Dear Friends,
Today I want to share Wade’s story.
What I Did this Summer
Wade (a
college junior who attends our church when he’s home) had an amazing summer. He
joined On Eagle’s Wings (Ron
Hutchcraft Ministries https://www.hutchcraft.com/on-eagles-wings/oew-news/).
First he
attended a Warrior Leadership Summit in MO, which brought together Christian
young people from numerous tribes who had historically fought each other.
Then
they fanned out in groups to various reservations to mingle and communicate
with other Native people.
His group
was assigned to go to Mass., New York, Maine, Canada, and some other Eastern
areas where the First Nations people originally had contact with the colonists.
Wade shared that over the last 500 years,
these people have lost their culture and their language. There is no community
of Christians on the Rez because they generally associate Christianity with the
political agenda of the colonists. In fact, if one becomes a Christian, he is
rejected because his family says, “You gave up to the white man.”
Wade
continued, “They are religious/spiritual people who generally subscribe to some
form of religion. Four hundred years ago, a man introduced the “Longhouse
Religion” with its three main admonitions: Don’t drink, don’t gamble, and don’t
read the Bible. Ironically, they have a Jesus, but he is not the Jesus of the
Bible.”
Wade said,
“So, we talked to these people and told them our Hope stories. Our Hope stories
are our way of telling our testimony in a way that our people will
understand. Amazing things started happening. The people were shocked
that God had sent their own people to them. They started understanding that
they could have a deeper identity in Christ. Stony hearts were turned to flesh
before our eyes. Men stopped complaining about their loss of land. They
realized that the Creator gave them their land and the people in their lives.
Because Jesus took the responsibility for their sins, they started seeing that
they needed to take responsibility for their lives and their families.
“We have to
have a vision larger than regaining our language and our land. We have a big
God and a Gospel that has answers for us personally and answers for the painful
problems on our Reservations. There is a growing hostility against religious
freedom that affects us all – not just white Americans. God can take a broken
people and give them a torch to help the whole nation find their way.”
----------------
What a
powerful, encouraging testimony for us this Sunday morning! We know there
are only two kinds of children in the world: those who are on their way to
heaven and those who aren’t. The parents of the children at Hilltop Christian
School have given us permission to train their children spiritually as well as
academically. As Wade commented,
white missionaries can’t say some of the things that need to be said to the
Navajo Nation. But the Children of the Light can reach their own families and
their own people.
Please pray for
the Navajo Nation Christian Leadership
Summit this coming Friday and Saturday. Christian leaders from all
parts of the Navajo nation (HCS is planning to serve lunch for 300) will be
gathering together on the WIM/Hilltop campus to pray and strategize for more
effective ministry to the Navajo Nation. Pray for all the details to be
worked out. Pray for unity and that the Christian leaders can effectively
rally the church to catch the vision of the Navajo Nation becoming a torch for
the country.
Blessings and
love
Blog: https://everettnavajo.blogspot.com
Support: Western Indian Ministries: http://www.westernindian.org/donate2/
P.O. Box 9090, Window Rock, AZ 86515
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