Revealing Grace

Here on the White Mountain Apache reservation the traditions of the old days are scarce, yet a few staples of the traditional society and religion still remain. One of these staples is the Sunrise Dance. This is an intricate ceremony for a girl when she matures and becomes a woman. The ceremony takes a week of preparation as the family camps out, cooks a lot of food, and prepares all of the special pieces for the actual dance. This week I have had the opportunity to be involved with a Sunrise Dance, a special chance to see what the tradition is all about and learn about this cultural activity. The Sunrise Dance is actually debated as to whether or not it is beneficial, but whatever my beliefs are on it, it is still an awesome chance to be involved since, lets face it, I am a tall white girl. So yesterday I went with my Apache family down to the campsite to help out, seeing as it is a relative of the family having the dance and all extended family are expected to contribute. (Here I ...

Things I love about the rez and my weekend: 1. The names of subdivisions. Shall I name a few? Dark Shadows, Lifesaver, Corn on the Cob, 7 up, 7 mile, Chinatown, Over the Rainbow, Another World, A Step Beyond...the list goes on. I just love it when I ask a kid where they live and they say, I live in another world. It gets me every time! 2. Rodeo Pageants. I went to a pageant today, but here it worked a little differently than I expected. The girls were all decked out in their Western outfits, complete with cowgirl hats and spurs, and the horses were plenty! In a rodeo pageant the girls ride their horses around the arena in a certain pattern, and our friend Raina won rodeo queen! We were quite proud of her. The crown is so cool because it fits onto their cowgirl hat! It was such a fun experience and I loved getting to be a part of the culture here. It also really made me want to ride a horse and get a sweet pair of cowgirl boots... 3. My rez family. I live with a family that is Ap...

Corn grown on the Hopi reservation. So beautiful!  It has been a good week, but isn't every week a good week when you live in a gorgeous place and are surrounded by wonderful people? It most definitely should be. This week I got to visit another reservation and I was actually astounded by the differences there. The Hopi reservation is in the middle of the desert, on top of a mesa, and many of the homes are made from stones and clay. The poverty is quite apparent and here Christianity is not accepted willingly. The traditional religion is strong, as are the traditional crafts and arts. We met a corn farmer and just as an example, he wanted the visiting group to walk on his cornfield so that the corn would sense that something good was coming and grow well. The cooks of the traditional Hopi meal we got to eat told me to never cook angry, that it would make my food taste bad. I was to always cook with a smile so the love would go down my arms and into my food.  Let's admi...

Tonight I am frustrated. Not in a way that will last for more than an hour, because, lets face it, I can't stay any negative emotion for too long, but just in a way that is normal for normal people, which I am...normal that is. At any rate, I have a lot of good things going in my life right now but sometimes things come along with just make those things fall to the back and the dumb things come forward. Probably a tactic of Satan, he is a tricky one. So tonight I plopped onto my little mattress on the floor and I opened my Bible. Let's be clear here: this is not always what I do when I get frustrated. Just because I opened my bible in this instance does not mean I do it all the time (see my normalcy emerging?). But I wish I did, because the Bible is how the Holy Spirit can speak into our lives in moments like this. The Bible is the water that quenches our thirst and the food that sustains are soul. Without it I get a lot more frustrated, so tonight when I was pouting and I h...

What a blessed day yesterday was! Shall I share a few pictures to exemplify? I started my day with these cuties, my team for our basketball camp. My favorite conversation of the morning: "Malachi, a gentleman always gives up his seat for a lady." "Well I am a different kind of gentleman, I am a sentleman.....a selfish gentleman!"  Next in my day came this joyful moment! I got to see my dear friend Koral for the first time in two years, hold her amazing baby, and be reunited with two of my roommates and best friends from Spain. Amazing moment? I would say so!  Then I came home to the reservation where I live after a rainstorm. Amazing, right? So to recap, I spent the morning with amazing kids from the rez, drove through beautiful countryside to see my friend Koral (and Cassie) who lives in CHICAGO and hold the baby I have been longing to see since the day he was born, then came back to the rez to rain, worship, and an awesome last night wit...

It has been a busy week here on the WMA reservation. This week we are holding the annual Hoops on the Rez camp. This basketball camp has been happening every summer for eight years and some of the coaches have been coming here every summer since it started! The days are long (starting at 7:30am and ending at 9:30pm) but it is a spectacular time. It is so cool to see the elementary students engaged and listening, responding to love and encouragement. And it is so awesome to hear about how some of our Junior High and High School students have been coming ever since they were in elementary school! It is a true testament to how a short term trip can have a lasting impact. One of the great ways God has provided has been in bringing students to the camp. The day before it started I had 80 kids registered. This week we have had over 150 kids! What a blessing to get to pour into them through something they love. Now, lets be honest, if you know me you know my basketball skills are pretty ...

