OFF AND RUNNING

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."   

-Jeremiah 29:11 

We are off and running for another great year at Flandreau Indian School. Students returned last Wednesday and school began the very next day. I recognize a lot of faces but there are a lot of new ones as well. I’m really looking forward to getting to know new kids!

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what has changed but things seem different this year. Maybe I’m reading more into it than there is, but it seems like students came back ready to learn! A lot more reserved than last year—there are even kids carrying books around with them! I don’t know if the fact that we started a few weeks later meant that kids were getting a little impatient waiting for school to start or if it’s something else. Maybe it’s just the new DNA of new students on campus.

We kicked off our chapel worship schedule for the year this past Sunday for the 2011-12 school year. We had 23 students come out for our first week! There were more students than we had any Sunday last year—nearly 10% of the student population.  We are off to an amazing start!

In chapel we talked about allowing God to show us something new this year. Sometimes we have expectations for certain outcomes or expectations of how we think situations might turn out but we end up in a completely different place than we thought we were headed.  We have hopes and desires but sometimes God knows better and leads us in a different direction. What’s important is not to be mad at God for bringing us to a different place or situation but to be open to what He is trying to teach us.

Who’d have thought just a little over a year ago that we would be in South Dakota working with such amazing teenagers? I certainly had no idea that places or ministry like this still existed in the United States and yet God knew exactly where we needed to be to have the greatest impact for Him.

I am excited for what God has in store for us this year!

Happy Anniversary!

Neighbor's garage

This week we celebrated an anniversary as a family. A year ago Kristen and I first visited our new town of Flandreau, South Dakota to see where exactly it was we were considering taking over the Chaplaincy ministry at the Flandreau Indian School. We immediately fell in love with this place we now call home with its rolling farmland, small town charm and close knit community. Everyone kind of chuckled that were moving from the warm temperatures of Florida to a bit harsher climate in the upper Midwest.

Getting cleaned up

Flandreau’s greatest challenge this year, though, didn’t turn out to be the cold and snowy winter but a storm that hit while we were away this summer. A thunderstorm/tornado came through on July 2 that downed trees and knocked out power for a few days. The tree loss at the Indian School alone was estimated at 50-75 trees. There hasn’t been a storm like this to hit this town in quite a number of years. No loss of life or injury was reported. Generally, trees that came down did not cause widespread homelessness or catastrophic loss as these storms can sometimes bring.

What's left of another garage

Part of the charm of this area though is the community’s willingness to help one another out. While the town looks much different than it did a year ago, the spirit of community that first attracted us to this area is still very evident in how they react to a crisis. Neighbors have helped out neighbors and life has quickly returned to enjoying summer even as the cleanup continues.

A Quick Trip North

Canada at sunset

Kristen and I made a quick trip to North Dakota and Canada yesterday. We agreed to return a family who was having a tough time making it in Sioux Falls back to their reservation in north central North Dakota. We hadn’t really been this far north yet since we've lived here and it was a great opportunity for us to be able to visit some students from the Indian School at their home and to see firsthand one of the areas that the students are coming from.

The incredible remoteness and vastness of this area is amazing and a little hard to describe. Growing up in the northeast and then living in a city in Florida, it’s easy to forget that there are still places in the country that have not been developed to the point of overpopulation. North Dakota certainly is one of those places that has wide open spaces and miles and miles of farmland and unspoiled landscape. The countryside at this time of year is beautiful and lush. I can’t say that I would have appreciated its beauty so much had it been January when temperatures can drop to 50 below zero up in this part of the country.

Moose munching on breakfast

I am in awe of how the Chaplaincy position can be so far reaching. God is still showing me the potential of how I can be an instrument in reaching others for Him.  This trip came about because I had come into contact with the mother of several of my students at Flandreau Indian School. Due to a medical crisis with one of her daughters and her newborn grandbaby, we have been able to spend some time with her in the last few months in person and on the phone and she’s gotten comfortable in asking us to help her out when she needs it.

It’s rare for me to become involved with families because our school is a boarding school setting. The students live at our facility during the school year and the school is responsible for transporting them in and out. This was a unique opportunity to get to know more members of this family and to be able to minister to them and meet physical needs.

North Dakota Countryside

ALL IN THE FAMILY

We’ve had the opportunity to get caught up with family for the last couple of weeks as we’ve headed east to share the ministry of the Chaplaincy program. There has been a great response to our ministry and we have already been able to meet many new friends along the way.

During our visit there was a family crisis that we weren't expecting but it was a reminder to me about the bond and power of family. We were able to rally together as a family, sharing some of the burden and offering emotional support to each other. We laughed together, cried together, prayed for one another, talked and visited with each other. It was a deep time of sharing that I can’t remember ever having done in such a short visit. The timing was extraordinary in that we were all available for one another.

As I continue to meet with people on my summer travels I am struck by having that feeling of having met someone before even if I haven’t before. My wife and I call it that “Spirit connection,” being connected through our love of Christ and in following His direction. It's a recognition of Christ who lives within us and is not limited by age, gender or denomination.

One of the beauties of the Chaplaincy program is that it is supported by the family of God. It is not dependent on any one denomination but by a network of believers who see the potential for reaching American Indian students with the love of Christ. There are few ministries that strike a chord in people’s hearts so interdenominationally.

This week I have visited with Baptists, Reformists, Methodists and Lutherans. We are also supported by many others. It is truly the body of Christ coming together for a common purpose and it is a joy to serve the students and staff at Flandreau Indian School on behalf of those supporters and in the name of the One who has sent me.

I’ll keep updating as we go. I’ve been to New Jersey in the first week and a half of travel. Then back to South Dakota for some denominational meetings this past week. I return to Pennsylvania tonight and head south through DC and the Outer Banks of North Carolina before arriving in Florida by the end of the month to renew some relationships there. 

