Hello Everyone!
I'm home! Thank-you for all of your prayers and support! It is good to be back home, but I feel as though I left a piece of my heart on the Yakama Indian Reservation.
There are pages and pages of stories I could share about what is happening at Sacred Road, so I'll just share a few of the highlights from this summer:
The Huckleberry Feast
The Huckleberry is one of the traditional foods of the Yakama people. Each year, when the huckleberries are first ripe, there is a huge feast to commemorate the beginning of the huckleberry season. It is a happy time for the whole community to get together and celebrate their culture together. This year, the feast fell on a day when we had a team of people from Seattle. At first, we were not going to go (we didn't want to overwhelm the community by bringing 50 white people to their traditional feast!). However, one of the tribal leaders invited the whole team to come! It ended up being a special time of the Native Americans in the community sharing some of the beauty of their culture with us. At the end of the feast, the elders asked for the whole Sacred Road team to come up to the front of the longhouse. Then, several people whose houses we had worked on came up and thanked us for the work that Sacred Road has been doing on the reservation. A handful of the people walked through our group and shook each persons hand—which is a very Native American way of welcoming someone. It was a humbling and honoring experience to be so welcomed and accepted by the Yakama people.
Story time at Kid's Club
I was the story teller at Adam's View, one of the tribal housing projects where we did a Kid's Club in the afternoons. Many of the children call Kid's Club “church,” and for quite a few of them it is the only exposure they have to the Gospel. There were many sweet times of seeing the kids starting to understand the gospel, but one stands out in particular. Over the summer, we had different themes for each week learning about God's roles in our lives. The first week, we learned about how God is our father. There is one girl who always came to Kids Club, Jenny, who has a particularly rough home life—especially in regards to her dad. She is 10 years old, but she acts much older. Often, during story time she would act like she wasn't listening and try to cause distractions so I wasn't sure how much she was hearing from the lessons. One day near the end of the summer I asked the kids “What are some things that we've learned about God this summer?” and Jenny shot her hand in the air and shouted “God is our daddy!” I nearly fell over with surprise. Seeing glimpses of children understanding the gospel was indescribably beautiful.
Camp High Rock
In the middle of the summer, Sacred Road partnered with three other churches to put on a week long camp in the mountains for the kids of the reservation—including many of the kids who lived in the housing projects where we did Kid's Club. We had about 50 kids who came and spent a week with us out in a camp ground in the mountains. Some of the Sacred Road interns got to be counselors! I was a counselor in a cabin with four 6-10 year old girls. Two of the girls in my cabin live in Adam's View, so I got to continue my relationship with them throughout the summer. The whole week was a blast and there are many stories I could share, but basically it was wonderful to see the kids in a place where they were well-taken care of and safe for a week. One night, I was the speaker for the evening chapel service. I explained the great news of the love God has for us that he sent Jesus bring us freedom from sin. While sharing, I was struck with how incredible it is that no matter who we are or where we come from, our only hope is in Jesus, and He is a hope that never fails!
The Granberry Family
Chris and Mary Granberry are the missionaries who started Sacred Road Ministries. They and their four children have been living on the reservation for seven years now. I learned a tremendous amount from the whole family. As a family, they have sacrificed many things in order to love and live with our Native American neighbors. Many mornings Mary and the girl interns would have devotions together and each time it amazed me to see the heart that Mary has for the Yakama people and her commitment to loving them well. It was an honor to contend for the gospel alongside the Granberry family for another summer.
Tuesday Nights
Every Tuesday night Sacred Road does a Bible study that is the seed for the church plant—Hope Fellowship. It has been exciting to see the growth that has been occurring in Sacred Road over the past year. There are now five full-time staff members at Sacred Road and another family—Chuck and Neena Clevenger and their two children—have moved to the reservation. Chuck is the youth minister on Tuesday nights. As Sacred Road has been growing, so has their ministry to the Yakama people. There was one Tuesday night near the end of the summer when 60 people from the community showed up for Bible study!
Another exciting part of Tuesday night is thinking about what a Native American church looks like. Native American culture has a uniquely different perspective on life than most of us have, which will of course affect the way a church will function. There are have been quite a few people in the community who have become Christians and who are now wrestling with what it means to be both Native American and a Christian. One thing that I thought about quite a bit this summer was how much I need to listen to my brothers and sisters from different cultures because my American perspective misses things that people from other cultures see. I am looking forward to seeing how God guides this Native American church in the future!
I could keep going for pages, but this update is already too long :) If you would like to hear more stories I would love to share them. Thank-you to all of you who supported me and prayed for Sacred Road this summer. There were a number of times this summer that I felt as though the only thing holding us up was the power of God through the prayers of his people. Thank-you!
God bless!
Sadie
