I
was an Angry Man
I
remember when the earthquake came. All the dogs and cats
went up the hill behind the village before the tidal wave
came. I was thirteen years old and had my little sister,
Ruth, in my arms. I could hardly stand because the waves
were three or four feet high. I took my sister and we
started running across the field. I could look to my right
and see the waves coming toward us. I can still see those
waves coming toward us.
My
name is Don Shugak and I was born in 1950, in a village
called Old Harbor, Alaska on Kodiak Island which is part
of the Aleut chain. I am Sugpiaq and grew up knowing how
to live by the ocean, from the ocean and on the ocean.
I was very young when I learned how to hunt for seal and
bear, go halibut fishing, dig for clams and find different
types of mussels and sea urchins. Of course, we had our
own names for those in our Sugpiaq language. A lot of
our culture was lost because of education and religion
that came in, banning the culture of the Aleut people.
There are a lot times even now that I miss that old kind
of life-spending all the time in the woods or on the ocean.
That's the way I grew up. In Springtime we would go out
and harvest the sea gull eggs and crab. Missionaries came
to Old Harbor when I was very young. I think they were
there before I was born but my Mom was the first one who
understood the message of the Gospel. She came to know
the Lord in the village. Because of the interaction between
our culture and the larger culture in those days the village
was a dark place when alcohol took over. Abuse, domestic
violence and neglect of children took place and we were
part of that. My Dad would also drink and there would
be a lot of violence when he did. So we grew up under
that-just about every village in Alaska did. A lot of
problems came out of the villages and we're still battling
that and trying to find answers today.
In
my life, I found out that God is the only answer. He give
us answers in the Bible. A lot of times we don't pay attention
to that because we don't think it is real. Because of
the way the Gospel came into our world and culture there
is a lot of bitterness toward Christianity. It just blew
our culture away. But the truth in God's word is what
changes people. That's what changed my Mom's life and,
eventually, my Dad's.
My
Dad came to know the Lord probably around 1959. He was
building a frame house and there was a missionary who
would come and help him. Dad was a lay reader in the Russian
Orthodox church. He didn't really want to hear anything
the missionary might say. So all the missionary would
do is come over and help him. Once in a while he would
quote a verse from the Bible. And that verse hit Dad's
heart. He realized that God's Word is powerful and not
too long after that he came to know the Lord.
A
profound moment
I
came to know the Lord when I was 12 years old. My Mom
was at a sewing class that a missionary held for the village
women. I had to ask her a question so I went in there
and, at the back of the chapel, saw a panoramic view of
the Bible. As I looked at it and saw the beginning and
the end, it made sense to me. I understood the whole plan
of God's creation in the world. In the middle of that
was the cross of Jesus Christ and I understood the love
that God had for me. I saw that in this plan the cross
was the focal point of His reaching out to me, that He
sent His Son for Don Shugak. The reason He sent His Son
for Don Shugak was to bring him back.
In
some cultures, and I believe in our culture, there was
no understanding of sin. Whatever you did was just part
of everyday life, it just happened that way. Things were
just accepted. But there were certain things that you
didn't do when you were growing up and those things we
called wrong, bad. There was an understanding that we
weren't good people all the time. When Jesus came down-this
was God who was clean and pure and didn't do anything
wrong-all that badness was put on Him. He took that badness
for me, for Don Shugak. He took that punishment so He
could give me His goodness and I could stand before the
Father, clean. That just brings tears to my eyes, that
God would do that for me. What a profound thought that
the God of all creation and all that we can see around
us even though the earth is just a speck in the universe,
that same God sent His Son to die for Don Shugak. I couldn't
do any less but turn my life over to Him.
I
went back home and I felt like I had to talk to God. So
I went into my room and got down on my knees and asked
God to come into my life and be a part of it. I didn't
understand then what I had done but I can look back now-I'm
53 years old-and see how God led me all those years.
On
March 27, 1964, we experienced the biggest earthquake
ever to hit Alaska. The tidal wave that hit afterward
caused a lot of damage to the coastal communities and
I was in Old Harbor when it happened.
There
was a village ahead of us called Kaguyak that was hit
first by the tidal wave. The wave went through there and
then it was going back. Three guys went down to a radio
shack, which was how the villages communicated back then.
