Suite101

Sally Apokedak


Suite101 Member

I am a Christian, a wife, a mother, and a writer. In that order, I guess, but really it is impossible to separate these things. They all feed into each other and without one part, the rest would suffer. Of course it’s possible to be a Christian without being a wife and possible to be a wife without being a mother and possible to be a mother without being a writer, but it isn’t possible to be Sally with any of these missing.

I spent my early years on Formosa where my parents were missionaries under the Reformed Presbyterian Church, evangelical synod. So I inherited a soft spot for tropical islands, Chinese people and the Reformed Church, or, more specifically, for Jesus Christ who is the head and husband of the church. I am doing fine without the tropical island and I’m not dying because I don’t know any Chinese people right now except via the net, but thank God that wherever I live Jesus is with me. I cannot live without Him, who graciously shed His blood in my stead, to reconcile me to God.

I learned to love travel from my treks with the family. Then one day I traveled to Alaska… and here I sit. I have lived here for the past 17 years, longer than I’ve ever lived, or ever thought I’d live, anywhere. What can I say? This is what I get for marrying an Alaskan native. My husband, Wassie, (Wossy) was born in an Aleut village on the Kviechak (Queejack) River. A small-town boy. And I do mean small- the village had a population of 30. He will never leave this huge state for the crowded lower-48, so my traveling days are over. Six years ago we adopted two babies, Shane first, and eight months later, Nikki. So who has time or money to travel now, anyway?

My hobbies at present, are jumping on the trampoline when I absolutely can’t say, “Maybe later,” one more time, and reading every minute that I’m not writing or surfing the web.

For work, I play with my kids. Well, it used to be work. I will never forget the day I slipped my shackles and Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, the two most boring games on earth, somehow made their way into the trash bag, never to be seen again. Now that the kids are getting older, though, playing with them is getting more interesting. I started home-schooling them this year. It is the most exciting job I’ve ever had. I love watching their eyes light up as they grasp an idea, and seeing the look of utter joy as they learn to actually read the heretofore-unintelligible marks on the page of a book. It is awesome and I never use that word lightly.

And after working with my children, I write. Mostly for fun but also for the sake of my sanity. I need it. I need to think and speak in adult language sometimes.

That’s about it for me.