For weeks I’ve lacked the words I felt could do this year’s #DSSDoesAlaska trip justice. (Less than ideal when you know you have fundraising updates and newsletters to write…) The only words I’ve been able to muster have been to tell friends and supporters that that week was very likely the highlight of my nearly 13 years at the Denver Street School. And honestly? I’m still not able to pinpoint why. Last year, we watched the Lord radically break down walls for two of our students over this trip. That trip culminated in a friend of mine taking a chainsaw and cutting a baptismal hole in the 18” thick ice so that my vice principal and I could baptize one of our seniors. In just one week, we witnessed radical transformation and I am still mind blown when I think about it.
This year, nothing overly dramatic happened. Instead, I had the opportunity to spend 8 days doing the things I love most with a team of 7 DSS students and 6 of their teachers– all of whom were insanely engaged with the gospel and dedicated to pushing into its transforming power.
We cooked and ate meals together each day, and students experienced new cultures and states. We enjoyed snowmachining, flying in tiny planes, skiing, snowboarding, ice fishing, trapping, dancing, sledding, bonfires, and so much more after our daily conference sessions. And yet, the “in between” moments when we watched students learn to truly connect with those around them, undistracted by technology and the drama of their home lives, may have been my favorite… Every night at curfew, we would scoot the boys out of the main house. And every night all of the students were genuinely sad to have to be apart, even long enough to sleep. “Miss, we’re a family! You can’t tear a family apart like this…” they would tease as I ushered them out the door and back to their cabin.
#DSSDoesAlaska / Journey to the High Places Conference 2020 Highlight Reel
As the “outside world” began shutting down due to the spread of the Coronavirus, we were safe and sound in a small village, 165 miles away from the nearest city, with only one working phone. Sporadic calls home to loved ones and the unbelievable updates they gave us reminded us that the world did not stop spinning in our absence. Similarly, DSS did not stop being DSS just because we were in Alaska. We saw students work hard to process through trauma, and gently stood by them as they had moments of meltdown and breakthrough, similar to what we experience at DSS on a daily basis. As teachers, we had opportunities to practice patience and grace, as hell hath no fury like DSS students being “forced” to hike through the snow to a glacier-capped waterfall and none of our students are “morning people”.
While most phone calls home yielded updates about school closures and new city policies, one phone call brought us all to our knees. It was news that a young man, who had been a good friend of two of the students with us in Alaska, had been shot and killed the night before. As teachers tried to calm one of the grief-ridden students down, he turned and punched a solid wood end table, dealing with his grief and shock the most familiar way he knew how. But then, he cried. And as a team, we gathered around him. One of his basketball teammates held him while he wept. Teachers and his peers held his feet and shoulders as we prayed and cried for everyone back in Denver who had been thrown headlong into grief overnight. As I looked around, I discreetly slid off my shoes, acutely aware that we were all suddenly on Holy ground.
That moment was a microcosm of what the Journey to the High Places Conference is all about. This conference and trip was created four years ago specifically for Denver Street School students to provide them a safe place to work through the trauma and grief in their lives. It’s about leaning in, learning to hold one anothers’ stories tenderly, and choosing to believe in the Hope of the Gospel that is woven through every lesson plan and conversation at the Denver Street School.
We circled back to Philippians 3:12 a few times throughout our time in Alaska– repeating Paul’s words over our students: “Not that I have already obtained {perfection}, but I press on to make {the gospel} my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own” (English Standard Version).
It’s a long race, walking with Jesus… working at DSS… Some days the transformation in our students is dramatic and evident. Some days it’s slow and steady and sweet. Regardless, we press on, and what a joy it is to watch our students slowly make the gospel their own as they learn the depths of Christ’s love for them and the lengths He went to to make them His own.
What does it look like to fly on faith, and faith alone?
That’s easy. Anytime you fly as a passenger in a plane, you’re flying solely on faith– Faith that the stranger at the controls isn’t an absolute idiot; faith that the plane had been properly inspected and is mechanically sound for flight. More than likely, as a regular person boarding a plane, you aren’t sure of either of those things. You’re hopeful… But you’re not one hundred percent sure.
