On Grampa and grieving

Grampa roasting hotdogs at Kako, the camp in Alaska he built. 

Dave Penz 

(September 8, 1934-May 11, 2014)

My grampa died today. He had had leukemia for a while, but the terrible infection that killed him took us all by surprise. 

This is how I'm feeling: 

Childhood is the Kingdom where Nobody Dies 

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripéd bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.

And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it’s much too small, because she won’t curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
—mothers and fathers don’t die.

And if you have said, “For heaven’s sake, must you always be kissing a person?”
Or, “I do wish to gracious you’d stop tapping on the window with your thimble!”
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you’re busy having fun,
Is plenty of time to say, “I’m sorry, mother.”

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died,
who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.

Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries;
they are not tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs. Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders and shake
them and yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide
back into their chairs.

Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.

  ---------
But I also feel this:  

Psalm 16:2, 5-11

 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
    apart from you I have no good thing.”
Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
    With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest secure,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
You make known to me the path of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence,
    with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

The airplane graveyard at Kako. I think Grampa crashed at least 2 of these planes. 
Being a bush pilot is no joke. To be honest I always expected him to die in a crash.

Grampa was a missionary, serving in Alaska since 1962. I am very proud of all that he did to create Kako and all the work in villages he did before that. There are many amazing, crazy stories. So many times he could easily have died.

Maybe I'll blog about them sometime. But what I'm thinking right now is how his life was always in God's hands. I am so thankful to be in season of Easter, to be reminded of Christ's conquest of Death.

When I was a camp counselor at Kako back in 2006, this was the passage we were supposed to get the kids in our cabin to memorize (picked because most of them have experienced death, despite their age):
 
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory."

 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
 

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 This reality confounds and comforts me. 

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.

First week of Camp

Yesterday, Friday, all the children from the first kids' camp went home. It was a wet, rainy day, but thankfully none of the villages were weathered in, so all the kids were able to fly home. Still, it was a lengthy process: 9am - 5pm with 3 pilots, flying two 4-place and one 6-place airplanes.

I had a blast with the six girls in my cabin. Three were from Russian Mission, the closest village to Kako, and three were from Stony River, about an hour and a half away. It worked out really nicely for me, as I have been to both villages and could visualize them. And having Stony River girls was particularly special, as that is the village that my mom spent the most years of her childhood, so I recognized their last names (Gusty, Bobby, Willis) and names of various relatives. I'll have to have my mom help me sort out all the complex small village relationships, but I believe the girls' parents were kids that my mom grew up with or camp counseled!

Something that might have been an issue, but wasn't, was that the Russian Mission girls were all Eskimo and the Stony River girls were mostly Indian. However, they mixed well, and we had a great time doing crafts, archery, riflery, canoeing, hiking, singing and games. My cabin really liked singing, so our devotions at night were frequently interrupted by requests for "This little light of mine" and "I'm in the Lord's Army."

The girls' Bible knowledge was minimal to nonexistent, so it was a challenge to figure out how to explain things ("Why did people do that to Jesus?") or even what stories were most important to share. They often wanted to hear the day's Bible lesson stories retold (i.e. David and Goliath), as they had never heard them before. I built off these stories and then the last night told two stories dealing with God's protection (Jesus calms the storm and the parable of the lost sheep) after they started sharing about all the times when they had been scared by drunk people. They have lots of scary things in their lives so I enjoyed teaching them a song about the armor of God and singing them to sleep with one of my favorite songs, that has a verse that goes: "The Angel of the Lord encamps round those who fear His name to save them and deliver them from harm. Though lions roar with hunger, we lack for no good thing. No wonder, then, we praise Him with our song."

Days were jammed packed full of activities and now I am pretty tuckered out. I have spent the day visiting with staff and relaxing so I can hopefully feel ready to start all over again on Monday. This time it will be junior highers, so they bring their own special challenges.

Monday is the reverse of Friday: a whole day of flying kids in, and entertaining the ones that have arrived, while waiting for everyone to get there. Then Tuesday-Thursday is camp time, and I leave for home Friday evening.

Hello from the 49th state!