It was still standing so they called Old Harbor and told
them there was a tidal wave coming. Before they could
get back up the mountain, the wave came back and swept
them away. So they sacrificed their lives for the village
of Old Harbor. That's how everybody in Old Harbor got
saved. They were warned ahead of time that a tidal wave
was coming.
I
remember when the earthquake came. All the dogs and cats
went up the hill before the tidal wave came. The older
people told us to watch the water in the ocean and if
it started making a whirlpool out there, then we should
start heading up the hill. We were a little too slow and
everybody started yelling that something was happening.
I was thirteen years old and had my little sister, Ruth,
in my arms. I could hardly stand because the waves were
three or four feet high. I took my sister and we started
running across the field. I could look to my right and
see the waves coming toward us. I can still see those
waves coming toward us. It came in several times that
night and took out all the houses in the village. Only
the Russian Orthodox church and the school remained standing
because they were on higher ground. The Lord preserved
us from that.
In
the early 60s, or maybe the later 60s, we moved out to
Anchorage and this city became part of my life. My Dad
broke his back. He was carrying water-soaked logs up to
the house and when he finished his job, he lay down. When
he woke up, he couldn't move so they took him to the hospital.
They had to operate on his back and he had tuberculosis
on top of that. That's when we moved. From living in the
woods and on the ocean it was a whole different way of
life for a young guy. Going to schools and trying to understand
a whole different culture: it was a pretty strange world.
The Lord led me through that. I went to a Christian high
school, called Victory High School, for four years.
No
place to go
I
grew up a very angry young man. I grew up, like any young
boy, wanting a close relationship with my father and I
never got it. It was lacking in all of our lives. My Dad
was also an angry person so he passed his anger along
to all of his ten children. That anger drove me. I became
the best at whatever I tried to do. I became a preacher
and knew the Word of God and was able to preach it well.
I became a heavy equipment operator and could drive a
pretty good 'dozer, backhoe and dump truck. I became a
teacher. All this time my anger was pushing me and driving
me. I became a field production operator in the oil fields.
I went through a four-year training program and aced it
too. But the Lord made me see through all that. The reason
I was driven so much in my life was to get the approval
of my Dad. (He had long since gone to be with the Lord.)
My Dad would build me up and then he would tear me down
as soon as I tried to accomplish something. He would say,
"You're trying to be too good" or "Don't think you're
something," or "That's just the stupidest thing." He would
put me down somehow. I grew up without the affirmation
for whatever I was doing.
That's
how I saw God too. When I realized that, I realized that
I had the same kind of relationship with God in my Christian
life as I used to have with my Dad. I thought I had to
win God's approval. I never had a real relationship with
Him-it was just what I had with my Dad.
Going
through the Family Wellness Warriors program, which is
a movement in Alaska today, I realized that all God wants
is for me to enjoy Him. I'm 53 years old and it was two
years ago that I realized I was an angry person. I almost
lost my family because of it.
Edna,
my wife, kept telling me I was very angry and I thought
it was her problem. It tore my family up just like my
Dad's family was torn up. Finally she made the ultimatum
to me. She said, "You've got to choose between your anger
and me and the kids." Then I realized I really did have
a problem.
I
had nowhere to go because I was a very proud person. I
was very macho and a tough-type person and no one was
going to tell me what to do. There was no way I could
go to counseling so I was in kind of a tough spot. There
was no place I could go but to God. We were driving down
a street here in Anchorage and that's when Edna told me.
I just broke down while I was driving. I said, "God, you've
got to help me. I can't do this. I recognize now that
I'm an angry person, that my family is being torn apart
with the same anger that my Dad passed on to his children.
We need to break that cycle."
I
never experienced anything like this before but when I
prayed that God would take my anger away and fill me with
His love, it was like I was washed from my head to my
toes. It was like something was pushed out of me. I haven't
been angry since. I've been frustrated a few times but
not that boiling anger that was inside of me for all of
my life.
If
I look back on my life and try to say, "What would my
life have been like without God?", there really wouldn't
have been any hope for me. No matter what kind of life
you have led, no matter what you've gone through as a
child, no matter what hardships there are in your life,
God can be there with you. God really loves people. He
did so much for us, sending His only Son. Like those three
men from the village of Kaguyak who sacrificed their lives
for the village of Old Harbor, that's what Jesus did for
us. He sacrificed His life so that we could be saved from
sin, saved from an eternity in hell, so that we could
go to a place prepared for us in heaven.
