Brothers and sisters,
That’s not a typo. Have you ever “fallen down a rabbit hole” on the Internet? What I mean by that is, have you ever
been on the Internet—reading an article, a story, or watching a video—and you get really interested in it, so you keep clicking more and more links related to it? Eventually, you look
up and an hour or two has gone by and you think, “How on earth did I get here? And where did the time go?!”
I recently “fell down a rabbit hole” while on Google Maps. The thing that prompted it was a very simple question, “Where do people actually live in Greenland?” A whop-
ping 75% of the country’s land mass is covered by a think sheet of ice. The only habitable places are along the coastlines. Even there, life is harsh for most of the year. Because
of that harsh climate, there aren’t many people living in Greenland. Nuuk, the nation’s capital and most populated city, has only 19,872 people, but that makes up a third of the
entire country’s population. Their most populated city has fewer people than Elizabeth City, NC. Chapel Hill has more people than all of Greenland!
But that’s not what I wanted to write about this week. See, if you take some time to browse the Street View images in some of the little villages on the western coast of Greenland, you will see some stunning images. Greenland is a
harsh climate, yes, but my goodness is it beautiful! You can actually get a “Street View” from a boat that has motored out into the bay near the town of Kangerluk, allowing you to see snowcapped mountains all around. Or, if you go to the town of Qaanaaq, you can plop the little Google Maps guy on the beachfront and look out over a bay of glaciers.
Qaanaaq, by the way, holds the distinction of being the northernmost “major town” in Greenland—a bustling metropolis of 646 people. It is the fifth northernmost “public settlement” in the world. Most of the folks in the
town make their living either through hunting or fishing (narwhals, walruses, seals, etc.), with Qaanaaq being so isolated the people have to use every part of any animal they kill. They also deal with “midnight suns”—that is, twenty-
four hours of sunlight—from the middle of April until the end of August. And their average temperature for the entire year is 16 degrees!
In going down this “rabbit hole,” I kept thinking to myself, “My goodness, this is just a whole other world! It’s beautiful but it seems so unforgiving.” And I sat back and marveled at how different life must be in a place like Qaanaaq. I marveled at the creativity of God, the beauty of everything I saw. But, I felt so disconnected—until…
If you go to Google Maps and you go to Qaanaaq, you’ll see that there’s one supermarket in town. If you click on that supermarket’s name, Google will offer to show you sixteen pictures of the inside of the market. If you do that, you can see what they sell. And would you like to know what hot sauce the Qaanaaq Supermarket sells? The pride of North Carolina—Texas Pete! Y’all, we are far more connected than we could ever imagine. The people of Qaanaaq, Greenland live very different lives from you and me. Yet, the same God created them. The same God loves them. And I hope that the next time you reach for some Texas Pete to spice up your dinner, you’ll remember your brothers and sisters in Qaanaaq and the God that connects us all.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben