Bethel

aDid you know that Bethel means House of God?  Did you know that Bethel has more taxis per ca pita than New York City?  Did  you know that Bethel is a really fun place to visit?

I had the most amazing opportunity to go to Bethel, Alaska this weekend.  I went because I am the second counselor in our Stake Relief Society Presidency and we have 3 "bush" (meaning remote Alaska) branches in our Stake. In fact, we have 3 bush Branches and our Stake is over 1000 miles long.  There is not much of a road system in Alaska that connects many of the communities to each other so we connect with the members of our Stake through Polycom, (think speaker phone with a giant speaker) meetings and the occasional flight up to their communities.

This is new for our Stake, since until April 2010 the entire Alaska Bush was under its own District (a term meaning a geographically isolated Stake with minimal LDS church members) with its own set of leadership.  In April, the Bush District was dissolved and the bush Branches were assimilated into the various Alaskan Stakes (I believe there are 7 Stakes in Alaska).

So the plan was for me, Vicky (the Stake RS Pres), and Jodi (the 1st counselor), to go to Bethel early Saturday and host a Super Saturday (a day of crafts and fun), have a Visiting Teaching conference (aka spiritual lesson) and attend church on Sunday and fly home. We were going to Polycom some of the crafts and the Visiting Teaching message to our other bush Branches in Nome and Kotzebue.

I was in charge of the Saturday Visiting Teaching address.   I chose the talk by President Uchtdorf, "Lift Where you Stand," and the book by Sheri Dew, No One Can Take Your Place, as inspiration for what I spoke on.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

So we were up and out of the house by 5 AM to get to the airport, check our 150 pounds of extra baggage for crafts and food we were bringing up there (within the state of Alaska you are allowed 3 checked bags of 50 pounds each for free).  We landed in Bethel at 8:20 something and immediately had a meeting with the director of the Tundra Women's Coalition at 9 AM.  This is the center that serves the Yukon Delta region as an escape for abused women and children.  Unfortunately, this is rampant in the villages and this center is the hub for help up there.  An amazing director and an amazing work they are doing up there for women and children.

After that we went to the church to set up and get ready for our 11 AM start time of festivities.  We were unable to get Nome and Kotzebue on the Polycom.  We tried everything.  Funny thing is we used this technology when I first worked at USU Brigham City.  USU switched to Internet Video Conferencing a few years ago.  The Internet is sketchy at best, to  do anything like that up there and Landlines are really the only reliable source of communication for Bethel and the bush communities.  In fact, it was Spring 2009 when cell phone service was introduced to Bethel.  Crazy huh!

This is inside the church.  This room is the cultural hall, chapel and multi-purpose room.  The missionaries live in an apartment here in the church.  they used to live in a loft/attic area above and to the right of where I am standing, though it is not pictured.

The LDS Church building in Bethel, AK. About 60 people attend sacrament meeting each week here.

Here we are crafting!  Oh these ladies are so much fun! And brave and strong and good!  I loved every one of them so much!

We did our crafts.  I gave my lesson/talk/discussion.  We at a delicious lunch, and best of all we hung out with the Relief Society Sisters in Bethel!!

After our day's activities at the Church we got the grand tour of Bethel.   Bethel started as a small village along the Kuskokwim River.  When State and Federal agencies started providing services for the native villages in the area, Bethel got to be the hub of all these services. The hospital, and other services such as the Tundra Women's Coalition, and other agencies serve about 100 villages in the area.  All of which are accessible by plane or occasionally river in the summer or ice roads in the winter when the rivers freeze.  Most if not all of Bethel's economy is because of the state and Federal agencies based out of here for the villages.

There is a college, an airport, a huge community building, a high school, intermediate school, elementary school, library, post office, hospital, dentists, doctors and a clinic.  There is a quilt guild, an acting guild, an artists guild, dance lessons, and tons of activities.  There was a quilt shop owner from Greece in town doing a lecture, the Just Desserts Auction and Variety Show to benefit the local arts was going on this weekend and Bethel High School was hosting all of the officers from all the student bodies in the state this weekend too.

Another meeting we had was with the director of the Pre-Maternity Home in Bethel. Village women who are expecting a baby were required to fly in to Bethel 30 days prior to their due date to deliver in the hospital.  Well in the 1970s when these policies were implemented no one took into consideration that these women would have no where to stay.  After one woman was found outside the hospital living under an abandoned boat the PreMedivac or black hawk helicopter emergency services.

To live in Bethel, you get everything shipped by barge.  Usually from Seattle or Seattle via Anchorage.  If you need a fridge, there is a store in town who carries a few, but you usually just order from him and get it a few weeks later on a barge.  Internet shopping has been huge for Bethel, especially sites like Amazon and Drugstore.com because their free shipping deals work up here too.

There is no running water like we know it and no sewer like we know it either.  See 14 inches below ground you run into PERMAFROST. So all the pipes freeze.  The answer to this is heavily insulated 1000 gallon tanks under your home, which is built on stilts since the permafrost also means you have to deal with the expanding and contracting of the frozen earth all year long.    Anyway, you have one tank for water and one tank for sewer.  A water truck from the water treatment plant fills the water tanks in Bethel every Monday and empties the sewer tanks every Thursday.  Your fuel is oil.  I would have though wood stoves, but being in the tundra, there is no wood.  So you have a 500 gallon fuel tank that lasts 1 MONTH!! and it is about $5 a gallon for fuel oil.  So $2500 later you have heat for the month.

This is me looking out from where the Church is.  We are at one end of town.

This is looking down the road from where the church is.

One of about 20 restaurants in town! And they all deliver and many are open 24 hours.  Taxi cabs and take out...this IS just like New York!

These are the mountains that you don't see too often.  This is looking South East of town on the opposite side of where the church is and behind the intermediate school.

A typical house in Bethel and they usually house 2 or more families because it is so expensive to heat, have your water, and pay rent. A 1 bedroom furnished with all your utilities is $1600 a month.

I am in the produce department in the towns grocery store.  Check out what is above the onion and to the left of the lady. 

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I took some pictures of prices.  Amazing!  When I asked if people used cloth, they reminded me of how expensive water  and fuel is to wash them

this is taxi #55 outside of the airport. See I told you there were taxis here!

This is me, Kathy, Jodi and Vicki.  Kathy is the owner of ID Variety (think of a really small scale Wal-Mart, toy store and pet store).  We stayed at Kathy's house this weekend.   She lives "in town," breeds her own finches for her store, has shot a musk ox and can cook like no one I have ever known!

This is the waterfront.  On the other side of the black top and the big cylinder, you see the top layers of a barge that has not been unloaded. Up front and to the left you see a smaller barge.

Vicky, Dianne, Jodi, Suzanne, and me.  Dianne has lived in Bethel 40 years and was our tour guide on Saturday. Suzanne is the intermediate school library, and we are in her brand new library!

This is the busiest intersection in town from the window of Kathy's house. The building in front is the grocery store with where you can buy a snow mobile along with your red onions.  There are no stop lights in Bethel.

The view of the tundra from Suzanne's school.  The sunrises here are gorgeous!

This is not a 2-liter, but the size you would normally buy in the gas station.  A 12-pack of Pepsi was almost $13.  We pay  $5-$8  for a 12-pack in Anchorage.

Yes, that is the right price for milk.  We pay $3 a gallon in Anchorage.