Strangely Quiet

It’s a really strange feeling to wake up this morning and know I won’t see any FIS students today. We ‘graduated’ the seniors yesterday and then sent all of the students home for the summer. No more kids dropping by in the afternoon to check Facebook in my office or calls for me to pick up a Subway or stopping by my office to get candy. Weird.

I wouldn’t have believed how quickly I could fall for a group of students. There are so many tender souls lying just beneath the surface of tough exteriors and as I have dug in just a little, I’ve gotten to hear enormous stories of disillusionment, abandonment, alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual abuse and relationship infidelity among others. It’s not like I haven’t heard any of these issues before in youth ministry because I have.

I think the big difference between ‘American’ culture and the Indian culture is total disclosure. Non-Native kids have the same problems generally as Indians but pretend that they don’t. We don’t talk about the junk in our lives and pretend that issues aren’t going on even though they clearly are. A left-over “don’t ask-don’t tell” mentality from the Clinton era perhaps? I’m not sure. Maybe we just don’t discuss such things in “polite company.”

I have found with Native teenagers that they are much more open with their issues. They are not afraid to admit that they have an addiction or drug problem or about disclosing some of the situations that got them to that point. Last week after chapel was over, I had another one of those candid moments where kids just sat around talking about home life. They freely admitted that it is not unusual for the family to sit around getting high together or drinking until everyone has blacked out.

One of the hardest things for me to do this year has been not to see things only from my perspective but to consider cultural perspective as well. I have had to get out of that “polite company” sort of thinking because there are real issues going on here and I’m hearing about them. While I don’t condone kids getting high or wasted, it is a real challenge to counsel students about making bad decisions regarding substance abuse when that is so culturally rampant among their family groups. They simply have never known anything different.

Having said all of that, I think these kids have seen the negative consequences that these types of behaviors have brought on their families and long for someone to offer them something greater. I truly believe that they all desire something greater for themselves beyond getting wasted every day and being held back by limited reservation opportunities. They want more for themselves.

They may never admit that openly because, again, it’s not culturally acceptable for them. Yesterday at graduation I saw it in the pride of accomplishment and the self-worth that came with receiving a diploma. For some of them, it had taken years to get there and they were among the few in their families to have achieved that honor. Some will go on to college, unheard of in many of their families.

I’m an optimist. I pray that one life a t a time I can have an influence and make a difference by letting kids know there is so much more out there for them if they’ll chase after it.

ON THE ROAD

We’re just finishing out our first academic year at Flandreau Indian School. It is unbelievable that we have made it through our first winter in South Dakota (happily) and are witnessing our first crop of seniors graduating this week.

It’s exciting to hear about plans and for kids to begin to realize that there can be a future if they are willing to pursue it. There are so many opportunities available for Native Americans if they’re willing to check into them. Scholarships, financing and special programs are accessible at nearly any college that an Indian student could possibly be interested in. Hopefully, many realize their full potential and don't settle for life on the reservation that yields little opportunity for the longterm.

So you might ask. “What now? What are you doing all summer now that the students have all left?” We’re hitting the road visiting as many supporters as possible, educating about the Indian School and sharing our experiences with serving Indian students over the last eight months.

We will leave South Dakota on May 26 and head for the east coast where we hope to catch up with many old friends in the Hunterdon County, New Jersey area. I will return to South Dakota to attend the South Dakota Methodist Annual Methodist Conference on June 8 & 9 then will travel south to Sioux Falls to take part in the South Dakota Synod Assembly of the Lutheran Church on June 10 & 11. Back to New Jersey after that and we’ll head down the east coast visiting friends and making new relationships along the way.

We’ll eventually end up in Florida by the end of June where we have many previous connections from the last six years. We hope to be back in South Dakota by mid-July in time for the Flandreau Pow-wow.

Keep an eye out for us and if you’d like to get together with us please contact us. The support we received over the last year has been tremendous and we look forward to meeting up with many of you over the next couple of months.

Pebble In Our Shoe

Sometimes we cannot recognize our blessings because we are dwelling on the "pebble in our shoe" 

That was the statement I presented to my chapel students last Sunday asking them what they thought it meant. We were discussing gratitude and how we fail to experience the blessing because we’re so focused on the present instead of the larger picture.  They didn’t even hesitate to give an answer.

One answered and the others quickly agreed that Native Americans as a people cannot get past the fact that the white man took their lands. The government has since provided them with housing and food, places to live, education—you name it, it has been provided to them but ultimately it just returns to that one excuse of “Yeah but they stole our lands.”

It was really eye opening to me that this is still such a raw, open wound; so many generations later it has been handed down to the next age group that this is a wound that shouldn’t be allowed to heal. There wasn’t even any hesitation trying to think of an answer to this statement. I don’t know if it was really keen insight or if this is truly what all Indians are taught and believe.

By holding onto the past the Indians fail to recognize all that has been provided to them in order to move ahead as a people. By failing to forgive they are locking themselves in a place where hope is limited and opportunities are squandered.

I continually am telling kids that as Native Americans they have so many opportunities that they don’t even realize. One of the students was really stressing that her ACT scores weren’t high enough to get into the college she wanted. She was saying “My mom doesn’t even make $15,000 a year. How can I afford to go to college?” I looked at her and said, “You’re Native, your mom’s at the poverty level and you’re smart! Where do you want to go?” Talk about  getting every box checked for acceptance.

Continue to pray that the I, along with the rest of the staff of Flandreau Indian School, can influence kids to know that there are so many more opportunities beyond the reservation that do not include drinking and smoking away the rest of their lives. There are so many bright possibilities and God wants these lives to realize their full potential.