A Forgotten Nation

I’ve now been on the Yakama Nation Reservation for seven incredible months. The months following summer have been a conglomeration of blessings and trials. I often times want to write down everything that I’m seeing but when I actually have the time to write an update, I find that my words fall short and I can’t grasp the most rudimentary parts of my stay here. So as such I normally focus on what’s easier to express or share. Its why I use jokes that kids make about me to remind people I’m still here or post pictures of events to show snapshots of my day. I do this because those are substantially easier to relate to and quicker to explain then trying to spit out what feels like a lifetime’s worth of lessons that I’m only just beginning to scratch the surface of while here. There have been whole books written on the relationships between Native Americans and the church, on what poverty culture looks like, or what life on a reservation would look like. So, to summarizing ideas that took whole books to capture is no small feat. A parent of a team member once said that in his child’s week here he grew a year spiritually. I often wonder how much more God will grow me through a year here. As such growing comes with growing pains and is not all picking daisies and frolicking on the beach. This serves as a warning, this will not be one of those happy, whimsical updates I normally do. For my benefit and for that of my supporters I want to give an update that I avoid giving, an update of the good and the bad here on the rez.

 There are things that I’ve learned in the fall here that I never could’ve learned through my summer experience. For one the staff here doesn’t have a “down time”. Summer ends, staff take a quick few days off, catch their breath, and continue trucking through their ministry responsibilities. One of my most joy filled responsibilities that I’ve taken on while being here is to go to school lunches. Which means I get to go to high school, middle school, and elementary lunches. Its so entertaining to see kids/teens light up when you walk into their lunchroom. Frequently, pestering me with the question of “why are you here?!”. The answer that I normally give goes like “to see you guys of course” or “because I wanted to hang out with you”. They never really accept these answers even though I’ve been coming to their school for almost three months now. This playful response marks a much darker, underlying problem that I’ve seen repeatedly throughout my time here. The reason their so shocked by a strange bearded, white guy coming to their school is because so many of them aren’t valued or cared for by adults in their life. When you’ve been told countless times by your caregiver that your good for nothing or your left at home with all your younger siblings by your caregiver who wants to go out and drink, why would you think you’re worth anything? When you live in a broken down shed in someone’s back yard without food, how are you going to get algebra homework done? When your parents decide that they don’t want you at the house and kick you out at fourteen to find shelter on your own, how are you going to feel? When you live in a crack house with your younger sister, how do you think past living today. These aren’t instances that I’m making up from stories I’ve heard second hand. These are kids, real kids that I’ve spent time with. Teenagers that I’ve driven to youth group on Tuesdays or sat next to at YoungLife meetings. I can’t begin to tell you how many angry drive homes I’ve had since working here. To see injustice so blatant, so irrefutably and unmistakably wrong. To hug a little girl one day and have her shipped away by child protective services the next. People here go through hell, so when a random guy shows up at your school to sit next to you to eat an undercooked, lunch cafeteria hot dog, you wonder what he’s peddling. The funniest and saddest question I’ve gotten while here was asked at one of these school lunches. When I told them I moved here from Florida their response was a single word, “why…..why would you ever choose to move to White Swan”. They were so shocked that anyone would move to the center of their living nightmare.

My goal is not to depress or upset you though. There is a duality to the rez that I speak about frequently to those that care to ask me about what it’s like here, brokenness and beauty. An important hardship about working here is to balance these two ideas. It is unhealthy to only focus on the negative brokenness that I listed above. Additionally, it is also unrealistic to focus only on the beauty that is seen in cute pictures or stories I post. This advice is most needed on my part, for when I get sidetracked by the hardships I see. I also try to keep in mind the beautiful things that I’ve seen over the past few months. I’ve seen teens who live in unimaginable situations come to accept Christ. Heard testimony from a young woman who overcame addiction and has become a leader within the church. Seen multiple other youth love on the kids within the church just as they were loved by church staff, interns, and one-week team members over the past fifteen years. I’ve seen God direct situations and circumstances for the better even when I can’t begin to understand what He’s doing. I wrote in the middle of the summer about a group of kids that I had grown attached too. They were left home alone for days without food and most of them were still in diapers. Without warning one day they were evicted from the house they were at and taken by CPS to places unknown to me. I spent months wondering what had happened to them until a month ago when I saw two of them playing outside on a totally different part of the reservation. Furthermore, this week we held our annual Halloween “Trunk or Treat” at church. Imagine my surprise when who should come walking cheerfully down the gravel, but these same children. Native America is the forgotten third world nation in the heart of the United States, but someone hasn’t forgotten them, not for a single second of their existence. I daily need to remind myself that God loves the community here infinitely more and better than I ever could. I hope you don’t take this as a depressive rant from me even if that’s how it began in my head. God is at work here, doing mighty things even if He must use weak servants like me. He has plans for the rez, plans for Sacred Road, and plans for the future generation that is being brought up here at Hope Fellowship.

