Thursday, March 5, 2009

Jya Know the Capital of Alaska? Juneau?


The weekend of Feb 6-9 was our second JVC Alaska retreat. We traveled to the Shrine of St. Therese in Juneau to meet with the rest of the Alaska communities, our area director, her husband, and Leah Nusse, who is head of alumni relations and recruitment for JVC:NW. The theme of our retreat was social justice, and we spent our time talking about justice issues in Alaska, comparing the issues each community deals with, and relating them back to Catholic Social Teaching. Considering I a) love retreats, b) love talking about justice issues, c) love seeing the other communities, and d) loved the place we were staying at, it was an overall wonderful weekend.

Our retreat was facilitated by Patrick Tam, who was JV in Emmonak, a village on the Yukon River in the 1980s. He has stayed in Emmonak (and/or the YK Delta) since then, working for the Archdiocese of Fairbanks, doing Catholic ministry and Development work. He facilitated an interesting and engaging retreat for us, and I have to say, it was pretty great to have a facilitator from the YK Delta because he could relate to me and my community specifically about the issues we see here in Bethel day in and day out. Because we usually spend most of each retreat trying to explain the differences between life in Bush Alaska and the Road System Alaska to the other communities, that was nice.

And, as always, it was lovely to see another part of Alaska. Juneau is beautiful...mountains, water, snow; it was like a fairytale land. And, we got to see all the weather has to offer Juneau - it was overcast when we got there, raining by nightfall, icy the next day, beautiful, sunny, and warm the next, and blizzarding by Sunday night. Apparently all of Alaska goes through the ridiculous weather changes that Bethel does.

Lastly, the best part about this retreat (and any retreat) is that my community got to spend some quality time together while also bonding with the other Alaska communities. It's always great to take time away to remind ourselves of what is really important during this year. And, it's especially cool to see how other people are experiencing living the same values we are in different places. My community has grown close with the other Alaska JVs and it's like a mini family reunion every couple of months when we all get together. Sadly, we only have one more retreat that we'll ALL be at, buuut we do have FolkFest in April where MOST of the Alaska JVs will be to spend some purely recreational time together. Who's got two thumbs and is excited? THIS KID.

And, some pictures of Juneau.

Alaska JVs following our bus on foot because it was too slippery to drive with all of us in it up the hill to leave the Shrine's grounds.

Alaska JVs pushing the bus around the corner when we got to the top of the hill.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVED Juneau!!! Well, I loved it in June ;) Miss ya Toomb!

John said...

Those pictures look familiar... something about a bus on a snowy mountain road is ringing a bell... ;-)