The Islands & the Beginning of the End

Okay, 3 weeks to go and counting.... my project is wrapping-up at work and it is time to fit in as many adventures as I can around here on the weekends! So this is what the rest of my time in Seattle looks like in a nutshell:

Work:
1) This week is my final week of adding content to my project. I have researched, synthesized, written, and edited, edited, edited. It has also gone out to many different reviewers including EPA employees, organization directors, and tribal leadership. Hopefully I will hear back soon as to how comprehensive or helpful this work is to those who need it. 
2) First two weeks of August I will be formatting the information and making it look good with quotes, photos, and some case-study stories. Basically, make it appropriate for its' tribal audience. Should be fun and test my creativity. Where is my artsy sister when I need her?

Play:
1) Went to the San Juan Islands this past weekend with the Le Family and my friend Mark. More pics on that below. Let's just say it was a highlight of the summer. 
2) Going to Vancouver B.C. with the Le's this weekend and may get to see my friend Steph Hagen on Sunday! Wahoo.
3) Going climbing on Mt. Rainier with Sarah Gossman the first weekend of August. She is a beast (note only positive connotations here) and has recently climbed to the summit.
4) Going with my Community Group out to Bainbridge Island next week to enjoy dinner and a Puget Sound sunset. I am going to miss these girls!

The "Other":
1) I am taking the GRE on August 3rd :/
2) Working on finishing my Spanish novela for my Independent Study. Me gusta el idioma pero estoy despacia con leyendo...
3) Completing grad-school applications before going to Lima. We'll see how well that works out.


Transition is coming again soon. I will be in Grand Rapids from August 14-16 and will be looking forward to saying hello to everyone I can at home then. On August 17th I am off to Lima and the adventures continue this time in an entirely different context.
Thanks for all of your prayers - please pray that I would be able to finish well here, continue to invest in the relationships I have built and that in midst of all the goodbyes and hellos I find some kind of rest. 


R. 

San Juan Islands: Mark came up from Idaho and we jumped on a ferry to go camping with the family I am staying with here in Seattle. We stayed on Lopez Island and visited Friday Harbor. We enjoyed wildlife (harbor porpoises, seals, jellyfish, AND an orca whale!), brillant stars, a hammock at the top of Lopez Hill, dinner over the harbor, picnics by the lighthouse, and of course, two national historical parks highlighting the imfamous "Pig War." It was super fun and we had the perfect weather :) 

Sunset over Friday Harbor

Young Hill on San Juan Island. British Columbia is behind me. 

Lighthouse on San Juan Island. I saw an Orca Whale here!!

Mark and his fantastic view 

Mt. Baker

A momma seal and her pup

Familiar Faces

Well it has been good to get back in the office again and catch up with my friends and co-workers. I found out that one of the guys in my office who had just started going to church at the beginning of the summer is getting baptized in a couple of weeks!! I am so excited to go watch and celebrate with him. We have had many good conversations about Jesus and it is cool to see him turn his life over to his Savior. He has become a good friend and always provides some amusement during the long 9-hour days in the cubicle.   

It has also been fun to see my 4-year old buddy Billy again at my house. Sometimes we get to read the Jesus Storybook Bible together at night and he always has good questions for such a little guy. He often says the most candid and honest things and a couple of nights ago he made me smile. I told him that we could talk to God any time we wanted and asked if he wanted to pray. He grinned, nodded his head and earnestly asked, "God, why are you so big and I am so small?" If you spend enough time with Billy, you will begin to recognize that he is always concerned about getting as "big" as mommy and daddy. I am sure the omnipresence of God seemed a little beyond the extra vegetables we always encourage him to eat to help him get tall. :) On another note, it sure is humbling to remember just how big God is and how vast his love is for us despite how small we sometimes feel. You can learn so much from a little child. Jesus was so right when he told us to have a child-like faith!

Last weekend I was blessed by a visit from my mom who was able to stay with me while Michael and Annette were on vacation. She is constantly finding ways to show me that she loves me and helped me make lots of yummy dinners to freeze and pull out after a long day at work. We relaxed, explored a little of Seattle, and joined the rest of my family when they came in on Monday. I took the day off on Tuesday and we got to spend a full day together in North Cascades National Park. It was wonderful. Times like that seem to get fewer and farther between but I tried to soak it all up. They continued to travel around the area while I worked but we got to have dinner on Thursday night with Michael and Annette before they went back to Grand Rapids. 

My family at North Cascades National Park

It was so fun to be able to share a little of my experience here with them in person! With only 4 days between the end of Seattle and the start of Peru, and then only a week between the end of Peru and the start of the spring semester at Wheaton, this was a special time to be together as a family.

Susan and I on the snow-covered Pacific Crest Trail!

