Let the adventure continue...: OMG, I moved to ALASKA

... in the winter... by myself (with help thanks to mom and dad!)... but really, would you expect anything less than crazy from me??

The marketing for this job worked for me! “Experienced Public Health Nurses- Want an adventure? Move to Alaska!” Um, adventure? Alaska? Public health? Yes please!

These past few weeks have been cray-cray (“crazy”... I’ll try to keep up with translations as needed). Well, really, these past few months have been kinda weird.

I “moved” back to Seattle in August after two wonderful, hard, beautiful, and challenging years as a Mennonite Volunteer in San Luis Valley (AKA, Alamosa), Colorado. There was talk at our volunteer retreat back in May about the culture shock you’ll feel even going back to your “hometowns,” but I didn’t pay much attention because that was for “other people.” Not me, I’m resilient and awesome, right?! I also thought “I’m a city girl, it’ll be good to be back.” Well, there are a lot more people in Seattle than small town SLV and life is just so different. Ok, I’ll be honest- I pretty much broke down crying every time I had to drive in the city.

I was really excited to move back to a city and reconnect with family and friends, but jobs weren’t really working out for me in Seattle. This was the second opportunity that has come up in Alaska, so I thought I’d see where it took me. I had a few interviews in Seattle and the phone interview for Alaska was my last one. It was supposed to work out perfectly- I was sure I’d hear from the other ones first and then take the Alaska job if nothing else panned out. Well, of course, life is rarely that clear and I got the offer from the Alaska job first. I told the manager I needed a few days to think about it and tried to reach the one job in Seattle I really wanted. After not getting that Seattle job (needed more experience), I had the question of whether I should trust I’d get something else in Seattle or trust that Alaska would work out. I decided to give Alaska a shot. The job was just too much to pass up- every other week I’ll spend 3-4 days in little villages to be their public health nurse!

Through a bit of “social networking” (ugh, really?), I found out I had connections in Fairbanks through my good friend, Mari. One of her friends, Julia, seems well connected here and gave me tons of info! She also got me in touch with her pastor who was looking for someone to rent their cabin and I decided to take it. She was quite the cheerleader for this town!

I got out here on Nov 13, my parents got here on the 14th, and I started work on 16th. It’s been pretty busy and I’m super thankful my parents have been out here to help me with everything- picking up my things that I shipped, buying a car, getting settled into my little cabin, and figuring out some of life out here in FBKS!

I don’t want to make light of the decision to come up here- it was hard and I’m getting nervous about just how challenging this might be, but I can’t wait to see where God will take me through this experience and I look forward to sharing it with you!