Well, I made it here! The only hitch in the journey was at the Santa Barbara airport where it took sometime to figure out how I could bring the arrows on the plane. Couldn't check them (too big for my bags) or carry them on (weapons, obviously). Finally the Alaska Airlines rep and I agreed that they were actually fishing gear (I promised to shoot a salmon) and so I was able to check them without extra cost.

I am now pretty settled here, and able to reflect back on my first week here. But first perhaps I should set the scene. Imagine a small frontier town (think Laura Ingalls Wilder's later stories), only a couple houses on a dirt road, all small and made with the materials available. Everything big has to be brought in by barge, so it is quite an accomplishment to have things like fooseball tables. Thus entertainment is simple (the kids spend hours on the tire swings) and life is hard.

I have been kept busy helping in the kitchen preparing, serving and cleaning up after meals for the 89 people who are here for family camp. It is tough work! I am often put to shame by my coworkers, two 75 year old ladies who persevere when I am quite willing to escape and let the dishes wash themselves. Tomorrow is Sunday, but there is no rest for the wicked...that is we cooks. People still must eat. Today we were blessed by the arrival of 4 guys from a military type EMT school from Texas who have cheerfully taken over the washing of dishes (they serenade us with funny military songs while they wash).

Earlier in the week I enjoyed a hike up the local mountain and the company of some of the resident Kako kids, Selena, Darren, Ida and Kayleen. I hope to be able to post some fun pictures of us soon. Meanwhile enjoy this one of the cabins at Kako. This is where some of the families visiting are staying, although almost as many are tucked in to every nook and cranny in the rest of the camp.

Historical pictures of Alaska

These are pictures from my mom's Alaskan childhood. I was going to use these at as a part of my Alaska blog posts, but didn't, and thought you might like to see them anyway.


Dave and his daughters, Valerie, Dianne and Jeanne.


My mom, Jeanne.


Playing with a dogsled.

A First Post

Kako, Alaska What I had in mind when I first created this blog was a personal Growlery, an easily editable webpage where I could collect all the writings that make me happy so that when in need of a Growlery I could come and comfort myself. And so my first post was a poem of Dorothy Sayers' that I recently discovered (from Catholic Tales and Christian Songs). But my sister Krista took me to task. She insisted that there really are things that I feel strongly about and ought to be writing about. Even though I may not be going to exotic places or doing anything particularly glamorous, the life of the mind would supply the content. So, duly chastened, I determined to intersperse my literary posts for my own sake with more traditional blog posts for others' benefit. Incidentally, now that I come to write, I am going somewhere exotic and have a job that is more glamorous. I leave tomorrow for Kako, Alaska, a former gold mine that my Grampa and Gramma turned into a Christian camp and retreat center. It's in the bush; there are no roads and so life is very different there. Lots of salmon, moose and bear to eat, a small number of people to interact with, and pretty much the same scenery day after day. Everything at Kako has to come in either by plane or down the river by barge, so I will be bringing some odd cargo: a bunch of arrows and pottery glaze for the kids' camps and as much California fresh produce as I can fit in a duffle. But that's nothing, last time I flew in I brought a live rabbit named Charlie! The new job is as the lab coordinator in the Psychology department at Westmont College. I'll be doing a little teaching, keeping the lab tidy and making sure the rats stay alive. So I guess it's not all that glamorous but I am excited about it because it's in psychology, which I love and am good at. I'll say more about that later, but for now I am occupied with Alaska. I don't know how much access I will have to the internet while there, but if possible, I'll post a bit to let you all know what it's like being a camp counselor in the last frontier. 1962: My grandparents arrive in Alaska Dave and Janette Penz Valerie, Jeanne (my mom), and Dianne Dad the gold miner. 1983: I go to Kako for the first time. All sooty after taking a tumble down the stairs. Kako mine is a dangerous place for a toddler! 1992: My family and I drive to Alaska Me, Krista, Adelle and Erik with Uncle Jonathan. 1996: I spend six weeks at Kako as kitchen help. Charlie and me. 1998: I go on a missions trip to Mekoryuk with my youth group. The kids of the village. As for serious analysis of an idea, I think now is the perfect context to point you to a short essay/blog post I wrote on what constitutes missions in response to a post of my pastor's. It's on the sacrifice that true missions entails.