Dear
Friends and Family,
A
belated Merry Christmas and Happy New year to everyone! I hope the season treated
you well. Here on the Rez, Christmas is one of our busiest times of year. In December,
our days are filled with outreach, a specific example of this is our trips to other
reservations and native towns. Once we get there, we throw Christmas parties
where we tell the story of Christ being born and give out presents. These
locations rarely have healthy churches and, in some cases, only vaguely know
who we are. But they quickly realize that we are a different breed of people. At
one of the parties, a kid quietly sat next to me before our Bible story time.
He slowly leaned over towards me and whispered, “are you the church people?” Of
course, I was happy to tell him that I was. His response was nothing short of absolute
glee. He told me about how he loved the church people and how he loved hearing
about stories from the bible.
My
favorite part of these trips was seeing the expression on the children’s faces
when they got to open their gifts. I’m sure many are familiar with Operation
Christmas Child, but for those that aren’t, the gifts we used were shoe boxes
donated from churches around the country. Back home in Florida, I’ve spent many
Decembers packing similar boxes but for the first time I got to see firsthand
the joy that a simple gift can bring. If you participated in these shoe boxes,
whether they came here or went to other children in need, I want to thank you
from the bottom of my heart. You made a difference.
Another
important aspect of this past season was that it was the end of 2018. This
meant that we threw multiple end of the year parties with our youth group, discipleship
groups, and YoungLife. We even held a special Christmas service at our church.
We had a live action nativity scene acted out by our very own kids. The
Nativity story itself was read by one of our young native leaders who came home
on break from Indian Bible College. According to what I’ve heard, it was one of
the biggest turnouts we’ve ever had. In large part, that was due to the main
portion of our ministry in December, Christmas deliveries.
Christmas deliveries are an all hands-on deck
operation to go give presents to any kids we’ve interacted with throughout the
year or even before then. We load up buses and vans full of presents for children,
teens, and adults. Driving all over the Yakama reservation, we go to the homes
of each family. Over 400 Christmas presents were delivered. The greatest part
about this activity is that we get to see kids that we haven’t seen in
months. Many of the kids that we meet over the summer, for various reasons, don’t
come to church once the summer ends. Meaning after August we don’t get to see
many of the kids that stole our heart. There were countless houses I went to
where the children were shocked to realize I remembered them. Not only that,
but I brought presents with each of their individual names on them! It was a
wonderful way to bring joy to these children. Some of them even waited to open
their presents until Christmas day. More than likely because they wouldn’t be getting
much else. I was honored to participate and see this aspect of the ministry.
Prayers:
Please
pray for the homes that don’t have adequate heat. So far, we’ve had a surprisingly
warm winter, but hard freezing temperatures loom and with them bring unique
challenges for the families.
Please
pray for the ministry as we jump back into our normal schedule. This includes
Church services, D-groups, youth group, YoungLife, going to the school to have
lunch with the kids, etc.
Finally,
I ask a personal prayer. This marks the over halfway point of my internship. My
thoughts turn to what it would mean to leave this community that I have fallen
even deeper in love with. I’m currently wrestling with where the Lord is
calling me and if He is in fact calling me here fulltime. Please pray for His guidance
through this decision making.
Thank
you to each and every one of you for how you’ve helped support the ministry here.
Whether it’s with giving, prayers, or both. I hope God is blessing you as He is
so overwhelmingly blessing me.
Your brother in
Christ,
Trey