Flying is all about faith, really.
You see, there are two different types of flying—VFR, where you operate by Visual Flight Rules and can see where you’re going, and IFR, where you are operating under Instrument Flight Rules. In layman’s terms—when you’re flying IFR, you can’t see where you’re going all the time. You have to rely on your instruments: your altimeter, GPS, compass, etc.
When you fly VFR, you’re not flying through dense cloud cover, excessive fog, or blinding snow or rain. You know and can see your surroundings. For many experienced pilots, flying VFR is a cake walk. (The key word there is experienced; the thought of flying as pilot in command period still makes my inexperienced pilot stomach flip a bit… But I digress.)
Lake Clark Pass in all it’s VFR, summer glory.
Last summer when I visited Port Alsworth, the VFR flight conditions couldn’t have been better (even though I didn’t know it at the time). As we flew over the wetlands outside of Anchorage on my first ever approach to Port Alsworth, the weather was perfect and clear. So clear, in fact, that I could see brown bears running awkwardly along the streams below us, chasing their salmon dinners. The glaciers we buzzed by in Lake Clark Pass were a crisp turquoise, reflecting the bright blue sky above and the teal hue of Lake Clark below. Oh, it was a sight to behold… A true VFR miracle for a first time bush plane passenger.
Flying into Port Alsworth this September, was a bit of a different story.
Alaska greeted me on September 15th with a slush/rain storm that made flight in a tiny two-seater airplane seem a bit more difficult. As I sat in the Lake and Pen Air office at Merrill Field Airport that morning, I stared out at the windy conditions and rapidly changing precipitation. I half-way expected my bush flight to be delayed, if not cancelled entirely. After all, even the giant Alaska Airlines plane that carried me to Anchorage had hit so much turbulence the night before that it seemed like we were going to fall out of the sky.
But sure enough, at a little after ten o’clock, my wild child of a pilot came bursting into the LPA office, announcing that I was the lucky winner of a one-way flight “home” with him to Port Alsworth.
This guy… He is just one of my faves.
As we loaded my bags into the tiny plane, word came over a radio that a plane had just crashed in Iliamna—just 20 miles from our destination. Eeesh… not exactly reassuring… I thought as I grabbed Lyle’s hand and he pulled me up into our plane. I made some comment about bush pilots not being deterred by much, to which he simply laughed and told me that this flight was going to be an easy one.
We taxiied down to the end of our runway and I watched as my pilot punched buttons, radioed people I couldn’t quite hear, and then hit the throttle. Before I knew it, we were hauling down the runway, and then lifting into the headwind and the clouds above us.
My view (or lack there of) leaving Anchorage.
My view of Anchorage quickly disappeared. Convinced that I wasn’t going to see much for a while, I slipped my headphones inside of my noise proof earmuffs, turned on my favorite playlist, and grabbed my new leather bound journal from my bag between my feet. In a daze created by the combination of sleep deprivation, adrenaline, and raw change, I opened to the first page, and wrote:
“As I sit in this plane and watch water droplets from the melting snow roll past my co-pilot window, I am amazed with who You are, God.
It amazes me that I’m in Alaska—in this plane. It amazes me that this little metal box is somehow flying through the sky… It amazes me that my pilot knows where we’re going because the snow/fog/cloud mix is so thick that I can’t see anything around us. My memory knows what this mountain pass looks like from last summer, and yet this trip is so different. There are no mountains or glaciers to ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhhh’ at; I can’t see anything running in the wetlands below. There is just here, and just now; just You and me (and this really funny guy named Lyle).
I don’t know where I’m going, God. (Literally, and figuratively.) I can’t see what’s happening around me. I don’t know what any of these buttons, lights, or levers in this plane do. But I know that You are God, and that You are Good. Oh, and that You are somehow holding us up, as if this plane was sitting in your hands… And if that’s the case, I love that you are keeping things interesting with this insane turbulence; I love that you always shake things up.”
