From DeWitt with Love: FBC group headed to Alaska frenzy

• Children and families of the fishermen listen to storytime hosted by Alaska Missions. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
• Brenda Crim
• Deborah Granberry pauses in front of the Iditorad finish line, where Alaska Missions has one of its many service events.
• Two Pacific Samoan girls at the Salmon Frenzy. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
• An Alaskan shows a fresh catch from the Salmon Frenzy on the Kenai River. Fishermen, seen in the background, use nets to capture the salmon migrating up river. The salmon caught during the frenzy feed Alaskans all year and are cooked “every way imaginable,” according to Cuero’s Deborah Granberry.
• A young Alaskan sleeps through his face painting.

Texas and Alaska share a frontier mystique in the American psyche, one embodying the mythic cowboy and the other the “call of the wild” to the adventurer. But both places rely on communities to make them livable in modern life.

One Cuero group is reaching out to support families in the Alaskan Kenai peninsula during this summer’s Salmon Frenzy, when much of the area’s food for the year is secured. On Saturday, April 20, the First Baptist Cuero Mission to Alaska is holding a rummage sale to raise funds for their trip. The sale proceeds will help the mission group support Alaskan families during the stressful Salmon Frenzy.

The state of Alaska regulates the amount of salmon each family can catch to safeguard the species, but when all of the catch happens during the yearly July migration, chaos reigns on the riverbank. There’s nowhere to eat, traffic is a jumble, children are unattended, and restrooms are non-existent, said Deborah Granberry, Cuero resident and trip organizer. The frenzy is human as well as aquatic.

Enter Brenda Crim, a graduate of Texas A&M as well as a hunting enthusiast and Christian minister. She founded Alaska Missions & Retreats (akmissions. com) to help impact the extreme suicide and domestic abuse rates in the isolated areas of Alaska. With the Salmon Frenzy, Crim saw an opportunity for Christian service and mobilized volunteers from the lower 48 states to come help. Cuero ’ s Granberry was acquaint- ed with Crim in college through the Baptist Student Union. Inspired by her college associations, Granberry has traveled to Alaska 15 times and participated in many service events, including several frenzies.

“Kids can get lost,” Granberry said, “because they’re bored and they wander off.”

The volunteers feed and occupy the children throughout the day with safe activities, like bounce house, parachute, crafts, face painting, and storytime. The only structured time when religion is discussed is at storytime with some Bible stories.

“We don’t proselytize,” Granberry said. “We try to meet people’s needs.”

One of those needs is food, and the volunteers provide it – including all-beef hotdogs, 20,000 of them – free of charge. Granberry said the people at the frenzy are mostly white, but there are some native Alaskans, or Pacific Samoans.

“The native Alaskans have a real resentment against the lower 48, the whites who brought all the rules and regulations to their lives,” Granberry said. “There is distrust of whites and religious groups. But they see us helping and over time see people really caring.”

“It’s hard work,” Granberry said. “Cooking all those hotdogs! And the sand is not like Port Aransas. It’s volcanic sand and hard to walk on.”

She said those who have trouble walking on the sand help at the port a potty location “where there’s real hand sanitizer. And the police really appreciate us helping with traffic.”

“But we laugh the whole time,” Granberry said. “It is hard work, but we have fellowship in the evenings.”

There is light all the time in an Alaska summer, so in the evenings mission groups can visit some parks and nature preserves.

When Granberry’s congregation at First Baptist Cuero heard her describe her trips at a Sunday service highlighting missions, a group of 15 signed up to travel to and work at July’s Salmon Frenzy. Each person’s trip, including airfare, will cost a minimum of $2100.

The rummage sale will help defray the travel costs of those going from FBC. Donations of items to sell are welcome and the church will start accepting them on Sunday, April 14, and continue through the week from 9-11 a.m. and 2-4 p.m. until Saturday.

The sale itself is from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the 20th.