Retreat in Juneau, Spring in Sitka

So last weekend we had our second JVC Alaska retreat in Juneau, aka the capital city. We boarded our plane at 6 am for our less than 40 minute flight to Juneau and were met at the airport by Paddy (one of the Juneau JVs) and welcomed into their home a few minutes later by Avanti and funfetti waffles!! The Juneau JVs slowly woke up at relatively normal hours and after catching up for a while, my housemates and I went out to explore downtown Juneau, had some lunch and met up with the Anchorage JVs who arrived a few hours after us. Avanti led us all on a walking tour of Juneau where we saw the capitol building, some other government offices, the downtown area (which was really shut down for the season until the tourists start arriving again), and the governor's mansion. After our walking tour we met up with the JVs from Bethel and took a tour of the Alaskan Brewery that basically consisted of this really cool guy talking to us about how the brewery started, how they made the beer in the early days and about how the owners are trying to keep the brewery at a manageable size and not expand too much. It was a pretty sweet way to start the weekend because it was really laid back and almost all the JVs were there to catch up and chat before heading out for retreat.

Our retreat was held at the Shrine of St. Therese, which was absolutely beautiful and full of awesome wildlife, focused on social justice and was led by the executive director and volunteer coordinator of the AWARE shelter (a bigger shelter than SAFV) in Juneau. Personally, this retreat came at the perfect time for me and I got a ton out of the activities, reflection, and discussion that occurred throughout the weekend. I came back from retreat feeling refreshed, refocused and with some new thoughts, perspectives and ideas about social justice. I again had a lot of really good conversations with my fellow JVs about work, JV life, what comes next, and was really glad/excited to reconnect with Alex and Avanti and get some solid quality time in with them at points throughout the weekend and at lunch on Monday afternoon.

On Monday, after saying goodbye to the Bethel JVs and spending some of the afternoon exploring and hanging out in Juneau, the rest of us went to Bishop Burns' house in Douglas for a lasagna dinner. It was a really nice way to close out the weekend, Bishop Burns is a great man and a great support and friend of the JVs in Southeast Alaska, and we were able to watch some of the Olympics (several hours after it happened even though Vancouver is only one timezone away.) I now know what people mean when they talk about East Coast bias. It is truly frustrating to know the result of every event before I could even possibly watch it happen on TV.

I had Tuesday off because it was Elizabeth Peratrovich Day in Alaska and I enjoyed the relaxation time and attended the parade and event held in honor of Elizabeth Peratrovich at the Alaskan Native Brotherhood Hall. Elizabeth Peratrovich Day honors the life and efforts of this woman in the passage of the anti-discrimination bill in Alaska in 1945. It was a truly powerful event to be a part of and included a partial recreation of the senate hearing that preceded the vote and dancing from several student groups from Mt. Edgecumbe High School.

Since then, Sitka has had absolutely beautiful weather that definitely has most of town thinking that spring is on the way. It has been clear and sunny for most of the week and I have taken full advantage of the opportunity to explore the beaches at low tide and just sit outside reading and letter writing in the sun. On Saturday, SAFV had its Family Fun Fiesta, our big fundraiser, which consisted of a wonderful Mexican meal and a dessert auction that was a lot of fun! It was great to watch the community come together and raise money for the shelter, a lot of fun for my housemates and I to help with the auction and it was really nice to see several former resident families in attendance. A few of the children asked me if I remembered them and when I told them that of course I did their faces lit up. I could definitely tell that it meant a lot to them and seeing them again meant a ton to me and serves as another example of why I love the work I do and am able to be excited about going into work every day.

I had a relatively low key day on Sunday, going to mass early and then exploring along the beach some more. On Sunday afternoon Greg and I watched the USA vs. Canada game, which was amazing! I really miss playing/watching hockey and seeing how hard the US team played was awesome! It's so great to see NHL players playing hard, blocking shots and giving 110% because they aren't getting paid to be here and are truly inspired by playing for their countries. That is all for now but I will definitely work on updating more often.