When I wrote that, I didn’t understand that Lyle was flying IFR—by his instruments and not his eyes.
I didn’t understand the difference between IFR and VFR, even though I too was operating within my own type of IFR journey. After all, I knew that God was calling me to Alaska even though I couldn’t see why; I’d known that with every fiber of my being since that weird moment in church on Super Bowl Sunday.
I had spent the last seven months fine tuning my “instruments” through time with Jesus, setting up a “flight plan”, and learning who I was going to be on the journey with. I had been praying and crying and learning more and more what I looked like to walk by faith and not by sight.
I had plenty of people tell me (in not-so-many words) that I was a moron for leaving the life that I loved to follow Jesus to a tiny village I hardly knew. There were questions raised about practical things like “Do you really think that God is going to provide that outrageous amount of money?” regarding the raising of my own salary. Oh yeah, not to mention the obvious: “Why on earth would you go there when Jesus has so clearly been working through you in Denver? If God is ‘so good’ then why can’t He use you in a less dangerous place…?”
The questions were legitimate, and my answers hinging on faith often felt as if they weren’t.
There were days (so many freaking days) when I doubted that God was Good—that He would provide… that He had a plan. Yet, even on the days when I doubted and I couldn’t see, I just tried to cling to Jesus and keep moving forward in faith. (Side note shout out to my roommates who laid in bed with me while I bawled on those nights and drug me back to Jesus in prayer, whether I wanted it or not. Y’all are the epitome of the church and the real MVPs.)
Yet because He is True to His callings and True to His promises, He provided in abundance financially, spiritually, and emotionally; even as I write this, looking out at the planes landing next to my house in Alaska, all I can do is laugh at how Good He really is.
He will never leave me, nor forsake me. (No matter how many times He has to reassure me of this.) He promises to be the Light before me, even when I can’t see more than a few feet in front of my face.
He has been my most reliable “instrument” as I have learned to fly out of my comfort zone with Him. His grace, His Love, His mercy; they are unfailing.
Even though it has been terrifying to blindly fly away from everything that I love, I have been unexplainably blessed by experiencing more of Him through it all.
That sounds cheesy; I know. But around these parts, it is so true. Because at the end of the day, when Bible class is over, our extra TLC programs and classes have been taught, the dishes are washed, and my girls are in bed, I sit in my house alone. Yet somehow I am not alone; I am with Him—experiencing more of His love in the silence and the darkness than I ever thought possible… Which is an answer to the exact prayer from Ephesians 3:14-20 that so many prayed over me as I left Denver…
“For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
It is terrifying to fly thousands of feet in the air, suspended by nothing but the faith that instruments will carry you on to your destination, and yet we do it all the time.
It is terrifying to be here alone sometimes, but by faith I maintain that I am not alone because I am with Jesus, my sweet Abba, and His Spirit.
And that faith? The renewed and deeper faith that kicks in when you are flying on faith in Christ alone? I can’t explain it. I don’t know how the heck God builds faith with faith. (It’s a pretty screwy system if you ask me.)
Where is He calling you to follow Him today? Will you choose to fly with Him, even if you can’t see what’s in front of you?
(Spoiler alert: you won’t regret it.)
“He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are not away from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight.”
For weeks I’ve lacked the words I felt could do this year’s #DSSDoesAlaska trip justice. (Less than ideal when you know you have fundraising updates and newsletters to write…) The only words I’ve been able to muster have been to tell friends and supporters that that week was very likely the highlight of my nearly 13 years at the Denver Street School. And honestly? I’m still not able to pinpoint why. Last year, we watched the Lord radically break down walls for two of our students over this trip. That trip culminated in a friend of mine taking a chainsaw and cutting a baptismal hole in the 18” thick ice so that my vice principal and I could baptize one of our seniors. In just one week, we witnessed radical transformation and I am still mind blown when I think about it.
Louise in the Light 