New Beginnings and Old Flames
Three years since our last trip and 2 years since we’re involved in a mission team, and here we are!
— Yes, we actually had teams ready to go in the summer of 2020.
In fact, it was going to be the most teams we ever send in any given year — not counting smaller teams supporting Women’s Conferences, and Celebrate Recovery.
After constantly sending four teams the years prior, and five in 2019 with the breakthrough to the Hopi reservation, we were supposed to send 6 teams for the first time ever.
Five of the planned sites were a repeat of 2019 teams: Dilkon (Navajo) and Kykotsmovi (Hopi) in Arizona, as well as Huerfano, Sanostee, and Fruitland, — all in the New Mexico side of the Navajo Nation — and .... a site we last served in 2016... Shiprock.
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The Town of Shiprock Tsé Bitʼaʼí Shopping Center — A shopping mall, with a grocery store, fastfood restaurants, rugs/craft shops gas station, and many more. Back in 2016, the parking lot right behind Sonic was the first meeting point on my first trip to Navajo Nation. |
Shiprock is a site with a mission accomplished status, and has set a benchmark for other sites. One of the most celebrated stories from our Native American initiatives.
Well, let me share the story with you . . .
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The story begins around 2007 when we were part of a team helping at a halfway-house in the Shiprock area. The work continues in 2008, and over the next few years we continued to build relationships as we helped them put together community events, teach drama skills to aid their passion play presentation, and trained volunteers for handyman projects.
It took years to build relationships and trust. By early 2013 a pastor called us and asked if we would partner with his church to provide a basketball and craft camp to attract the youth. The camp drew 75 to 100 children and their families a day.
The following year, a man who brought his children to the camp said it was obvious we were there to help the Navajo community and being there was not about us. As the year progressed he told others about what we do and ultimately a small committee of volunteers from several different churches worked with us to put together a Sports and Crafts Camp in the summer of 2015.
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| The Rock known as Shiprock Known as Tsé Bitʼaʼí in Navajo, meaning "Winged Rock" — the town nearby is named after this rock formation. |
The Churches strived to work together to reach the community. Over 100 children attended daily and the churches decided to continue working together on events throughout the year: feeding about 200 families at Thanksgiving, presenting a live Nativity at Christmas (a first in their community), a coat drive for kids, holding a community Easter service and distributing clothing to those in need.
Seeing how that community and church members working inter-denominationally partnering with local residents and businesses for an event that drew over 700 children during the week, all run by volunteers, we knew it was time for us to move on to help other communities learn to reach their residents. So, we declared a mission accomplished after our trip in 2016 (yup! I was part of that team. That was my first trip ever).
By 2019, basketball camp grew to be a sports camp of more than six sports, field trips, daily safety presentations and motivational speakers. Local Navajo teenagers who had attended some of our previous camps took lead on sport camps.
Navajo Church partners gathered donations from local businesses including backpacks, school supplies, sports equipment, free haircuts and much more. They also managed to link the camp with a government program at the local school to feed the children breakfast and lunch every day.
The group now has businesses, local government officials, local school leaders, and other churches asking to be involved in the annual event. The Navajo people did more than we could ever have dreamed. They took ownership and expanded the outreach to involve more in the community.
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Though we let them fly on their own while expanding our wings to other communities, our partnership with our Shiprock friends stay intact. We stayed in touch from time to time, exchanging ideas, expanding networks, and sharing our stories. As we’re getting ready for 2020 season, one conversation after another, one thing leads to another, and we ended up rekindling an old flame.
Although this time, we won’t be helping in the sports and crafts camp as we did in the years prior. Instead, we will provide training in worship and live production, drama/performing arts, photography, arts, and organizing community events. Some of the stuffs we did in the past in a much smaller scale before we were focusing on sports and crafts. It has come to a full circle.
And I was part of that team.
For once, I was excited to return to a previous site. Actually.... sites!
I was supposed to be part of the K-Team (Kykotsmovi) as well as Shiprock Team in 2020. It was also supposed to be my first time going on 2 trips in the same year.
Two different sites, two tribes (Navajo and Hopi), 2 different months (one in June, the other in July — these trips were supposed to be three weeks apart), 2 different set of roles, 2 different camps, one same mission.
Of course as we all know....
... (long sigh)...
twent’y-twent’y happens!
We were in the midst of trainings when the whole world shuts down halfway thru March 2020.
(moment of silence)
...
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The next couple of years, our Native American initiative didn’t stop, and we stayed in touch with our partners in various sites throughout the reservation, and work in whatever capacity we can. Though limited due to the situation, we managed to work through online interaction and other means.
We did virtual tours, online fun courses for the kids, online kids choir, and the likes. Our church also send many kind of necessities such as rice, coffee, and many other grocery items, as well as school supplies to the reservation. And of course, masks and sanitizers. The truck driver who was hired to deliver these supplies, had no idea at first what he was going to deliver. Later on when he found out, he reached out to our leaders said that he felt honored to be able to partake in this project. He thought he was doing his day job, but felt touched by all the people he met while doing that — all the volunteers he saw working here in OC, as well as those in the rez.
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I’m grateful that we’re now able to travel again and work hand-in-hand with our partners in and near the Rez, serving the communities all over the Native Nations.
Onto 2022 and beyond, cheers!