I urge you to pray/continue to pray for the ministry here. Please pray for the kids here who are abused and neglected by their birth family. Pray for the teens who are fighting to graduate when they don’t even know where their going to be sleeping tonight. Pray for the group of leaders that God is raising among the youth right now. Pray for the staff who tirelessly serve with humility and hearts full of love. Pray for the spiritual warfare that seems to run rampant throughout the rez. Pray for those who do not have adequate housing, with winter’s arrival hastening on. Pray for those that have yet to hear the gospel here, on other reservations, and in places around the world. Please pray.

Your brother in Christ,

Trey

From Gorblins to Giants

Here we are. The summer has ended and the other 20 or so college aged interns that spent their summer on the Reservation have gone home to start/ get back to the next stage of their lives. This officially begins the next part of my internship. Having now experienced two summers I'm both worried and joyfully optimistic about what the next unknown challenges I'll face in the winter, fall, and spring months. But I'll refrain from going into that very much as I have little information or knowledge about what that may hold. Instead I wish to tell you some about my summer. Mainly focusing on two distinct jobs that I got the pleasure to have. If your looking for a good laugh at my expense from the summer read the last half of my post.

First, I got the absolute honor of leading one of the "kids clubs" that we run at the local parks. This year we had four different kids clubs spread out among two different reservations, one of these is Adam's view park. This park holds a special place in my heart as it is where I went to kids club my very first time on the Rez. Now two years later I was put in the position of leading this outreach. This would consist of me assigning volunteers and interns to different sites at the park such as blowing bubbles with kids or manning the ever popular kick ball station. I additionally held the responsibility of making sure that kids club was safe and secured from any threats. There were many other little ins and outs of this job but my favorite was telling the bible story to the children.

Children would volunteer to be in the story, acting out Sunday school classics like Zaccheus and parting of the red sea. Although many people in the United States culture have had these stories told to them since they were toddlers. Many of these kids hadn't or had only heard about it through prior kid's club stories. So for them to see their family members and friends getting up there and reenacted bible stories, it made it all the more personal for them. Although this sounds (and often times was) adorable, it also provided a unique challenge of telling a story while controlling multiple hyperactive and low attention span kids. In one instance, in the story of Paul and Silas being held in prison. The prison guard used his prop spear as an assault rifle to fire upon the two actors, this was obviously not within the biblical cannon. Nevertheless, this job was one of the greatest privilege I've ever received.

The second job I had was being a leader of the older boys in "Daycamp", which is a VBS like program that we run on the church property. My boys consisted of 3rd to 5th graders that would come learn memory verses, hear biblical stories, craft, do science experiments, and do tons of other fun activities. But this story is not about those excellent days. No, the story I'm going to tell you is about one of the greatest failures and challenges I had as a daycamp leader. On the second day, we received the activity of making a group name, coloring our team flag, and making a chant. This task sounded simple enough. I lined the boys up and started asking for suggestions. Two choices arose, Green Gorillas or Green Goblins. Easy enough, I asked for a show of hands for who wanted which name. Six hands rose for Gorillas and Seven hands rose for Goblins. We had a clear and definite winner, democracy ruled. What I had failed to realize was that one of the "Gorillas" had already written GOR on our flag. They looked at me for guidance on what the next step should be as Goblins is certainly not spelled with an R. I said to simply write around it or cover it with something and moved on to a nearby picnic table where the six gorillas had now gathered and were angrily looking to stage a coup to take power from me. As I approached the ring leader declared "This sucks! Green Goblins is a stupid name and it sucks! There's not even a chant for it. It sucks and Daycamp sucks!!!" I sternly warned him that such talk wasn't allowed at Daycamp and if he didn't want to come back he didn't have to. Goblins had one fair and square, now it was time to write our names across the flag and decorate it. The six gorillas got up one by one and dejectedly went to the flag to write their name...so I thought. Once everyone was seated I felt a light tug on my shirt and looked to find one of the Goblins, upset, whispering something to me. "They wrote sucks on our flag". Apparently some hoodlum had vandalized our flag. Writing sucks underneath every single name and on the main title. The flag now proudly displaying the title of "Green Gorblins Sucks". "Who wrote this?".

