Leap of Faith

"Doing is a quantum leap from imagining."

Barbara Sher

In December of 1985, I graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education. Since I was a mid-year graduate, there weren't a lot of jobs available, but fortunately for me, I was offered two positions. If I chose the first one, I would be going to work each day right there in the same area near Seattle where I had done my student teaching. There was a high school choir teacher who was going to be on a long-term maternity-leave and if I had wanted it, I could have filled her position for a good portion of the spring semester. I would simply get up and drive my car to work each morning, returning home after the school day had ended. My second choice was to take a job in Kwigillingok, Alaska, a village of two hundred people, only accessible by small plane. Once there, I would teach music to three year olds in the Early Childhood Program, through twelfth graders at the high school. Since my training was predominantly in the field of Jr. High and High School choral music, the thought of adding Early Childhood and Elementary aged kids was a little daunting. The job would start in mid-January and run for nine weeks, with the possibility of more jobs becoming available as the neighboring villages heard about the program. Of course, the high school job in the city would have been the safer, easier choice, but something kept telling me to lose my fear and take the leap of faith toward the more risky, more adventurous job in Alaska. Once again, I was having one of those experiences in life where your hair raises up on your skin and you just know that something amazing is going to happen because of the inspiration you are feeling during that magic moment. I knew I had to choose Alaska!

I went home for Christmas in the Bay Area of California, and the first week of January, I flew from San Francisco to Seattle, Seattle to Anchorage, Anchorage to Bethel and then took a puddle jumper to the village of Kwigillingok (Kwig). The planes kept getting smaller and smaller and when I landed in Kwig, I hopped out of the small Cessna aircraft, onto a dog sled pulled by a snow machine, and was whisked off to my village housing next to the Kuskokwim River on the shores of the Bering Sea. All I had with me was the clothing in my backpack, a trunk filled with musical supplies, and my guitar. There was no running water in the village and telephone and television were just being introduced to the people of Kwig. The temperature ranged from zero to forty below, depending on the wind chill, and I realized quite quickly that my idea of winter clothing was not going to cut it in this climate. I was given my own snow machine to travel back and forth between the elementary school and the high school. In order to survive the wind chill, I got one of the elders in the village to help me sew my own fur hat and mittens. Then I learned a new meaning to the term layering!

There were so many amazing adventures to go on while living in the remote Alaskan wilderness aside from the adventures of teaching music to the Yupik Eskimo kids. One day, a group of teachers and villagers took a trip to the neighboring village of Kongiganak (Kong) to watch a basketball tournament. I can't remember exactly, but I think the ride from Kwig to Kong by snow machine was about a two-hour venture. During the first part of our journey, we had to cross the Kuskokwim River, which wasn't hard to do on the outbound because the tide was out and we simply drove down into the deep gully that was the riverbed and sailed on through to the other side. But on our return, it was a different story. When we reached the river on our way back home, the tide had come in and the gully we had crossed on the way over was now underneath a very thick slab of ice that had risen to the river's surface at high tide. The water flowing beneath that slab of ice was colder than sin and moving at a rate of speed that would carry you to your death in mere seconds were you to be immersed in it. In order to arrive home safely, (Kwig sat just the other side of the river) each of us had to drive our snow machine across the slab of ice. But as soon as the weight of the machine rocked the icy cover, it tilted the rider backward in what could have become a freefall into the icy river below. So the instructions from the elders were to 'gun it' as soon as you felt yourself tilting backward. If you were to hesitate, you and your snow machine could simply slip off the slab and be gulped up by the torrent below. YIKES! This was definitely NOT the same kind of hair-raising experience I referred to earlier. But raise my hair it did! Once again, I had two choices: I could turn around and ride back to the village of Kong, or I could lose my fear and take a leap of faith. So I watched a few of the pros cross over and then I said a prayer and 'gunned it'. Glad it turned out to be the 'thrill' of a lifetime, rather than the 'chill' of a lifetime!

The nine weeks I spent in Kwig were the start of a life filled with passion, purpose, adventure, and all kinds of opportunities that took me all over the state of Alaska. When I chose to take the job in Kwig, it was the beginning of a life long journey that would introduce me to the many diverse cultures of people living in the last frontier. Eventually, my experience in the bush communities would land me the job of my dreams. I was hired at the largest high school in the state of Alaska, teaching kids in a building where over forty different languages were spoken. It would also provide me with the inspiration to write the Change of Heart song that became the catalyst for the TV commercial I had imagined in my youth.

I was blessed to be the choir director and guitar teacher at East High School in Anchorage, Alaska for almost two decades. During those years, I continued to dream about singing, writing music and sharing a message of peace, love and happiness through the magic of a song. I also imagined things like winning Grammy Awards and Emmy Awards. You might wonder what this has to do with anything, but as a writer, singer, musician and lover of all things creative, it felt very ordinary to let my mind take me to places like this in my imagination. And I had learned over the years that my imagination was making my dreams come true. So, imagine I did. In 1999, the Grammy Foundation decided to allow schools to participate in their tradition of recognizing excellence in music with the presentation of their prestigious award. Our East High Fine Arts program was presented with its very own Grammy! After that, the Change of Heart PSA won two Alaskan Goldie Awards, which led to an Emmy Award nomination in the category of musical composer. You can't imagine the feeling I had (the one I had imagined over and over through the years) when they said, "And the Emmy goes to ... Janie Lidey!"

I know that who I am has everything to do with my faith in God and my relationships with people. The things I write about would not come from a heart untouched by love. So the Emmy really goes to ... all of us.

Leap of Faith

If I had no fear if there was only love
I'd do all the things that I've been...