Memories of a Forgotten People

This is going to be a long blog so prepare youselves...Yesterday when Rick and Jane McKinney were talking about their walk across America, they spoke a lot about their experiences walking across the desert and encountering a lot of Native Americans. They had a lot of stories that touched my heart, this one in particular I would like to share with you. They had a picture of a momument in New Mexico that was two steel beams and an American Flag in between them. They came across this monument and there was a Native American gentleman standing in the midst of this thing (I believe he was Navajo). When they approached this man there were tears streaming down his face and they proceeded to ask him what was wrong. He said that he was just remembering...you see the two steel beams were from the Twin Towers and when 9/11 happened they rounded up a lot of Native Americans to do the dirty jobs that no one else wanted to do - as in searching for dead bodies and body parts. This man was a part of that mission and happened to be paying his resepects at this particular monument. Rick and Jane proceeded to share the Gospel with him and he was greatly moved. This is a big accomplishment b/c Native Americans are generally not receptive to White Christians. They went on to ask if there was anything else they can do and he went on to tell them that he was homeless, and quite hungry. There was a truck stop buffet across the street and Rick walked him across to get him a meal. The man stopped outside of the restaurant and said they won't let me eat inside b/c I am homeless and an Indian. Rick persuaded him to go in anyway. At the cash register, Rick told the casheir that his friend would be eating at the buffet and the cashier then reached under the table and pulled out a styrofoam to go container and said "He will be needing this". Rick politely explained that this would most certainly not be the case and that he would be dining w/everyone else until he was full and that is exactly what happened.
This story touches my heart for so many different reasons. It puts so many things in perspective for me about my own predjudices and selfishness. Some of you may not know (by the way this is Jessica typing, not Jeremy) that when I was in college I had the opportunity to go on a mission trip to the Zuni Indian reservation in New Mexico. This is why this blog is long, I feel compelled to write about this so suck it up. In New Mexico we worked with a Christian school to do a VBS for kids whose parents allowed them to come. During the day we did a lot of manual labor on a ranch for the minister of that school. His name is Will and he was kicked out of the reservation for becoming a Christian. Will had a foster son and they lived in what was literally a shack in the middle of the dessert. He had 7 gallons of running water a day, an outhouse, and a generator for electricity that could only be used in the evening. We slept outside, inside of make-shift partitions to keep wild animals out. Sleeping under the stars in the desert certainly shows you how awesome our God truly is. Anyways, what I am getting at is that I saw so much poverty and discrimination and this was all inside our very own country. I was telling Jeremy earlier that this was third-world country conditions. While we were there we met so many brave people that risked so much by becoming a Christian, they would be shut out of their families and their communities, which to them is a very big deal. I also learned a lot about certain rituals that their reservation has - like a certain man whose only role is to dress like a monster on a daily basis to scare children. This man is also what they called the Audoshlay. If a parent felt that their young child (often 7-8 yrs. old) was being defiant, this man would kidnap them from their homes in the middle of the night and they would then become his slave for a few long months. And all of this is legal there! They have their own governmental system. The reason I wanted to write all of this was to communicate how often I forget how blessed I am and that I forget that thier are people w/true need in the world and people who do not know the love of Jesus Christ. This trip did so much for me and it breaks my heart that I don't have more opportunities to do things like this that often. If you ever get the chance to do something like this I encourage you to go for yourself and for others. It's truly amazing.