February 23

Dear Friends,

On Monday we took advantage of a Fee Free Day at the National Parks and visited the Petrified Forest, taking along a couple of the single gals that we lovingly call our daughters. Roger and I, being older  more mature, have “adopted” the twenties – thirties  crowd, so we have sons and daughters from WVA, NY, AZ, IA, IL, etc. We are enjoying this new role in our lives.

A couple of our other staff members also blog their thoughts and observations, so I have borrowed from Alice and Gail today. (Gail is also the one who provides us with many of our photos.) We are often surprised by the kids’ questions and the things they do not know--such as: no one in my class knew how to use a three-hole punch, but yet they know a lot about animals and restraining orders and drinking problems.

Alice wrote: "I should mention how this afternoon we went out and fed all the animals on campus... with the girls telling me all about each animal and what they like to eat and how they like to be touched/held. The horse loves carrots and to be brushed, but be careful in the sensitive spots. The horse also doesn't like loud screaming (as two of the girls had to leave the corral for screaming). The goat likes everything and can be pushy. The sheep like bread. The llama doesn't like girls and runs away (but will watch us from afar and won't eat the food we toss toward her before the goat and sheep get it). The chickens like to be held once you catch them (which I'm not totally sold on, but the girls are convinced) and like bread. It's a different kind of world these girls live in.

Gail wrote: This hogan has electricity.  Someone told me out here that sometimes people would put electricity in.  Some Natives live in their hogans with or without electricity.  I read an article today about Navajo getting some free housing.  Someone commented on the article saying, ‘make them get a job and pay for their own house.’ Well, wouldn’t that be awesome if they could!  How does one get a job when he is uneducated?  When the overall graduation rate is around 50%? 

        To get a job one requires a marketable skill.  She has to be able to function in the world.  He would need a car to get to work. There is a book entitled Bridges Out of Poverty that a social worker loaned me.  It was eye-opening because I’d never thought that much about the gaps in society.  One can’t take a third or fourth (or even second) generation welfare recipient, who knows no other way of life and who has no high school diploma, and expect him to function in a world that abides by a different set of rules.  Not only rules but nuances like speech, non-verbal communication, expectations, and priorities…  If I were to be dropped off in Beverly Hills and expected to know how to interact with people there, I could do it to some degree, but right away people would know by my speech, clothing, shoes, and mannerisms that I didn’t belong there.  A worker, even at McDs, has to be able to talk to people.  He has to be able to make eye contact, something I notice the Navajo don’t to a lot of.  It’s a different social expectation.  I hope I make sense to someone.  The old Proverbs says: Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day:  teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime.

Well, friends, we are fishermen who are not only fishing for the Kingdom, but are attempting to teach life skills to our students and maybe do a little mentoring for the younger staff also. Thank you for your consistent prayers.