot of news this time, so the third bear story will have to wait until the next edition (sorry). Also, I'm not going to worry as much about style, and eloquence as I usually do (all of you regular readers know how stylish and eloquent my writing usually is) This one's going to be just the facts without any embellishments . . . except for a few times when I just can't help myself. We arrived in Fort Yukon on the sixth of June. I ordered our Internet service on the seventh of June. The satellite hook-up equipment arrived at the house about a week later. Two weeks after that, we finally got the guy out to the house who does the installations in Fort Yukon. He worked for a few minutes, and decided that he would have to come back "tomorrow" to finish the job because for some mysterious reason, he couldn't get a good signal. A few days later, the weather cooled off a bit, and we decided to build a fire in the wood stove to take the chill off. Unbeknownst to us, but beknownst to the Internet hook-up guy, he had wrapped our Internet cable around the stove pipe on the roof of the house for safe keeping. Now, just in case you didn't know it, stove-pipes get really hot when you build a fire in the stove-- apparently somewhere just above the melting point of Internet cable. The Internet ins tallation expert just happened to be going by the house and noticed smoke coming from our chimney. We discovered that he is capable of a fairly decent level of physical activity when he feels like it. Watching him climb up on our roof to rescue the cable reminded me of a squirrel that I saw being chased up a tree by Mom and Dad's dog one time. Anyway, he got our Internet hooked up the next day. And by the way, even though I've poked a little fun at him, John, the installer, is a super nice guy. We really like him a lot. He used to go to the church here and professes to know the Lord, but has drifted away from Him (by his own admission). Please pray for John. Our crates arrived a couple of weeks after we did. Only two things were broken, and I'm not sure whether they were damaged during the shipping, or during the unpacking-- we had some vigorous help unpacking the crates. I've used some of the wood from the crates to build some bookshelves for Heidi. Even though we drastically reduced our inventory, the stuff we brought more than fills the house here. I'm planning on using the rest of the wood from the crates to close in the back porch on the house so we can store a few things out there, relatively protected from the weather. We've been really busy. I've been preaching every week, playing the piano for services, doing special music every service. Pastor Starr has also had us take over "teen night" every Monday evening. We play games with the kids and then have a snack and a devotional. Sixteen or seventeen showed up last night, and I'm fairly certain that several of them were unsaved. Please keep them in your prayers. I'm working on getting a children's choir going, and I've started giving piano lessons to some church kids. Heidi teaches the children on Wednesday nights, and has begun working with Mrs. Starr doing a live radio program on Sunday mornings before church. This is a National Public Radio station (NPR). A few years ago, when NPR found out that Mrs. Starr was playing Christian music and reading the Bible on their station, they about had a cow, and tried to remove her from the air. (Heidi just read this and s uggested that I remove "almost had a cow," and replace it with something "more conservative." If you are offended by "almost had a cow," please replace it in your mind with "almost had a conniption." Thank you.) The folks in the community, however, told NPR that Mrs. Starr was one of them and she was going to stay-- and she has. Pastor Starr told me this morning that he is going to move the equipment for the radio station that he runs over to the church so that I can take over that operation. I don't know anything about radio, but I have a few ideas that I would like to try if I can. In case you haven't picked up on it, the Starrs are working hard to get us "installed" and to get themselves "uninstalled." I was talking with Pastor Starr this morning, and he told me that he felt that it was time for a change here. He and Mrs. Starr have been praying for some time that the Lord would send someone to take over the work here. None of us want to get ahead of the Lord, and we are all still praying for His guidance, but I think we all believe that the Lord has sent the Craig family. We have really hit it off with the folks here. The kids are beginning to feel more at home, and are making friends quickly-- as a matter of fact, at the very moment that I am writing this, the boys are out at the dump with a couple of the other boys that go to the church. I know that probably sounds kind of strange, but entertainment is a little hard to come by here, and picking through the garbage can be very educational-- jus t kidding-- they really are at the dump, but they took a whole pile of guns and ammo with them. The dump is what military type folks would refer to as a "target rich environment." There are few things that give a teenage boy more joy than blowing out the window of a junk car with a .357 magnum. To tell the truth, Dad kind of enjoys it too. Rachael is out with the "girls," and has been invited to spend the night with friends. The Starrs have been wonderful to us. I've already lost count of how many times they have brought us food, cakes, a whole grocery bag full of boxes of Jello, and a King Salmon that touched both ends of our chest freezer (one of the folks here referred to it as a "two-week" fish). We're living in the house here beside the church rent free, and they've loaned us a "truck" ;~) to drive around town. The truck's name, by the way, is "Ol' Blue." Ol' Blue is what you might call "past his prime," but still seems to be dependable if somewhat cantankerous and hard to get moving (especially in reverse)-- and we are sincerely grateful to have him. Mrs. Starr is a nurse who specializes in diabetes. She took one look at me and ran home to get her blood sugar testing equipment. I wouldn't have minded so much, but the lancet thingee that she brought had five power settings. I'm not sure what she had it set on, but I suspect it was either "stun" or "bone seeker." I also suspect that she sits up late at night filing little barbs on the things. All she needed was one drop-- I'm not sure what she did with the other quart-- perhaps she's also moonlighting for the Red Cross in their blood donor program. Anyway, the little tester read out "granulated," and then asked for something salty. Mrs. Starr got a kind of panicky "doe in the headlights" look in her eyes, and started asking me if I was always thirsty, if my vision was blurry, if I was tired all of the time, etc. At the same time, she had taken my arm and was walking me in circles around the living room. T he bottom line is I've been checking my blood twice a day (she gave me one of those little tester thingees-- please excuse the technical jargon). I wouldn't mind checking my blood like that if the kids would stop yelling, "Thar' she blows!" every time I harpoon myself. Anyway, I've been walking six miles a day, and dieting seriously-- I've lost fifteen pounds so far. My blood sugar levels are almost down into the normal range, though not quite. Please pray about that. I definitely have Type II diabetes, but most people can keep it under control with diet and exercise. I don't want to have to go on medication for this, but unless I can get things where they belong I won't have a choice. The forest fire is out. It came within five or six miles of town. The smoke was kind of hard to deal with-- especially for Heidi (asthma), and it was a little spooky looking outside and seeing what looked like a light snow falling, but was actually ash. That's just too close to suit me. I took a picture of a rainbow a couple of weeks ago. No big deal, you say? I took the picture at midnight. We haven't seen the moon or stars for more than six weeks! We attended the Fourth of July bash. It included a parade-- folks turned their cars, four-wheelers, and bicycles into floats (we decorated "Ol' Blue" and Andrew drove him and a load of kids around town), they also had a bunch of races-- foot races, bicycle races, canoe races in the Yukon, etc. We handed out bags of candy and tracts. I think everyone in town was there. We really enjoyed it, although it made Heidi a little homesick. The 4th of July was always a big deal at her house--parade, family reunion, etc. New Contact Information: Craigs P. O. Box 51 Fort Yukon, AK 99740 (Use this address for regular mail and Federal Express) 51 East 2nd Ave Fort Yukon, AK 99740 (Use this address for UPS-- they don't deliver to the house, but they call from the airstrip if they have a package for us) Speaking of UPS-- if you send a package UPS please don't pay extra for expedited shipping-- it doesn't matter. After the packages reach Fairbanks, they sit around waiting for one of the local carriers to bring them up here, and then they only bring the packages if they have room on the plane after loading all their passengers and their luggage. They just laugh at "2nd Day Air" packages up here. New Phone Number: (907) 662-4656 If you call us, you need to realize a couple of things: 1) When it's 8:00 AM in New Jersey, it's 4:00 AM in Fort Yukon, and I don't get up until 5:30. 2) The phones here go through a satellite system, and usually there is a two or three second delay when we talk to folks in the lower 48. It makes for some awkward pauses and a lot of interrupting one another. It takes a little getting used to. Please don't hesitate to call, just be prepared for a little strangeness. Same old e-mail addresses for now. Prayer Requests: 1) Please pray for wisdom as we continue to
seek the Lord's specific will for us here. As always, we want to thank all of you for your prayers, phone calls, letters, gifts, support and encouragement. We could never make it without you. You are a vital part of this ministry. We love every one of you. Yours in the Lord, The Craigs |