It has been a good weekend here on the rez. God has a funny way of taking the hardest weeks and ending them with the greatest joys. Its a great reminder that He is always in control, even when things get tough. We started the weekend with an awesome collaborative project with a church from Southern California. We started with a blank wall of the Kennel and ended with this: Basically the kids were given the chance to express themselves through art and my students chose the theme "love." It was awesome to see their representations of love through painting, their love for Christ and their fellow students that will come to the Kennel, as well as the love that was able to bring together students from SoCal and students from the rez. Let's just say that after I spent the morning crying out for God to show His love in this place I think He put the writing on the wall.  I also took three of my students to see the movie Brave up in town this weekend. It was an awesome ...

I feel like in the past couple of weeks I have often come to this blog with a heavy heart. Some may say I need a tougher outer layer but the fact of the matter is, I wasn’t made that way. I was made soft. I was made with a heart that takes the pain and hurt of others and cradles it tightly to my chest, wrapping it tighter and tighter into my being until it is a part of me. Maybe I should change this if I am going to be in ministry but this is who I am. I can’t change my empathy and I trust that God knew what He was doing when He made me this way. Some of you may remember this post where I told you about one of our students being murdered. The story of why it happened is upsetting and to this day I cannot speak of it without getting emotional.  Christina was only 15 and the men who killed her will most likely never be convicted.  After this happened Christina’s friends went into a downward spiral. They couldn’t deal with the pain so they disappeared from the youth c...

Today I sat outside the local post office manning a table so people could sign up for our Hoops on the Rez camp. AYM does this basketball camp every year and it seems like a pretty big deal. I even mailed a letter at the post office. A real, handwritten, heartfelt letter with a stamp and everything. (I'm singlehandedly trying to bring the art of writing letters back. I'm a big fan. You should probably join the trend.) Sitting there for a few hours I got to experience a lot of what life is like on the rez. By just observing the people walking by I felt that I was getting a better sense of the culture and I was grateful for the "people watching" time, although not all I witnessed was positive. At noon there are already a lot of people who are drunk roaming around and I wondered if they ever stopped drinking at all to be that out of it this early in the day. I started to think of their families, wondering how the drinking affects their kids or their relatives. We did ...

Yesterday I was in Los Angeles celebrating the wedding of one of my dearest friends and best blessings at Fuller. Today I am in Phoenix and tomorrow I will be back at the reservation. I fly a lot in my life and as I was in the air this is what came to my mind. To travel is to truly live. To sit above the ground and see the fields and mountains below is to glimpse just a piece of the world we live in. From this high I look down and I see no pain. The hurt and suffering is obliterated by the clouds and the bigger picture that I can now view. This seems to be just a taste of another perspective, perhaps God's perspective? Flying over the states I am conflicted with feelings of hope and sorrow, but maybe the bigger picture is the beauty that I see from 30,000 feet. It is the beauty of our Savior that covers all the pain and suffering, the sorrow and sickness. He has come to redeem the world, to take away all traces of bad and cover us with beauty. Just as the beauty of His creatio...

When Sarah got the text we admittedly were a little confused and curious. As we drove down the country road past the corn fields and horses we felt slightly giddy with anticipation and hope. We kept wondering,  had these teens really planned an event on their own? Were they bonding even past the retreat?  Sure enough as we pulled up they were all there (minus 2 or 3). My teens who had been on the retreat were all sporting their conference t-shirts and a bunch of snacks bought with their food stamp rations. Uncharacteristically for them, the teens who had gone on the retreat had planned a get together, and Sarah (AYM staff and my roommate) and I were graciously invited. It was the perfect scene. Water balloons were flying, everyone was laughing, people were jumping (or getting thrown) into the river and a smile was plastered on my face like my clothes were plastered to my skin. There were my two girls who had been the most closed off to me at the beginning of last week. They...

I'm back! What a week it has been. I have to say that our God is amazing. 1 week ago I left for Missouri with 12 kids, knowing none of them very well and feeling a little overwhelmed. Today I sit here praising God for His faithfulness for He is fighting for the hearts of my students. I watched this week as each of them broke down, realizing their wrongs, and understanding the truth of God's love for them. I grew in my relationships with these 7 girls to the point where they began to open up to me, telling me of their worries in returning to the reservation and confessing their sins to me, asking me what to do. My heart broke for them but my spirit soared because God was ripping off the layers they tie so tightly around their hearts and bringing them to vulnerability before Him and their peers. God was tangibly in this place as they worked through years of pain and sin. God even spoke into me and brought me to raise my hand during a session with hundreds of native teens to te...