I attended two days of Environmental Justice training at EPA headquarters this week and learned so much about its historical roots and the agency's approach to addressing "EJ" concerns in their work. There mandate flows from an executive order authorized by President Clinton in the 1990s which requires all government agencies to understand and address disproportionate impacts on low-income and minority communities. "Environment" in this case should be understood as a broader concept than just the natural world and as one presenter put it, how you define EJ dictates what kinds of issues you want to acknowledge and which ones you are willing to ignore. Needless to say there are countless perspectives and approaches to "environmental justice" and there is a challenge to incorporate it into everyday work efforts. 

An easy example of an EJ issue would be a current reality in South Chicago. In Little Village one of the oldest and dirtiest coal power-plants in the country is operating in an underprivileged and overburdened community causing significant human health impacts on the most vulnerable including children and the elderly. There is no way that coal power plant could have opened up and continued their hazardous operation in a wealthy and primarily white suburb because the community would have fought it with their power and their money. Why then should we exploit those whose voice we refuse to recognize? What is the EPA's role as a regulatory agency in a situation like this one in Chicago? They are mandated to provide permits "to pollute" but also to make sure that justice is served by protecting the most vulnerable. What does justice look like tangibly and from the perspective of these affected communities?  There is a lot to wrestle with and think about. It will probably continue to be processed as I work on climate change issues here with tribes and in Peru in the slums. 

Time is certainly flying by. I now have less than a month left in this coastal city before I move to another one. My remaining weekends are packed with fun trips around the area to take advantage of all that I can. I already know that I am going to miss the relationships that I have built here and just as most HNGR students do after 5 months on their internships, I am going to have to start the goodbye process after only 2. But I pray that these experiences will only continue to enrich and inform and compliment my sure-to-be awesome time in Peru. God allowed both doors of opportunity to be opened for a reason and I know He is using them both for His glory. 

The Non-Continental United States

Wow - what a whirlwind of traveling activity over the last 3 weeks! Over that time I was as far north as Fairbanks, Alaska and as far west as The Big Island of Hawaii in the middle of Pacific Ocean. Pictures below capture, albeit only partially, the gorgeous landscapes and the fun I had.

I have been back to work in Seattle this week and it is crunch time for my project. I have about 5 weeks left here and time is flying by. I have been following-up with meetings and beginning to synthesize all I have been learning by writing out a first draft and presentation of my work. I actually have a tribal review council who will be looking at my project and providing feedback at the end of the month so I have a lot of work to do to get that ready. But, my trip to Alaska really did help to bring life to the native peoples I had been reading about and get me excited for rest of the summer. 

So, now to the adventures. First up, Denali National Park. I took the train from Fairbanks to the park and spent a couple of days there. I took the bus out to Eielson which is just about as far as you can go on via road. I saw all 5 big mammals including brown bears, caribou, moose, wolves, and mountain sheep. It was well worth the 8 hour round trip. Apparently you can have the bus driver let you off anywhere along the road and then just go out hiking in the wilderness. If I had had a buddy with me I would have done it in a heartbeat. Next time I guess.

Mt. McKinley's peaks - often visitors never get to see the majestic mountain but the clouds opened up for me multiple times along the drive out towards Eielson. 

There were some great hikes around the main visitor center too!

With some funny looking trees

Second up, Kona Hawaii! I attended an International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment which in its own right was pretty interesting. There were academic presenters from all over the world delivering their papers on a whole host of environmental issues and I made some great friendships with some students from Japan. I had an opportunity to enter into many of the hot debates and conversations and my pull from both natural and social sciences helped me immensely. It is not everyday that people mistake you for both a scientist and an economist. :) 

I also had the opportunity to bring up the importance of adopting a theocentric worldview rather than an ecocentric or anthropocentric one as we seek the best understanding of a right relationship with creation. The Judeo-Christian Stewardship ethic really provides the hope for final reconciliation and redemption which is so markedly absent in other efforts to "save the planet." 

But, the biggest highlight of the trip hands down was that my good friend Stephanie Althoff came out to spend a few days of sun and fun with me! She had been looking at all the adventurous things to do around the island and so we were never out of ideas, only time to fit them all in. We rented a jeep and had a blast off-roading and riding around in paradise with the top down. We got to visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, beautiful beaches, the farmer's market, a couple of the historical parks and simply enjoyed the great sunsets every evening. She was such an encouragement to me and I am so glad we could spend even part of a week together.

Green Sea Turtles

Traditional fish pond system. Pretty cool. 

Let's just say the Luau was hot!

Who wouldn't be excited to walk through a Lava Tube?

At Hawaii Volcanoes National Park - one of the world's most active volcanoes.

We rocked that jeep. 


Thanks again for all the prayers!