 Six hands quickly raise as six green gorillas stared me down defiantly. The rebellion had begun. Now I had seven upset kids on one side and six angry children on the other. Both sides yelling at the other. It was at this point that our director cheerily approached me and asked what our new name was. I told her that now was certainly not the time for such questions and I had an issue to deal with. She then offered me a chance at redemption. A new flag. An untainted, clean slate, that most certainly wouldn't suck. I pulled the boys down and asked them to talk to one another and express why they disliked the other side. The word "sucks" once again rained down like water in Seattle. I now offered them a new chance. Neither goblins nor gorillas would be accepted as names. We had to find a brand new name. For what seemed like hours there was silence till finally one child said "what about Gorgyles?". "What?" I asked deeply confused. "you know gorgyles, those things with wings that stand on old buildings?". "Are you trying to say gargoyles?" YEAH! was the common scream, but the ringleader of the gorillas would have nothing of it. "that name sucks too!" he yelled vehemently. More options came, original home run ideas like the Green bananas, or the green apples, or maybe the green pies? One of the kids was very hungry. Finally one child offered the name of Green Giants. There was a hush over the crowd while they drank in the very thought of such a name. Multiple eyes twinkled with support for this new name. But my eyes were fixed upon the ringleader, what would his thoughts be. His eyes covered underneath his pink and black baseball cap, hiding his emotions until he spoke with infinite 9 year old wisdom "I guess that name doesn't suck". At that moment I felt as though I'd just run a marathon and finished first place. "who votes for green giants then?". Thirteen gleeful little giants raise their hands in support. "Alright well what about our chant?!". After a moment of discussion we came up with "Fee-fi-fo-fum, we're the green giants and here we come". Our challenge had been met just as the director called for all the groups to show off their chants. In the concluding contest we were declared the chant champions. We had gone from Gorblins to might Green Giants.

Dear Friends and family,

            Two years ago, I spent a week on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington state working with a ministry called “Sacred Road” and my life was irrevocably changed. While I was there I saw suffering and poverty on a scale I hadn’t experienced before. Young children raising their younger siblings. Teens homelessly couch surfing to find a roof over their heads. Housing alarmingly similar to that of a third world country, even though it’s a three-hour drive from Seattle. Yet, the most amazing thing I experienced was the love and hope I saw rising from this desolation, the kind of hope that only can be derived from Christ. I saw Christ using Sacred Road Ministries to affect an entire generation even during my simple seven days there. I knew that I needed to come back and be more involved. Consequently, I applied and was accepted for a three month summer internship, one that would have me dive even deeper into the Yakama community. I built relationships with both children and adults throughout the community. I got to see multiple community members profess acceptance of Christ into their hearts. I even received the honor of leading a young group of boys daily at the summer long vacation bible school program, “day camp”. Since returning home I have prayed for an opportunity to spend even more time on the Reservation, that prayer has been answered. I’ve been offered the opportunity to spend 15 months on the reservation.

            During the summer months I will be doing much of the same work I did during my summer internship, working with a group of other interns, and staff (who live on the reservation and minister full time) as we host 300+ people who come on five one week teams to roof, paint, host vacation Bible school for underprivileged children, etc. During the rest of the year I will be working directly with the staff within the different aspects of their ministry. They minister to the people of White Swan through hosting spring and summer teams that engage in mercy ministry, children’s ministry, youth ministry, helping at-risk teenagers, responding to various needs in the community, holding Sunday worship services at their church plant, and, in essence, “loving their neighbors”.

            Hope Fellowship, their church plant, is located within White Swan, a town on the Reservation. In the town of White Swan, nearly 100% of the population is deeply affected by alcoholism and/or drug abuse. The reservation itself is located in one of the poorest areas in the United States.  In White Swan there is approximately a 75% unemployment rate.  Most of the children in White Swan suffer from neglect and abuse. There are no healthy evangelical churches in White Swan.

            I’m writing you to ask you to partner with me in furthering and building God’s kingdom. Specifically, when it comes to prayers, as I will be needing lots of them. I ask you to pray for the Lord to prepare my heart, prepare the heart of the children and adults I’ll be ministering to, and that God will work in ways I can’t even begin to imagine.

            If you would like to financially support me, please go to Sacred Road’s website at www.sacredroadministries.com, go to the “Giving” tab, and choose me as the missionary you would like to support. I will be needing to raise 2,050 dollars for every month I’m on the Reservation. Please prayerfully consider partnering with me. Thank you for considering being apart of my team!

Yours in Christ,

Trey Belisario