A Blog entry from Chevak




Chevak from the air

Nate and Heidi Kellar were teachers in Chevak Alaska when Brent Cunningham took a team of Sitkans up north visit kids one Christmas Break.  Brent and company stayed with the Kellers in their home.  They stayed and taught in Chevak for three years before returning to the Pacific Northwest.  Here is a blog entry that Heidi wrote this year her time in Chevak.  Chevak represents one of 200 rural villages in Alaska.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 Wet Pillow Theology

Today, I'm going to attempt to finish a blog post that has been on my heart for months, and which I've been attempting to write for weeks! I know I won't be able to fully articulate what the Lord is trying to teach me, but I think there will be clarity in the effort.

God loves wet pillows. Well, He doesn't exactly love them, but He uses them. He understands them. God invites us into suffering along side others. He speaks to us through sorrow, exhaustion and grief as we cry ourselves to sleep.

I don't mean the "oh my boyfriend broke up with me", or "my dog died" kind of tears, although I know He is with us during those times too. Up until moving to Chevak, those two previous examples are the only times I really remember crying myself to sleep before the age of 23.

No, I mean the kind of wet pillow that comes from deep sorrow. From trudging with a friend or family member through cancer treatment or infertility, or experiencing such yourself. From losing a spouse, or child. From watching your son or daughter walk away from the Lord. From being pulled down by depression or suicide. From saying goodbye to someone you love deeply. From watching children suffer.

The first night I cried myself to sleep in Chevak was only a few months after moving there. I had begun the evening in the highest spirits. Nate and I, with our warm coats and rose-colored glasses on, decided to take a walk through the village to see the sunset. We stopped at the school and hung out at the dance for awhile. At 10pm, it was time for the little kids to go home, and one little girl grabbed my hand and asked us if we'd walk them home.

"Melt my heart, little one, of course I will!"

So, Nate and ended up in the middle of a pack of a dozen or so elementary school kids as they walked the muddy streets home. Pretty soon, the little girl holding my hand stepped behind me to talk to her big sister, who was probably 10. I don't think she meant for me to hear, but you know how it is when little ones whisper. She started crying and saying she didn't want to go home.

"No, no, no, I'm scared. I'm scared. I don't wanna go.

Let's stay outside. Let's go somewhere else. I'm so scared."

"It's okay. Don't worry, sister. Dad won't be home yet.

You can use my crayons. It's okay. Shhhh shhhh.

I'll protect you. He won't be there yet."

And I had to let them go. Down the dark street. With the rest of the kids who heard the conversation, but didn't even flinch. Just kept walking, probably afraid to go home themselves. There was little we could do.

It broke my heart. I held it together, but when we made it home I cried myself to sleep. It was our first peek into what life was really like for these kids. It was our first time knowing people who were abused and neglected, poor and hurting, not just reading about them in books.

There were other wet pillow nights in Chevak, too. Like when our dear friend, Maya, died of liver cancer. She whose name we would give a daughter, who helped start the youth group at church, took us on our first boat ride in Chevak, loved Jesus, left behind her only daughter, Deanna, now an orphan.

Or the day I came across one of my 4th graders sitting outside her house crying because she had just been beaten by her intoxicated mom.

Or the day I heard one of my 7th graders had been raped.

Or the time we got the news that two of my brightest students' mom had shot the dad and then herself in a moment of drunken rage.

Or the day we found out one of Nate's former students, who had returned from Iraq, and was a role model for the younger generation, committed suicide.

Or the day we found out one of our friends accidentally shot his young daughter with his hunting rifle.

Or the time we heard that a tiny baby had been run over by a four-wheeler and killed.

Or when we heard the news that our dear teacher friend Lena had succumbed to cancer, leaving behind her 5 sons and 1 daughter.

Or, most recently, when we found out that one of Lena's boys died of a concussion. (Read about that story here.)

And many, many more.

Wet pillows for us. And probably for you, too.

But why, oh why, are these wet pillows good?!

This is where my theology is still being shaped. This is where I have so much to learn. This is what I am struggling to understand.

Jesus walked the earth doing battle with suffering. If he crossed paths with someone who was crippled, unclean, leprous, or blind, soon their suffering was turned to joy and dancing. God hates suffering. When Jesus returns again, there will be no more. "Sorrow and sighing will flee!"

But, it still happens. As a consequence of the Fall, as a consequence of sin, because His Kingdom on Earth is not yet complete. I love Luke 4:18, where Jesus says:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed."

So, if I am a true disciple of Jesus, and I am taking up my cross to follow him, then I myself should be brushing shoulders with the poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind and oppressed. I should KNOW them enough to feel their pain. I should be internalizing their pain. Even enough to cry myself to sleep some nights.