"Halfway House on the Rez?"

Mary wrote this back in August. Hope you enjoy. Thanks for keeping up with us!

~Chris



As I think on the close of this summer on the Yakama Reservation I am reminded of someone who stopped by our house one summer day a couple of years ago and said to me, “ Is this a halfway house?”. I actually laughed out loud and said, “ Yes, you could call it that”. Our home is in many ways like a halfway house (and we raise our children here?!). I think even our wonderful summer interns would chuckle at the idea and agree.
A halfway house is a place a person can live under care in order to make a more permanent change in their lifestyle. Addicts can adjust to living clean and sober, criminals can adjust to living free and responsibly. The goal is to help the resident to get to a place of living a healthy, independently functioning life. Our halfway house is one of producing healthy non-independently functioning lives. We have plenty of the independent “American Dream” spirit with Christianity as the cherry on top. Our house on the rez is one where we can learn to be servants, submissive to each other in community and in the Body of Christ. A halfway house is not an easy place to live. It can be a place of sanctification as in I Cor. 9 : 27, “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified”. Francis Schaeffer said, “Don’t just speak the truth, live it!” in addition, he said, “ What we are trying to do is not difficult, it’s impossible!”
And what is our halfway house on the rez like for our reservation family? Our house is one of love and nurturing. It’s a little place in the Yakama homeland where a little less is normal. A little less of comforts, technology, paved roads, and carry–out. This is a place where downed communication lines, flat tires and extreme temperatures are “normal”. What is our house like to our 16 year old "brother", Stephen? He stays with short term teams down the road, and stays with us. When he is “home” at his aunties house, she is his foster mother, he is the stable one while all others drink and steal from each other. Stephen watches his small niece, while all other adults escape from reality in their drunken states. When Stephen has money, he purchases toiletries for himself and necessities for his aunties house. At our house, Stephen rests, he tells us of his frustrations and his dreams. Stephen has hope for a good life on his reservation and hope for the families whose homes he has had the privilege of working on with us. At our house he has 3 sisters and a brother and an adoptive mom and dad. To Stephen, and others like him, our house is a place to stop and pray for burdens and leave them in God’s hands with us. To hear of Jesus’ love and care as we unload our winter firewood or change out broken down cars and vans is normal at our house. Some come because another in the community told them “ the Christians will help you” . Sometimes that help looks like food to go with a search party to the Columbia River, or my Iris’ being cut for a families graves at a memorial time, or a little money for bullets for a hunter who needs to find meat for the next funeral. At our house, we are open to the needs of others and are made more aware of our own need for Jesus through these needs and the people that bring them.
Summer on the rez is one of living and together, not for our own self actualization, but for the good of others. Those others are our brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who the Lord is drawing to Himself. We have many opportunities to see our sin, our lack of love, as we work in and with community in the summer. We repent and preach the Gospel to ourselves and to each other (which should be the most basic and important work of any halfway house). Maybe one of the functions of a halfway house is to teach the residents to function out of weakness. It is in weakness that we listen to anothers‘ story, need, or pain. It is in weakness that we pray with another without presumption and hug the children in the projects of Totus Park and Adam’s View. It is out of our faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ for ourselves that we have faith in the Gospel for the lives of those we meet. Jesus embodied this here on earth (Matt. 12: 18 – 21).
Much of my halfway house life has been one of living Psalm 126:5-6, “ Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” This is part of my sanctification, and what about raising four children on the rez, in this halfway house environment? I believe the best example I can be to my children is that of a life repentant and teachable. This home keeps me in that place. I am not an expert, but a student of life, and of living in light of the Gospel. My children are students with me and they value their faith. We have gained immeasurably as a family from the strengths of the reservation and our friends here. The fortitude to endure hardship, the resourcefulness, and the humor of Indian people have forever changed us and impacted my children. We have learned to be quiet and listen without explaining or justifying. To learn to listen takes a halfway house for some. My children value the lives of others and the Body of Christ more than their own goals. They would not be who they are today unless God had moved me and Chris to this “Halfway House on the Rez” .